cecileboddaert - Ancient Greek drama : the theatre and the play.

Forms of entertainment in ancient Greece

Athletic games

Greeks had many athletic competitions. They were not independent, but a part of religious festivities. Only Greeks could participate in these, and usually only men.

The most known among these are:

The Olympic games. They took their name from the place of Olympia in Peloponese. They were part of the fest in honour of Zeus (Jupiter), the father of gods and humans.

They were organized every four years and it is supposed that they began at 776 BC. They were considered so important for Greeks, that the main calendar was based on them; Greeks would say that “we are in the third year of the 14^th Olympiad”.

Other well known competitions were Pythia (in Delphi, in honor of god Apollon), Nemea (in Nemea, Peloponese) and Isthmia (in Corinthos, Peloponese, where the god of sea Posseidon / Neptune was celebrated), Panathenaea (in Athens, in honour of godess Athena / Minerva).

Foot race in an ancient vase.

There were not team sports and no athletic companies. Each athlete represented his own independent city-state. The usual sports were footraces, the long jump, discos and javelin throwing, wrestling, pentathlon (a combination of these five sports), boxing, pangration (a cobination of wrestling and boxing), horse and chariot races.

The origin of these sports was, of course, the war; but very soon Greeks gave to them an idependent value.

Pangration.

The athletes were copeting without wearing anything at all; the were gymnoi (nude). From this greek word derive the words Gymnastics, Gymnasium.

The prize was not money or medals; in Olympic games they were earning only a wreath from olive tree branches. But Greeks used to honor very much their athletes. A legend says that in many cities they used to throw down a part of the city-walls in order to pass the winner, saying that if they had so brave men, they did not need walls to protect their city.

Discobolos

In these celebrations, organized by the cities, there were also competitions of poets, orators and artists, mostly musicians; there were, of course, theatrical competitions, but we are going to talk about them later.

Panathinaïkon stadium in Athens, rebuilt upon the remains of the ancient one.

Here we see it at 1896, in the first modern Olympic games.

Greeks did not use to go to restaurants, bars etc. But the rich houses organized symposia. Many people, invited by the owner of the house, came at night in order to drink wine (symposion: when we drink together) and eat, but also to see dancers, to listen to music and to discuss. Plato and Xenophon wrote two philosophic dialogues called Symposion; that means that the dialogue took place during such a gathering at night.

Symposium was, again, a social activity for men. Women participated, but not the legitimate women and daughters. There were mostly artists or any woman who did not face obligations as a member of a decent family.

Men in symposium.

Another way for ancient people to pass their time was not what we could exactly name “entertainment”, but it was for the ancient Greeks.

Ancient Greeks used to gather and walk in the “agora”. The name agora derives from the verb ageiro, which means “gather”. Agora was what we could name “market” (and, in fact, this is what it means in modern greek); but it was also the place where, in many cities, took place the assembly of the people. This happenned in Athens at first, but later they found a more convenient place for the assembly of the people, Pnyka.

The ruins of ancient roman agora in Athens.

So, the Greeks, when (or who!) they did not have work to do, used to go to the agora in the mornings or afternoons, not only for shopping but also to find friends, to see the distinguished men of the city and to talk between them about various things: politics, philosophical ideas, art, theatre, actors or athletes who were the stars of the year and, maybe, the private life of the city well-known persons. A barber’s shop was a very good place for men to gather and talk, even if they did not want to have their hair cut.

Origin and evolution of the drama

We find the origins of theatre in the cult of god Dionysos.

Dionysus (in greek Dionysos –Διόνυσος), the god of wine, represents not only the intoxicating power of wine, but also its social and beneficial influences. He is viewed as the promoter of civilization, a lawgiver, and lover of peace, as well as the patrol deity of agriculture and the theatre. He was also known as the Liberator, freeing one from one’s normal self, by madness, ecstacy, or wine. The divine mission of Dionysus was to mingle the music of the flute and to bring an end to care and worry.

God Dionysos.

The cult of Dionysos was at first spread to the people. The nobles did not like this god, who let his followers get drunk and do things that a “good man” should avoid. (We can understand what happened in these feasts, if we think the medieval and modern carnival, which, we believe, is closely related with the Dionysos’ celebration.) But when the first tyrants seized power with the help of the masses, they made the cult of Dionysos a festival of all the city. So, as we come to the classical period, the cult of Dionysos becomes one of the official celebrations of the city-state.

The tyrant of Corinthus Periandros and the dithyrambus’ poet Arion (by W. A. Bouguereau). Arion from Lesvos lived many years in the court of the tyrant and composed there many of his poems.

When the city assumes the organization of Dionysos’ festival, it gives a more artist form to the songs and dances which accompanied the feast. One of these is dithyrambos. It is a song which is been danced by a team. Its verses refere to the life and gestures of the god. As the time passes, the main singer-dancer goes before the team, takes the form of a god or heroe and talks (in verses) to the others, who respond to him. Thus the theatrical play is born. The man who made this novelty was Thespis from Athens.

These origins explain some features of ancient greek drama: The actors always wear masks, most part of the actors are members of the “chorus”, a smaller or bigger part of the play belongs to the chorus, the theatrical plays are always poems and not prose, the plays are presented during the feasts of Dionysos.

In Attica, from where we have much evidence, there were four celebrations of Dionysos that were connected with drama:

Big Dionysia or Dionysia inside the city (τὰ ἐν ἄστει Διονύσια): This was the biggest festival of Dionysos in Athens. It lasted six days in the month Elaphebolion (middle of Marc - April). During the three last days, they were held new drama competitions.
Small Dionysia or Dionysia in the fields: They were held in the month Poseidaeon (middle December - January). They repeated there old good plays.
Lenea: They were held during the month Gamelion (middle January - February) and they were presented new tragedies and comedies.
Anthesteria: They were held in the month Anthesterion (middle February - March, from the word anthos=flower), at the beginning of the Spring. Dramatic plays were later added in this festival.

Types and creators of drama

There are three types of ancient drama: tragedy, comedy and satyrical drama (satyr play).

Everybody knows what tragedy and comedy mean; but what is the difference between comedy and satyrical drama? The latter does not exist any more. It is the only type of drama that kept its close relation with the cult of Dionysos. It was funny and the persons were mostly the Satyrs, followers of Dionysos. The themes were taken from mythology and they usually had to do with funny stories of sexual relations between men and women –gods, heroes or human. Unlike comedy, whose aim was to criticize social and political situations, the satyrical drama creator wanted to make the audience laugh. That’s why they played this kind of drama just after the tragedies, in the same session, although comedies were written by different poets and presented separately.

Satyr and maenad, male and female follower of Dionysos.

We know many names of ancient drama writers. But very few plays are saved till our days. Poets whose plays are saved are the following:

Aeschylus (525/524, Eleusis - 457/455, Gela, Sicily). He is the earliest of the three Athenian tragedians whose works survived. Seven plays of him are saved up to us: The Persians, Seven against Thebes, The Suppliants, Prometheus Bound, Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers (Choephoroi), The Eumenides. The last three consist the only trilogy (the Oresteia) that has survived.

Sophocles (497/496, Athens - 406/405, Athens): Only seven tragedies of him, too, are saved up to modern times: Oedipus Rex, Antigone, Oedipus at Colonos, Ajax, Philoctetes, Trachiniae, Electra.

Euripides (480, Salamis - 406, Macedonia): The youngest of the three great tragedians –but he died the same year as Sophocles. He is the luckiest, since 17 of is tragedies are saved: Alcestis, Heracleidae, Hippolytus, Andromache, Hecuba, Suppliants, Electra, Heracles, Trojan Women, Iphigeneia in Tauris, Iphigeneia in Aulis, Ion, Helen, Phoenician Women, Orestes, Bacchae, Rhesus.

Aristophanes (445?, Athens - 380?, Athens): The greater comedian of antiquity and the only one whose plays have been saved from the classical ancient greek period. Today, we have only eleven aristophanean comedies, which are played every year, mostly in the summer, in Greece. These are: Acharnians, Knights, Clouds, Wasps, Peace, Birds, Lysistrata, Thesmophoriazousai, Frogs, Ecclessiazousai, Plutus.

His plays combined political and social criticism with a very big imagination and fight for peace. He did not hesitate to accuse not only great political leaders of his times but also the people itself, who many times voted for war.

Menander (Μένανδρος) (342, Athens - 291, Athens): With Menander we are in the next historical and theatrical period, the hellenstic. Menander is the most known writer of what we call New Comedy. We can feel the distance from the classical period, when we see that there is no chorus in his plays. (The same happened in some late plays of Aristophanes.) So, his plays look very similar to modern ones. And, there is no more political criticism; his interests are morality and the more ordinary life of human beings.

He influenced very much the roman comedy, namely Plautus and Terentius.

He wrote more than a hundred comedies. But untill the end of 19th century, all we knew from Menander’s plays was some fragments. But papyri which were found in Egypt brought into light many unknown pages of Menander. In 1959 the complete manuscript of Dyskolos (The Grouch) was found.

Why Greeks went to the theatre?

The attending of the theatrical performances (of tragedy, comedy, satyrical drama) was considered in Greece as an act of education. Education not only for children but also, and mostly, for older men and women.

By the way, let’s mention that the attending of theatre was not only for men/citizens but for all the people: women and foreigners, visitors or immigrants in the city.

As we said before, the tyrants enforced the theatre, as they wanted to enforce the Dionysos’ cult. But the great development of drama happened during the democratic period –and in the most powerful democratic city, Athens. It is characteristic that all the great tragedians and comedians we know are from Athens. Unlike other types of speech, theatre was mostly an athenian product.

The freedom of speech gave the poets the opportunity to express all their feelings and ideas. But there was something deeper: The tragedy always shows men who have to choose between two alternatives; they are free to choose, but they owe to face the consequences of their selection. Although the heroes of tragedy are usually persons of the legend or gods, the people feeled that their situation was analogue with that of the people who, in a democratic assembly, is obliged to select the better of the suggestions made by the orators. Freedom has a risque. On the other hand, comedy exercised the spectators to political critique.

During the flourishing of democracy in Athens, the city, following a proposal by Pericles, decided to pay to the poor families the tickets to the theatre, so that everybody would entertain himself but also be educated. They named it theorika (the money which permitted you to watch.)

Pericles An imaginary representation of an assembly in Athens.

The construction of the ancient greek theatre

At the very first years, the performance place was a simple cycle (orchestra) nearby a small hill, where the spectators could seat or stand to see the play. Later, on the slope of the hill they used to put wooden seats. On the opposite side of the hill, they had a wooden „house“ (paraskenion, skene/scene), inside of which the actors changed clothes and masks and outside of which they played.

In the center of orchestra there was an altar and the best seats in front were kept for the priest of Dionysos and the officials of the city.

As the years passed, all these became by stone, and sometimes by marble. This is what we see today in an ancient theatre.

The first seats (for respected people) in the theatre of Dionysos, Athens.

The acoustic of an ancient theatre was perfect. Otherwise, the thousands of spectators would not be able to listen to the play. The best of all is considered the theatre of Epidavros, Peloponnese, which could have about 14.000 spectators, and where they are still played ancient dramas every summer.

Pupils of 2nd Gymnasium of Alimos sitting on the seats of the Epidavros theatre. Spring 2007.

A part of Epidavros theatre.

Pupils and teachers of the 2nd Gymnasium of Alimos in the theatre of Dionysos, Athens. Automn 2006.

The actors

Since the main persons of the tragedy –and, sometimes, of the comedy– were heroes of the legend or even gods, the appearance of the actors should be characterized by magnitude. So, they used masks (always in the ancient theatre), clothes and shoes that show them taller.

Dramatic masks from a mosaic in Pompei.

The use of masks permitted that all the actors were men, even for the feminin roles. There were not women actresses at all.

The actors were professionals, and some of them were „stars“ while they lived. We even know the names of some famous actors in Athens.

Ancient Greeks considered as main actors (ypokritai) neither the members of the chorus nor the helping persons who did not speak. Main actors were only these who spoke. These „main“ actors were only 2 or 3, and they played all the roles of a play. So, in a ancient scene there are no more than 2-3 speaking persons each time.

... a modern actress

and an ancient actor holding a mask. From a vase of 4th century.

The ancient theatrical play

In the beginning, the topic of all the dramas was god Dionysus and his worship. Soon the poets searched for other different topics. Like myths for other heroes, other gods, and topics from Athens’s latest history.

Tragedy: The result was that tragedy lost its folksiness and its free improvisation. So it became severe and logical and the chorus was its “body”. Tragedy makes spectator’s soul to feel fright and mercy. The spectator, while he’s watching the “paining” of the hero, who usually has polite feelings, but he’s “crashed” from a fault or a sin, he feels sorry and a large sympathy for him and for his luck. But in the end come the whole expiation and the poet with his art gives to his myth an other change-end. So the hero returns again to the rules of ethical. Spectator’s soul has sacked from mercy and fright so he escapes from his reverses with the trial he passed and he is relief.

Satyrical drama: It must be known that the poets who wrote tragedies also wrote and the satyrical drama. They gave them funny and lively topic that was making the spectators burst out laughing but they didn’t cauterize some condition (for example political conditions, like comedies). It was named after the chorus who was formed always by Satyrs, who had a chief who called Seilinos.

Comedy: Comedies were written by special poets called “komodopoioi” and they had topics from the modern life or from “fantastic” worlds. Comedy made spectators burst out laughing but it also cauterize (till 390 BC) severe way people’s actions, political and social conditions that the poets though they were wrong, dangerous and funny.

Parts of the ancient drama

An ancient drama has two «parts»: the epic and the lyric part. That means that drama is a complicate kind of literature, combined from other kinds. The epic part derives from the epic poetry and the lyric one from the lyric poetry (dithyrambos). Their poetic form was different and they were written even in different dialectic forms, although they were parts of the same play. The lyric part was mostly a matter of chorus, and the epic one of the actors

1. Prologue (epic)

2. Parodos of the chorus (lyric)

3. 1st episode (epic)

4. 1st stasimon (lyric)

5. 2nd episode (epic)

6. 2nd stasimon (lyric)

7. 3rd episode (epic)

8. 3rd stasimon (lyric)

9. Epilogue (exodos=exit) (epic)

Prologue: It was an invention of Sophocles; it could be the monologue of one actor or the dialogue of two.

Parodos: It was the song that was sang by the chorus entering the orchestra, it had special making. Parodos were also called the two entrances into the scene of the theatre.

Episodes: They were performing by the actors (with dialogues-one actor to an other). It was the most necessary part of tragedy. In this part was the whole action of the play.

Stasima: They were songs that they were sung by chorus. The chorus was separated in two “teams”. When the first team was singing the other team was dancing.

Epilogue-Exodus: It was the last part; it meant that the play was over.