Contrast Between Ancient Greek Theatre “Antigone” and Modern Russian Theatre in “the Cherry Orchard”.
Contrast between Ancient Greek Theatre “Antigone” and Modern Russian Theatre in “The Cherry Orchard”.
Theatre which is a main source of entertainment has made various stories in her womb regarding theatres in all over the world like African, Yoruba theatre, Asian Theatre, Middle-East Theatre and Western Theatre like Greek Theatres and Modern Russian Theatre. First of all, Greek theatre seems to have its roots in religious celebration that incorporated song and dance. Like this Greek theater shadowed by the religious aspects of the Greeks we can easily find the reflections of religious beliefs in the plays of Homer, Iliad, Euripides, Aeschylus and Sophocles. Later, a Greek philosopher who was student of Plato revealed six essential elements of theater through his seminal theatrical critique ‘Poetics’. These elements are Plot, Character, Idea, Language, Music and Spectacle. Where as in theatrical revolution of modern Russian theatre Moscow Art theatre, founded by Stanislavsky, played a very important role and drew all the wide ranges of influences and ideas, including his work and his study of modernism, naturalism, realism and symbolism. The experiment of realism makes a wide gap and contrast between Greek and Russian theatres.
In the sixth century Athenians transformed their rural celebrations of Dionysus or Bacchus into an urban festival with dancing choruses. Later it came in very uniform way of theatre and they made many experiments with this theatre using chorus with masked actors, heavy costumes, orchestra and stories related to their gods and goddesses. The reflection of these changes we can easily see in Antigone. However, in the modern plays whether it is Chekov or Henrik Ibsen who only tried to show the mirror through their works which led to their work to extreme of realism. While ancient plays which were only stuck with the religious issues and their perceptions, the modern plays, which we find in Moscow Art Theater, brought many changes in their
Theatre which is a main source of entertainment has made various stories in her womb regarding theatres in all over the world like African, Yoruba theatre, Asian Theatre, Middle-East Theatre and Western Theatre like Greek Theatres and Modern Russian Theatre. First of all, Greek theatre seems to have its roots in religious celebration that incorporated song and dance. Like this Greek theater shadowed by the religious aspects of the Greeks we can easily find the reflections of religious beliefs in the plays of Homer, Iliad, Euripides, Aeschylus and Sophocles. Later, a Greek philosopher who was student of Plato revealed six essential elements of theater through his seminal theatrical critique ‘Poetics’. These elements are Plot, Character, Idea, Language, Music and Spectacle. Where as in theatrical revolution of modern Russian theatre Moscow Art theatre, founded by Stanislavsky, played a very important role and drew all the wide ranges of influences and ideas, including his work and his study of modernism, naturalism, realism and symbolism. The experiment of realism makes a wide gap and contrast between Greek and Russian theatres.
In the sixth century Athenians transformed their rural celebrations of Dionysus or Bacchus into an urban festival with dancing choruses. Later it came in very uniform way of theatre and they made many experiments with this theatre using chorus with masked actors, heavy costumes, orchestra and stories related to their gods and goddesses. The reflection of these changes we can easily see in Antigone. However, in the modern plays whether it is Chekov or Henrik Ibsen who only tried to show the mirror through their works which led to their work to extreme of realism. While ancient plays which were only stuck with the religious issues and their perceptions, the modern plays, which we find in Moscow Art Theater, brought many changes in their
Bibliography: (i) Antigone written by Sophocles line 397, 1124 and line 813 (ii) Leo Tolstoy from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy (iii) Errol Durbach’s comments on Chekov http://www.theatre.ubc.ca/cherry_orchard/subject_chekhov_vishnevyi_sad.htm (iv) Stanislavsky’s Comments, Cambridge University Press http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521825931&ss=exc