Athens Acropolis Amphitheater
Tragedy and it's components
Let's begin with the name, Tragedy translates to goat song. Goat song? Where did that come from? This term may have come from the goat sacrifice that was offered at the Festival of Dionysus. It may also be because the robes that the actors wore were made of goat skins.
The tragic hero is the main character of the play. The tragic hero or protagonist is generally a nobleman and is good in nature. The audience connects with the protagonist and releases many emotions throughout the play. After the exposition the tragic hero will endure some sort of hardship such as falling in love with your mother like in Oedipus. This hardship is caused by the protagonist's tragic flaw. A tragic flaw is originally a good aspect for the protagonist, however at a point in the tragedy it turns to a negative.
Ancient Greek plays had a protagonist and an antagonist. Similar to Magneto and Wolverine's relationship throughout the X-men series.
Throughout the catastrophe the audience experiences catharsis, which is a purging of emotions. This is the essence of Greek theatre, its therapeutic nature, as the audience connects with the actors and their situations they experiences the highs and the lows along with the actors. During the play the members of the audience feel a sense of community as they connect emotionally to the situations they see.
Community is achieved because these performances described religious stories that were relevant to society. Ancient Greek tragedies were specifically based on Greek mythology and were only seen once a year during the Festival of Dionysus. Theatre is a very successful storytelling method and it's relevance at the time brings people together. Similarly to the way Dionysus is the god of bringing together and falling apart. But we will talk more about Dionysus in his own post.
Silk, M.S.( Editor). Tragedy and the Tragic: Greek Theatre and Beyond. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Grickson, Dave. Goat laying on mountain. National Geographic. Retrieved from <http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/mountain-goat/>
Amphitheater Architecture
The Greek theatre was built up of a few key components.
The theatron is a large hillside that seats are carved into and sometimes these seats are covered in slabs of marble. This concept of having seats that rise in the theatre has been echoed in the architecture of most theaters. The architecture of amphitheaters allows for the audience to be massive, but still feel like a community. The crescent shape of the hill helps carry the voices of the actors to even the audience members who are furthest away.
A Turkish Amphitheater mimicked the brilliant Classic design.
The orchestra, at the foot of the theatron, was the flat stage where the actors would speak and gesture. The actors would enter the orchestra through the parodos, from the skene, or by crane. Parodos translates to passageway and was frequently used by actors playing messenger type characters. The Parodos is located at either side of the skene.
Me-Ryong is pointing to the orchestra, which is the flat semi circular area.
Behind the orchestra was the skene, a large building that was used as a backdrop in ancient Greece. The term "scene" is derived from the name for this structure. The actors would use the skene to change costumes and masks in between dialogue during the choral odes. This building was essential because it offered the actors to opportunity to create an illusion of reality. Because there were only three actors performing at a time they often changed characters multiple times in a performance. These buildings were originally more similar to tents and eventually evolved into these massive sometimes two story stone buildings. Until the wooden stage was built actors performed in the orchestra. The wooden stages were also improved upon and built into the skene later on.
A head-on view of the skene ruins at the Turkish Amphitheater.
Me-Ryong in one of the tunnels under the skene.
Arnott, Peter. An Introduction to Greek Theatre. Indiana: Indiana University Press.
Greene, John Richards. (1994) Theatre and ancient Greek society. London: Routledge.
Dionysus the god of harvest and wine
The beginnings of theatre in ancient Greece were plays performed during the festival of Dionysus.
The Festival of Dionysus was a three day long event that happened each year. Three poets would compete for the judges votes by submitting a trilogy of tragedies and one satyr that followed the trilogy. Each poet's work would be performed on a different day and in the end someone would come in first, second, and third.
The word tragedy translates to goat song and was probably used because of the goat sacrifice or the goat skin robes the performers wore. Throughout this festival of Dionysus goats would be sacrificed and the dithyramb would sing hymns to worship the god.
This dithyramb could best be described in current culture as a glee club, however the only similarities are that it is made up of boys and sometimes girls who sing. During ancient Greek tragedies the dithyramb would sing choral odes in between sets of dialogue between the characters. This group of boys who sang acted as a modern day chorus helping to create the illusion of the performance.
I prefer the analogy that the dithyramb is more like a modern day chorus. During Classical plays the performance alternates from choral odes and sets of dialogue between the actors. This is similar to the role of the chorus in musical theatre. The chorus is a group of actors and actresses who do not affect the plot, but support and accompany the leading roles in musicals. The chorus is depended upon by the leading roles in musicals similarly to the way the three actors in Classic Theatre rely on the dithyramb. These chorus break up dialogue and allow the leads to change costume off stage.
Jacobson, Thomas. (2011, June 26). Ancient Greek Civililazation [Lecture 17]. Theatre
the Competition of art. Video retrieved from
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Theatre Technologies and Classic elements
The skene was the building behind the orchestra where actors could change their costume and mask to change characters, but it is also responsible for giving us the term scene. Modern scenes are chronological segments of a play, and seem unrelated to the ancient Greek skene. However, the skene was often times painted or decorated to create a backdrop. The skene acted as scenery that created a more realistic environment for the actors.
The orchestra in ancient greece was our modern day stage. Now-a-days when we think of an orchestra we think of the sounds of violas, cellos, violins, and bass. This flat space between the audience and the raised stage in modern theatre is referred to as an orchestra or sometimes a pit. In musical theatre pit orchestras accompany actors and actresses while they sing.
Agon which translates to conflict, is part of the word antagonist. The antagonist is the negative character in a play. This character challenges the protagonist, and generally causes the protagonist to suffer. This idea of conflict is the central focus the amphitheater. The audience shares the character's tragic experience and connects with the protagonist's emotions as a sort of release of any suppressed emotions. Going to the theatre provides audiences a chance to empathize or sympathize with the characters which can create a sense of community as the whole audience experiences the same events on stage.
Deus es machina or "god from the machine" is a latin term referring to the crane that was used to raise and fly in characters playing gods in ancient greek theatre. This crane had a pulley system that would tie around the actors waist. This crane was one of the first theatre technologies beside the brilliant architecture of the amphitheater and the masks that helped to project the actors voices.
Masks were worn by all performers and the women were represented with white masks while masks of men were brown. These masks had exaggerated expressions on them, emotions like happiness or anger and sadness were common. These masks were sculpted so that they amplified the voice projected from within them instead of muffling it. It was the use of masks that made it possible for men to play female roles in ancient Greek theatre.
Ancient Greek Theater. Reed College. Retrieved from
<http://academic.reed.edu/humanities/110tech/theater.html>
Arnott, Peter. An Introduction to Greek Theatre. Indiana: Indiana University Press.
Scholastic's Theatre Timeline
History of theatre timeline. Scholastic Ltd. Junior Education PLUS. December 2008 issue.
Retrieved from <http://education.scholastic.co.uk/resources/35065>