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Ancient Greek Theatre

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I'm not entirely sure where this topic belongs, but considering it is a historical evaluation of theatre, this is probably the best part of the forum to post this. That said, let us begin!

One of the fascinating things about Art is that it reflects society. The statues of Ancient Greece represented the societal views of beauty and what a strong, independent man that man should be; the Renaissance showed these same values cropping up again; Socialist Realism, for all its faults, also showed this pervading trend, of men and women striding forth in productivity.

I do not want to discuss the history of other forms of Art however; this is not where my expertise lies. I’m sure you can integrate a greater knowledge of the history of Art than I can. My point is, as is evident by the very meaning of what Art is, that the most popular Art magnifies the cultural climate of the time.

I wish focus on the Theatre, and specifically, Western Theatre. What you may not be aware of is that, just as society has moved forward - with the exception of certain mystics – from the need of the collective to the ability of the individual, so Theatre has followed this trend, but in terms of what has been written for it, and how it has been performed.

Our tale begins in Ancient Greece, where ‘plays’ consisted of nothing more than a Chorus, walking along together, all chanting the same lines, all telling the same story. One day, as the stories go, a man stepped away from the group and argued against how the story went. Though it is not clear if this specific story is true, the roots of Theatre lie in this argumentation – that one man raises concern with an idea, and a process of exploration and creativity is begun.

As we move forward in time, we have the much more famous form of Greek Theatre: we still have a Chorus with big masks. However, they are considered an actual character (a collective one) rather than simply a narrator of events. We also have the addition of a protagonist, an antagonist, and a few other characters in between. We also have two basic forms of Theatre: tragedy and comedy.

Now, it is important to highlight why tragedy was far more prevalent, because it is crucial to understanding the development of theatre. Ancient Greek Theatre was a religious experience. People would go to see three plays, which would be related to a certain God; think a very, very, very, long version of the way the Eucharist is performed on a Sunday. Everyone already knows the story, and this story is a tragedy, but they watch and listen to be ‘cleansed’ of their sins – this exactly what Greek Theatre was, a lethargic experience.

There would be three plays, followed by a comedy. Interesting bit of information – the word ‘satire’ comes from this final comedy. A ‘satirical’ form of the previously shown story would be presented, in which guys dressed up as goats with big, fake penises would walk around, called ‘Satyrs’.

Now, the telling of a tragedy was basically to show an idea that we see as evil nowadays, at least, as Objectivists – that pride doth come before a fall, that the survival of man requires the sacrifice of man. The root of this, no pun intended, lies in the fact that the economy of the time was founded in agriculture. Just like a vegetable, it was believed man was planted, he grew tall, at the height of his potency he was cut down, some part of him was placed in the ground to lead to the growth of new ‘vegetables’.

If want a good, solid reason for why the ‘virtue’ of sacrifice was born in earlier times, then look no further friend. Life was agriculture. Agriculture was life. It’s no coincidence that the Enlightenment and all the ideas of independence which sprang from it, came at the same time that man was being lifted of the burden of agricultural work. Life was watching the harvest grow high, and to cut it down. Allow the animals to grow healthy and large, then kill and eat them. When this is all you have time for in your life, it is very logical that you will develop a philosophy of sacrifice.

What sort of tragedies existed to tell such a story? Think of Dionysus, the god of wine and creativity, namely creativity in the theatre (after all, back then, creativity was believed to be nothing more than a ‘miracle’ or accident). He is ripped apart, and at the beginning of his story, is sown together again. Want a more relevant identifiable story? Let’s go back to what I was saying about the relation of Greek Theatre to the Eucharist:

Jesus life is a ‘vegetable’ story, in the same sense as all these Greek tragedies. It involves a God who is born of strange circumstances, who brings good things to men (‘good’ in the context of the story), who at the height of his power – his march into Jerusalem – is seized, beaten, and sacrificed.

As a side note, there is something fascinating about this story. It is the mark it made in story telling. It was not a traditional tragedy, but a new breed, marking a step forward. The God does not come back, to grow and be cut down (apart from his little spot to scare his disciples) but instead waits in Heaven, to come back one day. It means the story can live on, and that rather than just reiterating sacrifice as a part of everyday life, it turns sacrifice into the greatest of virtues, and turns it into mans means to happiness. The Greeks could not conceive something quite so evil, with all their years of practice with tragedy.

Now, our story of Theatre, of course, has a happy ending – otherwise men like Chekhov would not have existed. It is in a well known trilogy, known as ‘The Orestria’, the name coming from the troubled protagonist of Orestes, in which we see a great . Now, I shan’t go into the whole story except to give the necessary facts:

Orestes kills his mother, in the name of Justice (she murdered his father, Agamemnon, and married her lover to rule tyrannically over their country).

Orestes is haunted by the representation of matricide, the Furies, which believe Orestes had a greater duty to his mother and that he should now fall and be killed by them.

Athene rules over the follow trial, and rules in favour of Orestes – basically as a statement in favour of Reason and 'male' ideas such as justice and honour, over the traditional 'female' values that were expressed in tragedies.

Of course, it takes a long time for ideas like these to stick. Eventually, plays developed from being a group worship, or of being a reiteration of the same old themes, and instead got to the state where it is today, where a playwright can write a play about an entirely new theme, if he likes, writing it for whatever reason he sees fit.

On a final note, what is funny is just how much it reflects society, as stated at the beginning of this post. Society started off in collective groups, transforming over time into a private trading society, before being perverted by the collectivist ideas of the late 19th/early 20th century. Similarly, theatre developed along the same path, was halted in the same way by the Dark Ages, and experienced similar set backs due to movements like post-modernism; however, it has also experienced all the great plays and playwrights we now have.

I shall now cuddle up with my copy of 'The Seagull'.

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  • 10 months later...

The most popular and in my opinion most probable idea about the origin of Greek theatre is that it sprang up from mystic rituals. The university of Cambridge published last year a good book summarizing all the arguments for that the last year. I think it simply was called Greek Tragedy, or something like that.

I´ve not read all the tragic plays nor studied it too full extent, but I am theatre student and my B.A. was written about similar theories arguing the existence of drama in Scandinavia during the early middle ages.

It´s true that art reflects society, and what you say I agree with essentially. The greek tragedies according to Aristotle were supposed to ingrain a certain morality.

In essence the typical plot is as follows:

A man is noble and great. He is admired by everyone, beautiful and wise.

This man ceases to know his limits, challenges the authority of the gods or public morality.

The man comes to a tragic ending.

It tells us something that the first public fundings for theatre in Athens was at a time when a dictator ruled and that he specifically did this to ingrain into the people a certain feeling of patriotism.

I don´t think the greek experience was a completely religious one. Mostly because so many things in ancient societies were connected to religion. Prostitution in some societies, most things were blessed by one god or another.

It´s an interesting subject, there is whole field of studies about the political, social and religious context of the tragedies. Some tragedies were controversial, some of the ancient authors weren´t excactly mainstream, I´d quote something juicy if I had a bit better memory, but I recommend reading Erika Fischer´s Lichte first chapter in her "history of theatre". It basically analyses the most famous plays and puts it into context with individual identity.

Her book is basically about how Theatre reflected what society thought of individuals. Or didn´t reflect. She isn´t an objectivist or anything in that direction I think but she does put things into context so that one can reach your own conclusions.

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I'd argue that it is wrong to reduce Greek tragedy to the realm of petty morality play (i.e. bad things happen to those who get to big for their britches).

Tragedy is fundamentally a heroic artform.

The idea is that how a person acts in the worst possible situation reveals their genuine worth and character.

Tragedy is about a heroic individual rising above a horrible situation.

Admittedly there is a certain fatalism that makes tragedy often similar to Camus' "The Myth of Sisyphus".

Orestes is caught between conflicting demands neither of which he can shrug off, but is heroic in how he handles this.

Antigone and Prometheus stand up for themselves against an unjust tyrant.

Oedipus is arguably a bit more existential and poses the question whether one would truly wish to know everything about themself. Oedipus must confront what he is.

The argument is in the direction that a heroic person is heroic by who they are, and not what they accomplish and what they do or do not suffer. But, whereas everyone can play the hero when times are good, only the truly heroic can play the hero in the bad times.

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I'd argue that it is wrong to reduce Greek tragedy to the realm of petty morality play (i.e. bad things happen to those who get to big for their britches).

Tragedy is fundamentally a heroic artform.

The idea is that how a person acts in the worst possible situation reveals their genuine worth and character.

Tragedy is about a heroic individual rising above a horrible situation.

Admittedly there is a certain fatalism that makes tragedy often similar to Camus' "The Myth of Sisyphus".

Orestes is caught between conflicting demands neither of which he can shrug off, but is heroic in how he handles this.

Antigone and Prometheus stand up for themselves against an unjust tyrant.

Oedipus is arguably a bit more existential and poses the question whether one would truly wish to know everything about themself. Oedipus must confront what he is.

The argument is in the direction that a heroic person is heroic by who they are, and not what they accomplish and what they do or do not suffer. But, whereas everyone can play the hero when times are good, only the truly heroic can play the hero in the bad times.

Yes, I agree that you shouldn´t reduce tragedy to a morality play. But it´s purpose according to f.x. Aristotle was to ingrain morality. (That is how he explains it in poetics).

Anyway, the authors vary in morality, some plays were rewarded, others were disliked. Some were controversial. Of course the main hero- is always a hero, but he has a tragic flaw and in most cases he can´t overcome them. But in some cases as you point out in Orestes you overcome it.

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