Drama

History

The god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness, fertility

Every year a festival known as The Dionysia was held in honor of the God

Here was Dithyramb becoming part of the festival

Dionysus

A hymn to the god of Dionysus composed by the musician Arion

In Athens, dithyramb were sung by a Chorus of up to fifty men or boys dancing in circular formation.

Dithyramb

The Father Of Tragedy

According to Aristotle’s Poetics, the first person ever to appear on stage as an actor playing a character in a play (instead of speaking as him or herself) is Thespis.

He invented Hypokrites, and named performance as Tragedy.

City of Dyonesia

Peisistratus (ruler of Athens) held drama festival called City of Dyonesia.

He instituted a prized competition of Tragedy in 534 BC.

The Actors Hired and paid by the state

Only THREE actors were required

Woman were not allowed to take part in dramatic production

The Tragedy

tragos = "he-goat" aeidein = "to sing"

Trygodia:trygos (grape harvest) ode (song)

Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is admirable, complete (composed of an introduction, a middle part and an ending), and possesses magnitude; in language made pleasurable, each of its species separated in different parts; performed by actors, not through narration; effecting through pity and fear (the purification) of such emotions.— Poetics,

The Tragedy

Aristotle’s PoeticTragedy is characterized by seriousness and involves a hero who experiences a reversal offortune (peripeteia). caused by the tragic hero's hamartia. "Tragedy results in a catharsis for the audience in response to the suffering of the characters in the drama.

"the structure of the best tragedy should not be simple but complex and one that represents incidents arousing fear and pity—for that is peculiar to this form of art.“

The only surviving example of a trilogy of ancient athenian tragedy play, is Oresteia by Aeschylus

It was originally performed at the Dionysia festival in Athens in 458 BC, where it won first prize

One of the three Theban plays of the Athenian tragedian Sophocles. Competing at the Festival of Dionysus in 401 BC.

Analyzing the Play

The Kind of Play

The Physical World of The Play

The Central Theme

Characters Defined Plot

Sources

Style

Outstanding Feature Of The Play

The Comedy

The adjective "comic" related to the sense of "laughter-provoking“

Old Comedy

Middle Comedy

New Comedy

Old Comedy (archaia)

Aristophanes has sharp political satire in his work.He lampooned the most important personalities and institutions of his day

Old Comedy, as represented by Aristophanes' early plays, is analyzed below in terms of three broad characteristics — topicality, festivityand complexity.

• The role of the chorus was diminished to the point where it had no influence on the plot

• Public characters were not impersonated or personified onstage

• The objects of ridicule were general rather than personal, literary rather than political.

Middle Comedy (mese)

Middle Comedy is generally seen as differing from Old Comedy in 3 particulars:

New Comedy (nea)

Menander's comedies tended to be more about the fears and foibles of the ordinary man, his personal relationships, family life and social mishaps rather than politics and public life.

They were supremely civilized and sophisticated plays which were less farcical and satirical than the plays before them.

The only one of Menander’s plays, and of the whole New Comedy, that has survived in almost complete form

Analyzing the Play

The Kind of Play

The Physical World of The Play

The Central Theme

Characters Defined Plot

Sources

Style

Outstanding Feature Of The Play

Medieval Drama

Faced with the problem of explaining a new religion to a largely illiterate population, churches in the Early Middle Ages began staging dramatized versions of particular biblical events on Liturgical Drama.

Christianity grew at an astounding rate as the Roman Empire fell, and the church itself was no friend of the theater because of its close association with Greek philosophers and the religion of that era.

The Mystery Play

By the 12th century, the earlier liturgical dramas had developed into a more popular form, the mystery play.

The term "mystery" in this sense refers to the word "miracle," another name for the play type.

The mystery play began as the simple recitation of Biblical texts, the various persons in the text each being represented by a person on the stage.

The Morality Play

Morality plays sprung up in order to teach the audience a lesson.

These plays depicted the struggle of man in a good-vs.-evil drama. Vices such as greed, pride and vanity were personified along with wholesome traits such as patience, good will and honesty.

The most widely known morality play and possibly the most famous medieval drama is Everyman

The Miracle PlayMiracle plays or Saint's plays are specifically re-enacted miraculous interventions by the saints into the lives of ordinary people, rather than biblical events.

The Mansion

These were small scenic structures that indicated the location. Both the performer and the congregation would move from mansion to mansion.

The Pageant WagonA movable stage or cart used to accommodate the mystery and miracle play cycles of the 10th through the 16th Century.

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