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Theatre Histories samenvatting
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Summary of the Theatre Histories course (taught in the first year of Linguistics and Literature), written in English.
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GREEK THEATRE1. What is theatre?
• Theatre of Dionysus (Athens)
= the oldest theatre building in Europe
Capacity of 17 000 p. It was not excavated and restored until 19th century.
The orchestra = the circle part The theatron = the seating part
• Sadler’s Wells (London): theatre that was sealed off from the outside, so there was no
heat or sound from the outside
• Kabuki-Za Theatre (Tokyo), Kunqu Opera Theatre (China), …
Theatre comes from the Greek and French words “spectare” (= to see or view) and “theatron” (=
a place to see; because people were in the audience and without an audience, theatre doesn’t
exist) → shows that theatre was not specifically about the performance but more about the
audience! Later, modern theatre became a place for dialogues between humans
1.1 Myth and rituals as starting points of theatres
The origin of theatre is that it started by a ritual or myth (starting points of theatre)
- Ritual (repetition): society believed that there were supernatural forces that influenced
important things like food supply and well-being. So people did rituals; certain actions to get a
desired result (e.g. we crave rain so crops can grow)
Those rituals happen annually or constantly, hence ‘repetitive’ (e.g. we play rituals at
ceremonies/when people die, …)
- Myth (stories): myths are not scientific, they are stories which usually represent those
supernatural stories and they disguise or idealize a ritual (performers often wear costumes or
masks to represent mythical characters or supernatural forces)
This theory that theatre evolved from rituals an myths came from people who believed in
Cultural Darwinism (= every single culture is evolving from primitive culture). So they thought
that Western theatre (which separated itself from rituals) was superior to non-Western artforms.
1.2 Storytelling as starting point of theatres
- Relating and Listening: when you relate to a story, you feel close to it and so that’s necessary
to get the audience’s attention
- Imitation: according to Aristotle, imitation of action is something that naturally occurs with
people, and they take pleasure in it; so some people think theatre evolved out of imitation (of
the narrative, of animals, …)
- Fantasy: human tend to fantasize, and you usually fantasize about a reality that’s better than
your own. So theatre can be a good example of escapism.
1.3 How rituals and storytelling become theatres
- Comic Vision: comedy provides a certain distance from human problems and you need
distance from the narrative so you can narrate the story better to others (e.g. you need distance
from the narrative of Hamlet; if you ‘become’ Hamlet while watching it, you have a problem).
And if you have a lot of distance, then even the sadder parts are somewhat laughable.
- Aesthetic Sense: some people don’t do certain rituals for their religious usefulness but more
because of their artistic qualities
- Audience: the audience is necessary for theatre, because the beauty and pleasure of the
performance needs to be seen for it to be theatre
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Ella Van Sprengel
, 1.4 Pre-Greek passion plays
Abydos (Egypt) was considered one of the most important archaeological places (many
ancient temples, including Umm el-Qa'ab, a royal necropolis where early pharaohs were
entombed).
The Abydos passion plays were said to be a reenactment of life or death of Osiris, who was
killed by his brother and whose body parts were buried at several spots in Egypt.
The Ikhemofret Stone is a stone incripted into the wall with words which give the meaning of
what the play was about. So this was a way of finding out pre-Greek passion plays.
It can be seen at the Egyptian Museum of Berlin.
1.5 Difference between ancient Egypt and ancient Greek theatre
Ancient Egypt Ancient Greek
Years 3150 B.C. – 641 A.D. 1500 B.C. – 300 B.C.
Places North-Africa around Egypt Greece around city-state of
Athens
Society Static and Repetitive Dynamic and Changing
Theatre Always repeating the same Theatre where new plays
ceremonies year after year were presented each year
for centuries. (so Greeks were the one’s
who took a step toward an
autonomous theatre)
The contributions of Egypt, Africa and the near East were erased during the 19th century,
because of the racial attitudes of that period;
2. Greek tragedy
Greek theatre is always connected to Greek religion (Greeks had a religion based on the
worship of a group of gods, with Zeus as the leader and his wife Hera).
The roots of Western theatre can be found in the 5th century B.C. in Athens where playwriting,
acting and theatre production began. Before the 5th century, there were ceremonies honoring
Dionysus and later on, Greek drama was presented in honor of him. Historians believe that
Freek drama originated in dithyrambic choruses presented to honor Dionysus.
There were 3 basic dramatic forms: tragedy, comedy and satyr plays.
Tragedy is considered to be the main selling point of theatre (most famous theatre writers wrote
tragedies). The plot of a tragedy was often inspired by Greek mythology and because this was a
sacred matter, violence was prohibited on stage and deaths were not permitted to be shown
(only heard from offstage).
2.1 Dithyramb
= a long hymn, sung and danced by a group of 50 men/boy, where the leader sang an
improvised story, while other members sang a popular refrain.
Dithyrambs are thought to be the beginning of Greek dramas.
2.2 Greek theatre and democracy
Athens is seen as the birthplace of democracy; however, their democracy is not the same we
have nowadays. They established a democracy of free citizens, including only white men who
were not slaves and of Athenian origin. This is why female parts were also played by men (wigs).
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Ella Van Sprengel
,Democracy and theatre were connected to each other, because theatre was a testing place
for democracy, it was a place where you could think of (solutions for) a better place to live. Men
would go to the theatre and afterwards discuss it, and say things like ‘perhaps we need to
enhance our democracy based off this play’.
2.2.1 Who were the playwrights?
• Aeschylus (The Persians, …): considered to be the founder of Greek drama (and of all
Western drama), because he developed drama into a form separate from singing, dancing or
storytelling
His plays were about lofty themes, and noble families
→ praised for his amazing lyric poetry and dramatic structure
He was the first to develop drama with more than one actor, therefore creating dialogue
• Sophocles (Antigone, Oedipus)
→ praised for his amazing plot construction (building up to a climax)
• Euripides (Medea, Bacchae): considered the most modern writer
→ sympathetic portrayal of women, realistic plays, mixture of tragedy with melodrama
and comedy, humanly plays because he was skeptical of heroes and gods (that’s why his
plays were controversial, because he portrayed gods as human and fallible)
He was a very tragic poet, focusing on inner lives and motives like never before; he
influenced Shakespeare etc.
2.3 Chorus
12-15 men sang in unison, with an aulete (instrument), while dancing as well.
They sang about background information, comments on what was happening in the play,
interactions with other characters, describing offstage things. Usually the chorus represented
the common people of the city-state.
There was also a choral trainer present.
3. Greek comedy
In 413 B.C. was the Peloponnesian War, between Athens and Sparta, whereas Sparta won and
the Athenian Empire collapsed. Therefore, Athens’s democracy also collapsed (Sparta had
an oligarchy, where a small group of elites controlled the state).
During the second year of the war, Athens was hit by a plague which killed the leader of
Athens, Pericles. Athens also declined economically because of the war, and so it went intro
great poverty after losing the war to the Spartans.
3.1 Difference between Comedy and Satyr
Comedy Satyr
Tense Set in present Set in mythic past
Setting Urban Rural
Narrative Order & conclude with a Chaos
compromise
Ending Offering absurd answers to Not really any reconciliation
real problems
Purpose Played after Satyr plays and Immediately played after 3
ironically mocked men in tragedies and made fun of
power of the contemporary the tragic characters and
times their fate
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Ella Van Sprengel
, 3.2 The structure of comedy
Comedy has a structure, it renders order through the play (meanwhile satyr is just chaos)
1. An everyday scene (ordinary and happy-going)
2. Something happens which results in a crisis.
3. Crisis is resolved.
4. Matters return to their (more-or-less) original state; or even better state.
5. A happy ending with a celebration (e.g. marriage)
Dante Alighieri titled his book “Divine Comedy” even though it’s not really comedy, because it’s
full of suffering. However, it has a happy ending so it is considered comedy.
3.3 The principles of ancient comedy
- Superiority: finding the humor in the misfortune of others, which makes us feel superior
(theory of scornful laughing, making grimaces like in the first picture)
- Incongruity (disappointment): a sort of betrayal of reality, the sudden transformation of a
strained expectation into nothing (e.g. ‘inconveniece store’ in the picture)
3.3.1 Parabasis
= a scene in which the chorus directly speaks to the audience and
makes fun of them (usually religious or political people, who were
seated in the front row for that specific reason)
→ you can do this in a comedy, but NOT in a tragedy
3.3.2 Aristophanes
= playwright of Old Attic Comedy in ancient Athens (only extant representative of
Old Comedy → “legend”)
In his plays, he doesn’t use supernatural or heroic tones, but instead he marks
freedom of political criticism and uses his plays to ridicule the ideas and people that were
ruining Athens by their greed for an empire.
He also made a play/caricature of Socrates, which was later said to maybe even have played a
role in Socrates’s arrest and execution because it was so vicious.
Aristophanes appears as a character in Plato’s “Symopsium” in which he speaks of the origin
of love whereas everyone else talks about politics and social struggles → the musical “Hedwig
and the Angrich Inch” has a song called “The Origin of Love” (adopted Aristophane’s philosophy)
3.4 Lycestrata
Lycestrata is a play about how the women try to make an end to the Peloponnesian War by
having a sex strike (abnormal, because women had no public rights back then)
→ play by Aristophanes!
The structure is that they always build up to a climax, and then a ‘downfall’ which results in a
happy ending (structure in Lycestrata)
3.4.1 Characters
- Lysistrata (protagonist): Athenian woman, intelligent and driven who knows what she wants
(peace, which she ultimately gets)
- Calonice: Athenian woman, Lysistrata’s neighbor who participates in the plan
- Myrrhine: Athenian woman, smart, and plays a role in the execution and success of the plot
- Chorus of old men: represent the hopeless old men of Greece
- Stratyllis and her chorus of old women: represent the women who are no longer fertile and
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Ella Van Sprengel
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