SOME BASIC INFO YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT GREEK THEATER

Left: Sophocles, 5th century BCE, Early-High Classical era

Upper right: Aeschylus, late 6th-mid-5tth-century BCE, Archaic-Early
Classical era
Lower right: Euripides, 5th century BCE, High Classical era

There were three types of dramas performed in ancient Greece:

tragedies, comedies, and satyr plays. Tragedy and comedy are the
most important from this era, and the genres have undergone
transformations in different eras. We will speak about tragedy in more
detail later, but a basic definition here is that it is a drama that
concerns better than average people (heroes and kings) who suffer a
transition from good to bad fortune and who speak in an elevated
language. Comedy concerns average or below average people (people
like you and I) who enjoy a transition from bad to good circumstances
and who speak in everyday language. It’s important to realize that
comedy in classical Athens wasn’t necessarily funny (according to our
understanding of the word), and, for that matter, tragedy was not at
times tragic (some tragedies had happy endings), so any neat
definition doesn’t entirely work.

Classical Greek drama developed as part of the religious festivals in

honor of the god of wine and fertility, Dionysus (Bacchus, in Rome).
 Dionysus and satyr, Roman marble copy from the 2nd
century CE of a Greek Hellenistic sculpture. Most Greek artworks are known to us
from Roman marble copies. Dionysus is shown here with three key identifying
features: a panther, on which he was said to ride; a cluster of grapes he holds in his
hand; and a satyr, a creature who accompanied him in his drunken revelries.
Dionysus lounges in a way that reminds us of the languor that accompanies
drunkenness.

We don’t know much about the actual rituals that paid homage to the
god; many of the disorderly festivities included wild orgies one might
associate with the god of drunkenness, ecstasy and frenzy. However,
the more formal ceremonies included dances and songs that told
stories about Dionysus and mortal heroes. Drama was about enacting
the values the Greeks prized in their religious and community life; it
was not just about entertainment, so the plays dealt with morals and
lessons important to the Greeks.

Evidence of how popular theater was to the Greeks is seen from the
fact that amphitheaters that have survived from Classical times, such
as the Theater at Epidaurus, reveal they could hold more than 14,000
seats. The amphitheaters were built into hillsides with rising rows of
seats. The acoustics that resulted from this arrangement allowed the
audience members to hear, since there were no microphones in
ancient Greece! We still build amphitheaters today using the Greeks’
ingenious architectural designs.

Onstage, the chorus stood on a platform called an orchestra, or

dancing place. Originally, the chorus, with a leader, told a story
through song and dance. In the 6th century BCE, Thespis either created
an actor or was the first actor to appear onstage as a character and
not as himself, hence our word for actor, thespian. Aeschylus, a famous
Greek playwright, is credited by Aristotle as having introduced the
second actor to the stage, and Sophocles, a third.

The chorus dressed in goat skins, because the goat was sacred to
Dionysus, and goats were distributed as prizes for the best plays (I
know! Why not cash? Or at least a gift certificate?) The word, tragedy,
then, is believed to be derived from the Greek word, tragoidia, which
means goat-song. (And on Pesach, we sing Had Gadya. Get it?)
The role of the chorus was to provide necessary background
information. In plays such as Oedipus the King and Antigone, the
chorus, acting as townspeople, also assesses the characters’ strengths
and weaknesses. The chorus praises the characters for their virtues,
rebukes them for their rashness and gives them advice. The chorus’
reaction to the play’s events connects the audience to the actors,
making the audience feel more involved in the play. The chorus also
helps structure the play by introducing scene or mood changes.

Actors in a Greek drama were faced with the challenge of projecting

the proper words and emotional textures to thousands of people, many
of whom were seated very far from the stage. Facial expressions,
therefore, couldn’t be used. To convey expression, actors wore masks,
smiling ones for happy moments and frowning ones for sad. The sign of
the acting trade, a smiling mask near a frowning one, comes from this
practice.

A Greek tragedy is generally divided into five parts: the prologue gives
the explanation needed to follow the subsequent action of the play; the
parodos is the chorus’ first speech in the play and is a comment on the
prologue; episodia, or episodes, follow in which characters engage in
dialogue that consists often of heated debates that heighten the play’s
conflicts; stasimon are the choral odes that follow each episode, during
which the chorus interprets and comments on the characters’ actions
and words; the exodus, the last scene which follows the last episode
and stasimon, is the play’s resolution.

The tragedy, as we said, is the story of someone society regards as

extraordinary, usually someone of noble birth, who is faced with great
challenges that he usually cannot meet because of a flaw that exists
within his personality or because he is fated to fall. The courage the
hero displays and the dignity with which he faces his defeat make him
someone the audience feels sympathy and admiration for in the end.
Even though the tragic hero fails and falls during the course of the
play, because of the virtues he does possess and because of the
humility and dignity with which he accepts his punishment, the
audience sees in him the potential for greatness that every human
being has.

The famous Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BCE) said that an

audience undergoes katharsis while seeing a tragedy, that is, a
purgation of the emotions of “pity and fear.” The audience sees the
protagonist’s misfortune, which is often out of proportion with his/her
actions, and thus feels compassion, pity for the character. On the other
hand, the audience, seeing such a great figure of society fall, may
think of their vulnerabilities and feel fear. These feelings are purged,
according to Aristotle, by the end of the play, because the tragedies
affirm human values rather than deny them.

Aristotle also created terms for the flaws and actions that cause the
hero’s downfall. Hamartia can be the mistake the hero makes that
leads to his downfall, or it can be the flaw the hero possesses that
leads to his wrongful deed and thus tragic end. In Greek tragedy, more
often than not, the fatal flaw is hubris, excessive pride.

Now you have the basics with which to understand one of, if not the,
greatest tragedies in Western literature, Oedipus the King. Certainly
this tragedy is the most famous of all the dramas from ancient Greece.