Greek theatre as an elective topic, including the Dionysian origins, the architecture of the amphitheatre, the conventions of mask, chorus and three actors, and the structure of tragedy

What this dot point is asking

NESA expects you to know the origins of Greek theatre, the architecture of the ancient theatres, the central conventions (chorus, mask, three actors), the structural form of tragedy, and the civic and religious context. Strong answers move past list-making into how the conventions shaped the dramatic experience and survive in modern theatre.

The answer

Origins

Greek theatre developed from religious ritual associated with the cult of Dionysus, the god of wine, fertility and theatrical madness. The earliest performances were probably choric songs (the dithyramb) performed in honour of Dionysus.

Tradition credits Thespis (sixth century BCE) with the innovation of stepping out of the chorus and addressing it as a separate speaker, creating the first actor. The word "thespian" derives from his name. Aeschylus (around 525 to 456 BCE) added a second actor; Sophocles (around 497 to 406 BCE) added a third. The three-actor maximum became the convention.

The dramatic festivals at Athens were institutionalised under the tyrant Peisistratus in the sixth century BCE and reached their peak in the fifth century BCE, the century of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.

The festivals

The two main Athenian theatrical festivals were:

The City Dionysia (Great Dionysia), held in late March or early April. The major festival. Five or six days. Tragedy, satyr plays and comedy performed in competition. Three tragedians each presented a tetralogy (three tragedies plus a satyr play) on the first three days.

The Lenaia, held in January. A smaller festival, focused more on comedy.

Citizens received state subsidies (the theoric fund, from the fourth century BCE) to attend. The performance was both religious ritual and civic occasion. Plays were performed once and then mostly not revived; the surviving Greek tragedies are a small fraction of the original output.

The architecture

The Theatre of Dionysus in Athens, on the south slope of the Acropolis, held around 14,000 to 17,000 spectators by the fifth century BCE. Its key elements:

The orchestra

A circular dancing space, around 20 metres in diameter. The chorus's domain. The altar of Dionysus stood in the centre.

The theatron

The seating area, semicircular, carved into the hillside. Originally wooden, later stone (built in stages from the late fifth century BCE through the fourth century BCE).

The skene

The wooden building behind the orchestra, originally a changing room, later a backdrop with a single door (and eventually three doors). The skene served as palace, temple, or city gate as the play required. Painted scenery (skenographia) developed in the late fifth century BCE.

The parodoi

Two side entrances between the theatron and the skene. The chorus entered down one parodos; characters from elsewhere entered the other.

The ekkyklema

A wheeled platform on which interior tableaux could be rolled out from the skene. Used to display bodies after off-stage violence (Greek tragedy did not stage violence directly).

The mechane

A crane used to lift gods or heroes into the air. Source of the term deus ex machina (god from the machine).

Performance conventions

The chorus

Twelve to fifteen members in tragedy (Aeschylus used twelve; Sophocles raised the number to fifteen), twenty-four in comedy. The chorus sang, danced, and chanted. Choral songs (odes) were performed in strophic structure: the chorus moved one direction for the strophe, the other for the antistrophe.

The three-actor convention

Tragedies used a maximum of three speaking actors. Doubling and masking allowed each actor to play multiple roles. The convention disciplined the dramatic action into structured dialogues.

Mask

All actors wore full-face masks with exaggerated features. Masks identified character at distance (a king's mask, a slave's mask, a young woman's mask), amplified the voice, and allowed doubling. Costumes included raised platform shoes (cothurni for tragedy, lower socci for comedy).

Gesture and movement

Actors moved with formal, stylised gesture. The acting style was declamatory, suited to the scale of the venue.

Music

A piper (aulos player) accompanied the choral odes. Music has not survived in any usable form.

Off-stage violence

Murder, suicide and other violent acts happened off-stage. A messenger speech (the rhesis) reported the violence after the fact. The ekkyklema rolled out the resulting tableau (the dead body).

The structure of tragedy

Aristotle, writing in the Poetics (around 335 BCE, after the great tragedians), codified the elements of tragedy that he saw in the surviving plays:

Prologue

The opening scene before the chorus enters. Sets up the dramatic situation.

Parodos

The chorus's entrance song.

Episodes (epeisodia)

Scenes of dialogue between actors, alternating with choral odes. Typically three to five episodes.

Stasima

The choral odes between episodes.

Exodos

The final scene, after the chorus's last ode, leading to the play's conclusion.

Aristotle also identified key dramatic concepts: hamartia (the tragic error or flaw), anagnorisis (the moment of recognition), peripeteia (the reversal of fortune), and catharsis (the audience's emotional cleansing through pity and fear).

The genres

Tragedy

The serious form, drawn from mythology and the heroic past. Three surviving tragedians: Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Around thirty-three tragedies survive in full.

Comedy

Aristophanes (around 446 to 386 BCE) is the major surviving Old Comedy writer. Comedy was satirical, often politically pointed, with a chorus of twenty-four. Menander (around 342 to 290 BCE), much later, is the major New Comedy writer.

Satyr play

A short comic afterpiece featuring a chorus of satyrs (mythical half-goat creatures). Each tragedian presented one satyr play after each tetralogy. Only one full satyr play survives (Euripides's Cyclops).

The Athenian audience

The audience was citizen-heavy but probably included women, slaves and foreigners (the evidence is debated). Estimates of capacity range from 14,000 to 17,000 in the fifth century BCE. The audience sat through six to nine hours of drama in a day during the City Dionysia.

The audience was politically engaged. Many of the tragedies engage indirectly with contemporary Athenian politics: democracy, tyranny, war (the Peloponnesian War, 431 to 404 BCE), and the city's relationships with its neighbours.

Legacy

Greek theatre's conventions have shaped Western theatre across two and a half millennia. The chorus, the unities (Aristotle's hint of unity of action, refined later into the three unities of time, place and action), the structural concepts (hamartia, peripeteia, catharsis), and the architecture (the amphitheatre form survives in the modern proscenium and thrust stages) all derive from the Athenian institution.

Modern productions of Greek tragedy continue. Notable Australian productions include Belvoir's Medea (2012, directed by Anne-Louise Sarks), Sydney Theatre Company's various engagements with Greek material, and Patricia Cornelius's contemporary engagement with Greek tragic structures.