Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
c.2500 bce
Ritual Enactment
Abydos Passion Play re-enacted the story
of the death and resurrection of Osiris
Greek Festivals
Festivals honored Olympian gods
Ritual Competitions
Olympics: Apollo
Athletics
Lyric Poetry
Drama: Dionysos
Dithyrambic Choruses
Tragedy
Comedy
Greek Theatre
6th - 4th century bce
Originated in festivals honoring Dionysos
Thespis (6th c. bce)
Tragedy:
Aeschylus (524-456 bce)
Sophocles (496-406 bce)
Euripides (480-406 bce)
Comedy:
Aristophanes (c. 485- c.385 bce)
Old Comedy: bawdy and satiric
New Comedy: social situations
Roman Theatre
2nd c. bce - 4th c. ce
Origins in Greek drama and Roman
festivals
Tragedy: Seneca
5 act structure
Revenge motif -- sensationalistic
Ghosts and supernatural
Comedy:Terence and Plautus
Boy meets girl, complications, boy
gets girl: marriage
Bawdy
Stock characters
Roman Spectacle
Gladiatorial combats
Naval battles in a flooded Coliseum
Real-life theatricals
Decadent, violent and immoral
All theatrical events banned by Church when
Rome became Christianized
Harlequino
Middle class/bourgeosie
Domestic/private affairs
Happy ending often
deus ex machina
Ordinary speech
Ridicules behavior that
should be avoided
Moliere
German
Romantic
Theater: 18th19th C.
Theatre of sentimentality
-- emotional appeal
Heroes and villains -and lily-white heroines
Wide popular appeal
Sensationalistic
Most widely performed
play of the 19th C:
Uncle Toms Cabin based
on Harriet Beecher
Stowes novel
Melodrama:
19th Century
Expressionism
Futurism
Surrealism
Social Realism
Epic Theatre
Existentialism
Absurdism
Magic Realism
Hyper-Realism
Not to mention musicals,
films, street theatre, etc., etc.