Ancient Greek Theater

Imagine this following scene: You are sitting in a dark, fairly crowded large room. There are hundreds of other people, in hundreds of other seats surrounding you. In front of you, there is a large stage, with people acting out a play. Lights, music, and different sound effects set the mood of the play for you to understand more clearly what is going on. With these certain conventions, viewer can get a real grasp of a story in which several actors are trying to portray. However, it hasn’t always been this easy to enjoy a play in a theater. Theatre and plays go back as far as “b.c.” times.

In the Greek theater, the conventions are very different. Unique Greek performances, which were performed hundreds of years ago, were put on to please the god Dionysos. In these performances, artificial light was impossible and there were no footlights to illuminate the faces of the actors. Spectators had to have a great imagination to create a mood themselves. The actors had to project their voices even more, and they used numerous masks, to reveal different characters. Plays were done in an amphitheater, which was a circular type theater, so that projection was very loud, and the actors could be heard all around. The actors were less active and effected less emotionally but still with their costumes, masks and roles, they belonged to the characters rather than to the audience.

Today, we are accustomed to a sharp division between the dark world of the auditorium and the over bright world of the characters. On the contrary, the Greeks were familiar with audience, chorus, and characters, all united under a dazzling sun

(Webster 2). For the most part, the Greek dramatist had to rely far more on words and less on the limited technical means at his disposal. For example, in Sophocles’ Antigone (526) the chorus describes the tears running down Ismene’s face and her cheeks as ugly red with weeping. The mask worn by the actor obviously could not reveal this effect.

There were three obvious limitations that the Greek “producer” had to deal with. First, lighting effects were impossible, so the play could not expose sunlight, dawn, dusk, or evening. Except if the play was shown early in the morning, or late in the evening. Secondly, changes in scenery were extremely limited. They usually had no more than four scenes, but even then it was scarce. Thirdly, the size of the Greek theater introduced a limitation of another kind. The distance from the front of the stage, across the orchestra to the front row of spectators, was 60ft. The back rows, were about 300 feet from the stage. So an actor of 6 feet, looked about 3 and a half tall inches to spectators in the back rows. In order to make up for this, the exaggerated acting and voice production kept spectators coming back to watch more plays.

Plays were performed to portray many daily events that happened in the Greek life. Such as political rises and downfalls, stories of hero’s, stories that portrayed fears of the gods, or even success with the gods were just some events that were portrayed in the theater. Many plays were just stories that a “producer” created himself.

Plays were basically started in the time when aristocrats were taking over different city-states, and running dictatorships, or very unfair governments. There was a small majority of the aristocrats who were highly amused and into the theatre. It was these certain aristocrats who made it a point to have certain theatres built and shows put on.

There were two basic forms of production, comedy and tragedy. Comedies were mostly sung, with strong instruments to back up the chorus. Tragedies usually followed the same pattern, opening with a prologue and followed by a parodos, (in which the chorus enters singing). The last “stasimon” provides the closing scene as the chorus and actors depart. Antigone is a great example of an early Greek tragedy.

The theatres built had three major areas, the viewing place for spectators, the orchestra which is where the chorus and actors performed, and then a scene building which basically provided a scenic backing. The earliest scene buildings were very simple wooden structures. The most common method for seating was to bring in native stones to serves as seats for spectators.

Over the past centuries, theater has come a long way. It went from silly or rather gruesome masks, rocks for seats, a lack of scenery, no lighting, and characters that look 3 and half inches tall, to something so much more amazing. However, perhaps the ancient theater involved more acting and more imagination. The benefits of both ancient and present day theaters are endless. But it’s all in the eye of the beholder, as many plays have to be, in order to be appreciated to the highest degree.

Bibliography

Bibliography

Aylen, Leo. The Greek Theater. New Jersey: Associated University Press, Inc., 1985.

Butler, James H. The Theater and Drama of Greece and Rome. San Francisco:

Chandler publishing Company, 1972.

Green, Richard, Handley Eric. Images of the Greek Theatre. Austin: University of

Texas Press, 1995.

Webster, T.B.L. Greek Theatre Production. Great Britain, Barnes and Noble Inc., 1970.

The Construction of an Ancient Theatre. 14 Apr. 2001.

Word Count: 817