Greek Theatre
Greek theatre is the first recorded form of theatre in human history, and began out of oral tradition, poetry and chants to eventually become the Greek tragedies and comedies of the ancient world.
Greek theatre was performed in spaces very similar to the stages of today, most closely resembling a proscenium arch stage, with a main stage framed by a roof and pillars, and an apron (or orchestra pit) in front for the chorus to perform on. The chorus was a type of ensemble, usually twelve men, used in Greek theatre to tell the story through dance, chants and speech that had to be extremely well coordinated as a group. They performed choral odes, which are poems used to expose opinions and plot, or foreshadow and recap scenes. The two main roles of the chorus were to entertain the audience with their skills between scenes of the more central actors, and to show the perspective of the wider community, such as the citizens of Thebes in Antigone, and to comment on the events. More actors and more complex plots were incorporated into the theatre as time progressed and theatre became more sophisticated, including the addition of more dialogue. These plays were used to communicate ideas of human behaviour as well as provide entertainment - theatre was a huge part of Grecian social life. The chorus evolved out of the previous long-standing tradition of choral song and dance.
In addition to a chorus, Greek theatre used masks to enable actors to multirole and show facial expressions and emotions easily. Only three actors performed all the speaking roles so this was essential. Masks were also part of the worshipping element of Greek theatre - performances were often dedicated to gods and goddesses, in particular Dionysus (God of Theatre, Wine, and Procreation amongst other things), so the masks were seen as a way to honour and act out stories of the gods.
EXERCISE 1
We looked to replicate the synchronicity of the Greek chorus with various activities of coordination - trying to jump or clap at the same time as the rest of the group of 11 without visual or auditory cue or whilst walking around the space. This would have been essential to the chorus to entertain the audience and tell the story through song and dance.
EXERCISE 2
In our lesson we used some practical work to depict the Greek myth of the birth of Dionysus. Greek mythology tells us Dionysus was a demigod product of an affair of Zeus and a human, outside of his marriage from Hera. When the woman asked to see Zeus's true form she was killed by his splendour (by the force of the sun, which some explain to be the reason grapes to create wine need sunlight), leaving a baby Dionysus defenceless. He puts the child in his thigh so that he can grow - Dionysus is therefore said to be twice-born. We quickly constructed a short scene showing this myth using one narrator and acting as the chorus to show the story, multi-rolling and dancing with exaggerated displays to show the events.
The festival of Dionysus was a huge event of festival that included playwrights, sponsored by wealthy Greek men, competing against each other for the title of the best play. Besides from anything else, theatre was a religious tool of worship, especially to the God of Theatre himself.
The main types of plays were tragedies (written by Aeschlyus, Euripedes and Sophocles, based around a central characters who rises to power before falling to a tragic ending due to a fatal flaw, or as per the Greek, hamartia as a moral lesson to the audience) and comedies (written by Aristophanes and beyond the 5th century BC, Menander, as ridicule and pure fun). These four playwrights, who all were Athenian citizens, were the most famous and dominate the almost all Greek play writing, concentrated around the 5th century BC. Satires (from the word satyr to describe a mythological half-man half-goat creature) were also present, a type of rude comedy aiming to mock ideas and people and discuss political points, performed after the other two types of plays.
Many Greek plays also contained some rude humour (in particular, sexual jokes) for entertainment purposes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSRLK7SogvE<br>
This video by the National Theatre brilliantly summarises Greek theatre briefly. The Olivier Theatre at this venue was actually modelled from the Epidaurus Theatre from Ancient Greece, which is the best preserved and oldest Greek theatre we have discovered - it almost resembles a thrust stage as the circular nature puts audience on three sides of the stage and connects the actors to the audience.
Greek plays told the story of kings and queens, heroes, monsters, and more. Greek mythology was in turn a huge source of inspiration for the first playwrights. These stories often either explained natural phenomena (such as the story of Persephone and Hades explaining the seasons and harvest) or human behaviour, and served as allegorical tales for or against actions (such as the story of Icarus and Daedalus warning against over-confidence and ambition). These myths mixed with other cultures, forming Greco-Roman mythology for example, after their use in Greek theatre as stories.
EXERCISE 2
As a homework, we researched a Greek myth. I chose that of Echo and Narcissus, which not only explains the natural phenomenon of echoes, but also the human behaviour of love and obsession, and shows the consequences of these. This article also describes a more detailed background of Greek mythology.