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Ancient Greek Theatre Architecture We all look for our beginnings. Whether we look for them in our personal life or in our professional life, we still look for them. As I was looking around the theatre recently, I was looking at and wondering where the idea of the theatre came from. Rather, who built it and why it is built the way it is. Who made the first one?
Where do the roots of the theatre lay? All very good questions that I hope will be answered. In the beginning of time, man did not understand the complex workings of the universe. To compensate for this not understanding, man created mythical gods that held the power to cause nature to be nature. People who performed extraordinary accomplishments, like win wars, would be elevated to a god. Prehistoric man would perform rituals to please the gods.
The gods, in turn having been pleased, would ensure the success of the land and hunting as well as protect them from their enemies. These rituals were performed in many places. At times, these rituals would involve the entire community. At other times, small groups would perform for the rest of the community. From that time until the present, every type of performance has created its own environmental conditions of performer-audience relationship, and these have varied from a patch of beaten earth to complicated built structures (Leacroft 1). The various Greek tribes worshipped many different gods.
Dionysus, or Bacchus, was an important god for the Thracians, a tribe who lived in the northern part of Greece. When the Thracians discovered how to make beer, they thought intoxication divine and gave honor to Bacchus, and when they came to know wine, they thought even better of him. Greek songs honoring the god of wine, Dionysus, which were originally sung by masked choruses, developed later into a singing exchange between a leader and the choruses. During the fifth century BCE, music, costumes, and dancing all became more elaborate, and antiphonal singing between leader and chorus evolved into dramatic dialogue. Everywhere in Greece, the festivals were regarded as public acts of worship, but only in Athens did these crude beginnings develop into tragedy. The tragic performances of ancient Athens presented a magnificent spectacle.
All citizens could attend freely, for the festivals were still regarded as public acts of worship. Everybody could easily respond to the rhythms of dance and song, because the words were sung by the chorus and the actors' line conformed to poetic meters. The tragic poets of Athens took advantage of the traditional celebrations handed down to them to construct stories that confronted fundamental problems of human life. Three great poets worked this remarkable transformation of the ancient wine songs: Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. (Brockett 2 ed 12 - 15) In the sixth century BCE, accompanied by singers, dancers, and flute players, the priests made sacrifices in honor of Dionysus, the god of the vine (Leacroft 3 - 7). There were four festivals held each year to honor Dionysus. During one these festivals, The City Dionysia, the last of the four festivals, drama was born.
This festival commemorated the coming of Dionysus to Athens. It was held each year at the end of March and extended over several days (Brockett 4 ed 18 - 25). In 534 BCE, Athens instituted a contest for the best tragedy at The City Dionysia (Brockett 2 ed 13). Thespis was the first actor to win the contest. Tragedy in its earliest stage was entirely choral until the prologue and speeches were first introduced by Thespis. Thus, Thespis was indeed the first 'actor, ' and tragic dialogue began when he exchanged words with the leader of the chorus.
The term Thespian, which is still used today, comes from here. As theatre started to become a more accepted form of ritual, characters or roles started to become more refined. There were several groups of actors. The main actors' roles were that of the gods or leading characters. They would play roles such as Apollo, Agamemnon, or Aegisthus. The chorus served many functions in Greek drama.
First, it was an agent in the play; it gave advice, expressed opinions, asked questions, and sometimes took an active part in the action. Second, it often established the ethical or social frameworks of the event and set up a standard against which the action may be have been judged. Third, it frequently served as an ideal spectator, reacting to the events and characters as the dramatist might have hoped the audience would. Fourth, it helped set the overall mood of the play. Fifth, it added movement, spectacle, song, and dance. Sixth, it served an important rhythmical function, creating pauses during which the audience may have reflected upon what had happened (Brockett 4 ed 29).
Then there was the role of the messenger or servant. Tragedies were never shown on stage. Therefore, when a tragedy took place, one of these two characters broke the news. If the tragedy was nearby, such as a murder in the next room, it was the servant's duty to break the news. If the tragedy was far away, such as a war, the messenger would break the news (Brockett 4 ed 29). In the early days, they held the performances in open spaces surrounded by a hillside where the audience sat.
This is what was known as the theatre or 'watching place'; . There may have been trees around to provide some shade for comfort. The sixth century BCE saw the addition of wooden seats for the comfort of the guests. This resulted in a more permanent structure. Supposedly, after a fire broke out in the middle of the fifth century BCE in Athens, stone steps, flanked by wings that curved or angled forward, replaced the wooden seats (Norwich 56).
At the same time, the interest in theatre was in full swing. Athens at the time was the cultural Mecca of the world (Brockett 4 ed 41). As a result, they had to keep increasing the size of the theatre. The lower part of the theatre in Athens had 34 rows while the upper part had 21 bringing the total number of rows to 55. The capacity of the theatre was anywhere from 14, 000 to 17, 000 spectators (Brockett 4 ed 40). Even with this huge capacity for spectators, with the population of Athens around 150, 000 - 200, 000 residents, only a small portion of the society could attend.
The front seats were called proedros and were reserved for officials and priests. The honorable spectator of the theatre was the Priest of Elefthereos Dionysus (Foundation 1). The action took place in an area called the orchestra. Almost twenty meters in diameter, the orchestra was a flat, circular space. Also called 'the dancing place'; it is the place where the chorus mainly performed. As the theatre grew, so did the orchestra.
During this time of growth, it underwent a transformation from a circular space to a semi-circular, sometimes even an oval or rectangular space (Real 12). The circular shape was the most dominate one, being the closest to the Dionysian Cult. The circle was to have had supernatural powers (Bingham 1). At the center of the orchestra, in front of the see, was situated the thyself or altar. The priests would use it for religious ceremonies. Later it was used for the leader of the chorus.
Behind the orchestra, across from the theatre, is the see. The see started as a tent, changed to a booth, then to a wooden hut, and finally to a large building with doors. The see would act as a backdrop or a changing place for the actors. The side facing the audience was decorated to look like a palace or temple.
As the see developed it would be decorated with painted scenery. On the front of the see, there were three doors. These doors wer...
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