Study Guide Question 11: Name 5 characteristics of Greek Theatre.
Greek Theatre in Ancient Greece "flourished between 550BC and 220BC," (Greek Theatre
Video Collection | National Theatre). Three genres emerged from these original plays: tragedies,
comedies, and satyrs. Five important traits were encountered in these Greek theatres. These
"traits may seem odd when compared to current theatrical conventions," (Patterson and
Donahue 170).
These five traits of Greek Theatre are listed below.
1. Greek Theatre was closely associated with Greek Religion: Greek religion was a form of
polytheism, the belief in many gods. According to the textbook, "Greek religion was both
private (a part of daily life and centered in the home) and public (expressing itself at a
number of major festivals, each devoted to a specific god)," (Patterson and Donahue
170). Religion was not a commercial activity.
2. Greek Theatre was performed only on special occasions, such as festivals. In the golden
age of drama, plays were only in Athens as a part of three festivals in honor of the god
Dionysus. "Plays were funded by the polis, and always presented in competition with
other plays, and were voted either the first, second, or third (last) place," (Greek
Theater). These plays were performed on an altar, usually only once.
3. Greek Theatre was choral: According to the textbook, "the performance of Greek drama
required a chorus, a group of men who dressed alike, who were masked alike, and who
moved, sang, and spoke together most of the time," (Patterson and Donahue 170). The
chorus' costumes, songs, and dances added to the spectacle of the performance.
"Because the chorus danced as it spoke, chanted, and sang, its rhythms indicated
visually and orally, the changing moods within a play," (Patterson and Donahue 170).
While Greek plays had a chorus, they always also had three actors. Greek Theatre
states that "no matter how many speaking characters there were in the play, only three
actors were used; the actors would go backstage after playing one character, switch
masks and costumes, and reappear as another character," (Greek Theatre).
4. Greek Theatre was competitive: Dramatists (people who write plays) competed for
awards in writing, while the actors competed for awards in performance. To compete at
the Great Dionysia, three tragic male writers submitted three tragedies and one satyr
play. "Tragedies almost exclusively dealt with stories from the mythic past (there was no
'contemporary' tragedy)," (Greek Theatre). A satyr play is " a short comic piece that
followed the tragedies and occasionally burlesqued them," (Patterson and Donahue
171). At the Lenaia, "only four tragedies competed each year, each by a different
playwright," (Patterson and Donahue 171).
5. Greek Theatre was subsidized: No one knows how the competitors were selected.
However, once they were, "each author was matched with a wealthy citizen sponsor who
was then responsible for meeting the costs incurred by the chorus," (Patterson and
Donahue 171). People were even superstitious about the sponsors affecting the
outcome of the competitor. Legends say that "Oedipus Rex lost its competition because
of a sponsor too stingy to fund a suitable production," (Patterson and Donahue 171).
, Study Guide Question 12: Name 5 characteristics of Seneca’s plays
Seneca wrote nine tragedies after the turn of the Common Era. “The importance of Seneca’s
tragedies rests neither on their literary excellence nor on their position among contemporary
Roman audiences, but on their monumental effect on later writers, who discovered, translated,
and copied them, probably because they were at the time both linguistically and physically more
accessible than the previous Greek tragedies,” (Patterson and Donahue 191-192). “Seneca’s
plays display five characteristics also assumed to be typical of Greek Hellenistic tragedy,”
(Patterson and Donahue 192). :
1. A chorus that is not well integrated into the action, and so the (usually four) choral odes
(songs) serve to divide the plays into five parts.
2. Protagonists that are often driven by a single dominant passion that causes their
downfall.
3. Minor characters that include messengers, confidants, and ghosts.
4. Language that emphasizes rhetorical and stylistic figures, including extended descriptive
declamatory passages, pithy statements about the human condition (sententiae), and
elaborately balanced exchanges of dialogue.
5. Spectacular scenes of violence and gore.
Study Guide Question 13: Name and define the 3 features of medieval staging as mentioned in
chapter 13.
“In Regularis concordia (mid-10th century), Aethelwold, bishop of Winchester described in some
detail the manner in which the ‘Quem quaeritis’ trope was performed as a small scene during
the Matins service on Easter morning. The dialogue represents the well-known story of the three
Marys approaching the tomb of Christ: ‘Whom do you seek?’ ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’ ‘He is not
here. He has arisen as was prophesied. Go. Announce that he has arisen from the dead.’” (The
Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica). “Ethelwold’s text reveals three conventions that operated
in medieval theatre,” (Patterson and Donahue 202). These three features of medieval staging,
as mentioned in chapter 13, are listed below.
1. Simultaneous: This means that several locations were apparent in the performing space
at the same time, hence the idea of simultaneous staging. “Such an arrangement meant
conceptualizing two different kinds of space: small scenic structures that served to locate
the specific places (called mansions) and a neutral, generalized playing space (called
platea),” (Patterson and Donahue 202-203).
2. Emblematic: If something is emblematic, that is a fancy term for it being symbolic,
meaning the object has a deeper meaning; it symbolizes something. The textbook
states, “meanings from the performance reached the audience through costumes and
properties that were signs or symbols whose meanings communicated easily. Among
mansions, for example, an animal mouth signified hell and a revolving globe stood for
heaven,” (Patterson and Donahue 203).
