Greek Theatre

Theatre can be traced far into the past however based mainly on religious
ceremonies with songs and dances in honour of a god, performed by a priest and
worshippers. The first great technical age in history of Western civilization is that
of Greece in the 5th century B.C. it was there the first tragedies and comedies
were performed and still exist, which were performed by actors not priests, in
special buildings that were hallowed but not temples.
The origin of modern theatre can be found in the dithyramb (unison hymn) sung
around the alter of Dionysus, the wine-god whos following had spread to Greece
from the Near East. In the chorus there were 50 men, 5 from each of 10 tribes of
Attica. The Greek tragedy found in classical Athens included a chorus of 50
members and always in the centre of the stage was the alter of Dionysus. The
dithyramb was also extended and rather than just worshiping Dionysus it would
include tales of demi-gods or heroes. The storys told were all well known to the
audience and it was not the novelty of the story that they went for but to see
how the actor would portray the key roles.
Greek theatre was not just confined to tragedies but it was at the end of the
harvest where actors would perform comedies in villages as Satyrs half men,
half goats who were the attendants to Dionysus.
For this type of theatre to continue, there needed to be more dramatic content
and established characters. This was given to a recognisable person of the time
and that fell to the leader of the dithyramb chorus leader, Thespis. He is said to
have travelled from his birth place Icaria to Athens where the floor boards of his
cart would transform into a stage.
The main innovation that Thespis made was to detach himself from the rest of
the chorus and play the lead role and was in fact the first actor and first
manager. He was also the first unsanctified person to play a god. Because of this
it means that regular people could train in acting and therefore a designated
building was needed for them. The early theatres in Greece were always built
near a temple. They still acted as a place for worship however acted out by
actors and by tradition servants of Dionysus. The audience also began to
change; rather than just former actor-priests the audience changed from being a
congregation to an audience that thought upon what they were watching as a
work of art and then as an act of entertainment.
Over a period of time the chorus would decrease and the number of actors would
increase.
Important actors of Ancient Greece.
Aeschylus known as a playwright but also a soldier and citizen as well as a
poet. He fought at Marathon and Salamis, and died in 456 BC. He is believed to
have written about around eighty or ninety plays of which we have 7 complete
texts and numerous fragments. Oresteia is the only example of a complete
trilogy
Sophocles a very different temperament to Aeschylus but still wrote around
eighty to ninety plays again with only 7 surviving but winning 18 awards for his
work, all being 1st and 2nd prizes. His final play was Oedipus at Colonus and

sequel to the better known and very successful Oedipus the King. He died when
he was ninety.
Euripides a contemporary to Sophocles, the last great writer of Greek Tragedy.
Born in 484 BC he died in 406, the same year as Sophocles. Among his plays 18
survived out of possibly 92. Cyclops is the only complete Satyr play we have. The
chorus became less and less important in his works.