Ancient Greek Theater: the Forerunner to Modern Theatre
Imagine this following scene: You are sitting in a dark, fairly crowded large room. There are hundreds of other people, in hundreds of other seats surrounding you. In front of you, there is a large stage, with people acting out a play. Lights, music, and different sound effects set the mood of the play in order to understand more clearly what is going on. With these certain conventions, the audience can get a true grasp of a story which several actors are trying to portray. However, it hasn’t always been this easy to enjoy a play in a theater. Theatre and plays go back as far as “B.C.” times.
Theater has been a means of art and entertainment for thousands of years dating back to the fifth century B.C. The beginning marked with the ancient Greek theaters. Over the vast years of cultural and technological evolution many things have changed. Just the same, many things have remained unscathed. In comparing and contrasting different aspects such as theater writing, technology, and theater costumes, we will become more aware of the differences and similarities between modern and ancient Greek Theater. In the Greek theater, the conventions are very different. Unique Greek performances, which were performed hundreds of years ago, were put on to please the Greek god Dionysos. In these performances, artificial light was impossible and there were no footlights to illuminate the faces of the actors. Spectators had to have a great imagination to create a mood themselves. The actors had to loudly project their voices even more so, and they used numerous masks, to reveal different characters. Plays were done in an amphitheater, which was a circular type theater, thus, the projection was very loud, and the actors could be heard all around. In Ancient Greek Theater, it was not unusual to only have one individual acting as all characters. Even when the use of more than one actor occurred seldom were there more than two or three actors used to convey the story. Another difference is
Theater has been a means of art and entertainment for thousands of years dating back to the fifth century B.C. The beginning marked with the ancient Greek theaters. Over the vast years of cultural and technological evolution many things have changed. Just the same, many things have remained unscathed. In comparing and contrasting different aspects such as theater writing, technology, and theater costumes, we will become more aware of the differences and similarities between modern and ancient Greek Theater. In the Greek theater, the conventions are very different. Unique Greek performances, which were performed hundreds of years ago, were put on to please the Greek god Dionysos. In these performances, artificial light was impossible and there were no footlights to illuminate the faces of the actors. Spectators had to have a great imagination to create a mood themselves. The actors had to loudly project their voices even more so, and they used numerous masks, to reveal different characters. Plays were done in an amphitheater, which was a circular type theater, thus, the projection was very loud, and the actors could be heard all around. In Ancient Greek Theater, it was not unusual to only have one individual acting as all characters. Even when the use of more than one actor occurred seldom were there more than two or three actors used to convey the story. Another difference is
Bibliography: Aylen, Leo. The Greek Theater. New Jersey: Associated University Press, Inc., 1985. Butler, James H. The Theater and Drama of Greece and Rome. San Francisco: Chandler publishing Company, 1972. Green, Richard, Handley Eric. Images of the Greek Theatre. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995. Webster, T.B.L. Greek Theatre Production. Great Britain, Barnes and Noble Inc., 1970. The Construction of an Ancient Theatre. 14 Apr. 2001. Word Count: 1217