8 Chapter 8: The Greek Origins of Western Theater
Where Did Theater Come From?
Because the practice of theatrical play is so ancient, we really do not know who or why the first formalized theater began. We do, however, have theories based on oral and written histories and anthropological observation.
Watch Mike Rugnetta of Crash Course Theater share some of the current theories about the earliest roots of theater:
The Greek Origins of Western Theater
“There are two main ways in which we know about some ancient Greek theater from classical Athens where all the plays were originally produced. The first is the actual texts themselves. We’re incredibly lucky, if you think about it, that we’ve got no fewer than 30 texts of Greek tragedies and we’ve got twelve or fourteen of Greek comedies. That’s a very great deal! I mean that’s almost equivalent to what we’ve got of really good Renaissance drama. We also have ancient sources that tell us about drama, about the funding, and the politics, and the organization of theater. There’s also the archeological remains…Remains of theaters themselves. There’s also quite a few good pots. The ancient Greeks loved to paint theatrical scenes and scenes from their famous myths on vases and we think they probably actually sold them at touristy shops near the theaters, so you could take one home with you after you’ve been to see the play.
The Festival of Dionysus
“The actual context [for the plays] is the festival of Dionysus, which happens annually around our March or April. [This] is when the sailing season starts and people can come from all over the Greek world. It is a massive event! It’s like it’s the Olympics, plus the Oberammergau Mystery Plays, plus the Super Bowl all rolled into one.
The Greeks loved competition—in every aspect of their life, they competed…In the festival of Dionysus, each of the three tragic playwrights would be competing against one another, and each would be sponsored by a rich man who would pay for the production, simply for the glory of the state. And then a jury, specially selected, will vote on what they thought was the best play. If your team won, your name and the playwright would be inscribed on the wall in the theater and be remembered forever. There’s no money, it was about glory. Lots of people did it.
The Plays
“There were three types of drama in ancient Greece: tragedy, comedy, and satyr plays. There’s theater where the masks are quite ugly and the characters are quite low class, and it’s comedy—it’s funny. Then there’s tragedy where the characters are very beautiful; usually the masks as we see them painted on vases are exquisite and lovely to look at very often—and that is tragedy. After each three tragedies on each day there would be a thing called a Satyr play. A satyr was a mythical beast, half-man, half-goat, and these were very rude comedy plays.
The Playwrights
“Antiquity decided that there were four really classical Greek playwrights; there were three tragedians and one