Essay On Greek Theater

In the year 700 BC, the city-state of Athens, Greece became institutionalized. During this time Athens, gained much military power, which allowed the city-state to become significant culturally and politically. During the institutionalization of this Athens, the city-state took part in festival called Dionysia. The Dionysia festival honored the god Dionysus. Before some of the performances, goats were killed and offered up as sacrifices to Dionysus. During the Dionysia festival the central events consisted of theatrical performances and comedies as well as theatrical performances from 487 BC. Athens was considered to be the main center that held theatrical traditions. Athenians spread these festivals to its numerous allies, in order to promote

Since there was a limited number of actors allowed on-stage, few non-speaking roles were allowed to perform on-stage. The chorus quickly evolved into a very active part of Greek theater. Theatrical culture began to flourish throughout Greece during the year 700 BC. Tragedy, comedy, and satyr plays were the theatrical forms that were performed in the theaters. During this time tragedy and comedy were viewed as completely separate genres. While the Satyr plays dealt with the mythological subject in comic manner. Every Greek theater consisted of three main elements, the orchestra, the skene and the audience.

Greek theater buildings, which is also referred to as a theatron, were large and were built on the slopes of hill tops. The theatron was a an open-air structure and could hold 20,000. The theatron was also the main

century Greek comedy became extremely popular. " In addition to maintaining their comic touch, the plays also give an indirect but invaluable insight into Greeksociety in general and provide details on the workings of political institutions, legal systems, religious practices, education, and warfare in theHellenic world. " The people of Greece were able to attend these humorous plays and get the opportunity to see all of the issues and problems, that the society faced as whole. Greek comedy was a very influential form of theater, that was being performed in places all across ancient Greece. One of the earliest sources of comedy that was found is the poems of Arcchilochus (7th century BCE.) and Hipponax (6th century BCE), in which there was crude and highly explicit sexual humor in both of their poems. Another orgin, which was citied by Aristotle, is within the phallic songs, which were often sung at the Dionysiac fetsitvals. There are two phases to Greek comedy. The first phase of the show was the parados. Dring that time the chours, which would sometimes be up 20 or more, would enter into the theatron and perform a selection of dance routines and songs. " Dressed to impress, their outlandish costumes could represent anything from giant bees with huge stingers to knights riding another man in imitation of a horse or even a variety of kitchen utensils. In many cases the play was actually named after the Chorus, e.g., Aristophanes ' The