Greek Theater: The History And History Of Greek Theatre

Greek theater is something pretty amazing actually. Not many know or understand the Greeks and their ways of living, but it is the way Greeks get their entertainment they did not have movie theaters like we do today where we can just go and pay to sit and watch a movie on a big screen. Greek theatre or (tragedy), was a popular and influential form of drama performed in theatres across ancient Greece. Starting in the late 6th century BCE. A more formal definition is a play in which the protagonist, usually a man of importance and outstanding personal qualities, falls to disaster through the combination of a personal failing and circumstances with which he cannot deal.

Greek theater began in the 6th century BC. Greek theatre lied in the revels

Theatres were always located in or near sanctuaries. Greek plays were and still are performed in the Epidaurus Theater today. It is approximately 66 feet in diameter. The audience sat in the theatron or the “seeing place,” which was on a semi-circular terrace full of rows of benches. These theatres were usually built in a natural hallow even though the sides were reinforced with stone. There are 55 semi-circle rows which provide about 12,000 to 14,000 seating areas. In seats only part of the way up and from the top rows, the actors would be fairly small and they were only able to see mostly colors and patterns of movement but no details of the costumes or

The Greeks took their entertainment very seriously and used drama as a way of investigating the world they lived in and what it meant to them to be human. There are three genres of drama that they used; Greeks used comedy, satyr plays, and the most important was tragedy. The first type were comedies, comedies consisted of satirical and mocked men in power for their vanity and foolishness. The first comedy master was the playwright Aristophanes. Later on, Menander wrote comedies abut ordinary people and made plays more like sit-coms. Next, are the tragedies; tragedy dealt with the big themes of love, loss, pride, abuse of power, and the fraught relationships between men and gods. The point of a tragedy is when the main protagonist commits some terrible crime without realizing how foolish and arrogant he had been. He then slowly comes to terms with his error, the world starts to crumble around him. The three great main playwrights of tragedy were Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Aristotle had argued that tragedies cleansed the heart through pity and terror, purging of their petty concerns and worries by making them aware that there could be nobility in suffering. He had called this experience “catharsis.” Lastly, Satyr plays, were short plays that were performed between he acts of tragedies and made fun of the plight of the tragedy’s characters. They are mythical half-human, half-goat figures and actors in