Background to Greek Theatre
Greek theatre plays was created in Athens roughly 500BC. Tragedy at the time was very important at that time and they had tragedy competition and festival dedicated to tragedies plays and other festivals such as the panathenai festival. Tragedies and comedies plays were viewed as different genre during that time and was never mixed.
Greek theatres were large and this was to take in mind the large number of people that would be attending also the architects who built the theatres was able to create it by where the actor’s voice could be heard from the bottom to the top of the theatre. The theatre was built with a panoramic view so actors were able to see everyone in the theatre while performing. The theatres were normally built upon hillside in open air.
Many Greek playwrights like Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Plato and Aristotleused masks in their work to worship the Greek Gods which are mainly used in ceremonial rites and celebrations. The mask were handmade and designed by the actors and playwrights to suit certain plays, the masks were very important to in Greek plays because the represented lots of meaning also the actors would use different mask to play different characters and the audience wouldn't noticed due to their being many different masks for the play.
All Greek actors who performed at that time were male so having masks allowed them to play female characters.
Greece changed a lot since the 400 BCs; it was made up of small city like Athens, Thebes and Sparta which made things very difficult at the time because the cities had different view on different things like culture and politics which caused fights between them. Also women and foreigners in that time didn’t have much authority or influence, it was mainly men who took charge and lead the country.
Many Greek playwrights like Sophocles who is one of the very few who’s play has survive until today, Sophocles wrote over 100 plays but only 7 has remain for example plays like Ajax, Antigone, The Women of Trachis, Oedipus the king and a few more has survived. Euripides is another Greek play wright who plays has survived for example play like Medea, Hecuba, and the Bacchae etc.
Tragedy plays is one of the main genre related with the rich history of Greek theatre and how it all started. Some of the great tragedians are Euripides, Sophocles and Aeschylus, they wrote many great tragedy plays and some of their plays have still survive until this day. The original origin of tragedies are still unclear to many historians because they can't pin point exactly how it all started and the record they have of it are unclear and they are in doubt of it.
Aeschylus is known for inventing the trilogy of Greek theatre a series three plays that tell one long story, a few of the famous and well known tragedies are Prometheus bound , Oedipus the King, Antigone, Trojan women and many more, these plays has still survived until today. Tragedy started in the 5 century BC and they were normally performance during the Dionysia festival , Aristotle was known to be the first person to win the first dramatic contest and to create a character speaking as himself.
Another genre at that time that was important was comedies plays because when Greek playwrights join competition they had to write tragedy plays, comedy plays and a satyr play. Greek comedy became more and more popular during the 6 century BC, writers like Aristophanes and Menander were brilliant comedicplaywrights at that time. Autolycus , Calluppides and Samia are all Greek comedies written by Greek playwrights such as Menander , Aristophanes , Philonides and many more , the Greeks also started comedy in poems for example Archilochus and Hipponax wrote poems which contained sexual and explicit humour.
In addition to poems the Greek comedy has evolvedover time for example old comedies which are written in the 5 century BCE like Aristophanes' Acharnian. Then they are new comedies which are different from old comedies because the new one mainly focus on the plot of the play and the chorus was less involved in the in the story also another difference is that new comedies tried to focus on fictional everyday people and the day to day life with their loved ones and friends.
The chorus was important in Greek plays and they were made up of the around 10 to 50 people who would comment, sing and dance and act as third person/ bystander in scene that would help the audience follow the story and often they are known for telling the audience hidden thoughts of the main character the implicit meaning their true action. many Greek playwrights changed the size of the chorus for example Aeschylus used 13 people to be the chorus while other playwrights used 15 or more depending on the writer also the chorus was always the same sex as the main actor on stage I think this was to show that they are relatable to them and that they are really one character in a way.
As well as acting in unison and with one voice at times they normally have an important job because they would have to communicate with the audience through narrating, singing, dancing and acting and they would do this through using many techniques such as echo, physical theatre and synchronisation and many other techniques.
The Greek play my group done was Oedipus, it was about the character Oedipus who accidently fulfilled a prophecy. The prophecy was that he would kill his father and marry his mother, when finding out that he had fulfilled the prophecy Oedipus gouged his eyes out and was banned for life from Thebes and his wife Jocasta who realised she had marry her son and had four children Eteocles, Polynices, Antigone and Ismene hadkilled herself. They have been many different version of Oedipus over the years but they relate and follow the original story.
In class we discussed many things about the play for example we talked about the character them and how did their social class affect their behaviour to everyone and their views on certain things also we spoke about the characters them individually for example my group spoke about Oedipus and how it would be to put yourself in his shoes from the way he would act to the way he would move and this really helped us developed the character more and learn more about the Oedipus himself and the play.
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