Notes on Drama

FINAL PERIOD

ELEMENTS OF DRAMA
Drama comes from Greek words meaning "to do" or "to act." A play is a story acted out. It shows people going through some eventful period in their lives, seriously or humorously. The speech and action of a play recreate the flow of human life. A play comes fully to life only on the stage. On the stage it combines many arts those of the author, director, actor, designer, and others. Dramatic performance involves an intricate process of rehearsal based upon imagery inherent in the dramatic text. A playwright first invents a drama out of mental imagery. The dramatic text presents the drama as a range of verbal imagery. The language of drama can range between great extremes: on the one hand, an intensely theatrical and ritualistic manner; and on the other, an almost exact reproduction of real life. A dramatic monologue is a type of lyrical poem or narrative piece that has a person speaking to a select listener and revealing his character in a dramatic situation.
ELEMENTS OF DRAMA
The essential elements of drama are:
CHARACTER : Most simply a character is one of the persons who appears in the play, one of the dramatis personae (literally, the persons of the play). In another sense of the term, the treatment of the character is the basic part of the playwright 's work. Conventions of the period and the author 's personal vision will affect the treatment of character.
Most plays contain major characters and minor characters. The development of major characters is essential to the play; the conflict between Hamlet and Claudius depends upon the character of each. A minor character like Marcellus serves a specific function, to inform Hamlet of the appearance of his father 's ghost. He can depart, after having done that, in peace and we need not know what sort of person he is or what happens to him. The distinction between major and minor characters is one of degree, as the character of Horatio might illustrate.
The distinction between heroes (or heroines) and villains, between good guys and bad guys, between virtue and vice is useful in dealing with certain types of plays, but in many modern plays (and some not so modern) it is difficult to make.
PLOT : It refers to the order of the events that happen in a play. In actuality it refers to what happens rather than what it means. The plot is usually structured with acts and scenes and the action and movement in the play begins from the initial entanglement, through rising action, climax, and falling action to resolution. The interest generated by the plot varies for different kinds of plays. The plot of the drama is shown in the `through-line` of the drama - its beginning, middle and end - although it does not have to be presented in a linear structure. The characters in a play are also part of the plot. The action of the drama consists in the events that the characters take part in as they act the play. The content of the drama lies in the themes it deals with. Bullying, the responsibilities of power and the bravery of ordinary people are examples.
THEME : The plot has been called the body of a play and the theme has been called its soul. Most plays have a conflict of some kind between individuals, between man and society, man and some superior force or man and himself. The events that this conflict provokes make up the plot. One of the first items of interest is the playwrights’ treatment of the plot and what he would draw from it. The same plots have been and will be used many times; it is the treatment that supplies each effort with originality or artistic worth. Shakespeare is said to have borrowed all but one of his stories, but he presented them so much better than any of the previous authors that he is not seriously criticized for the borrowing. The treatment of theme is equally varied.
The same theme or story may be given a very serious or a very light touch. It may be a severe indictment or a tongue-in- cheek attack. It could point up a great lesson or show the same situation as a handicap to progress. The personality, background and social or artistic temperament of the playwright are responsible for the treatment that he gives to his story or theme. We must, therefore, both understand and evaluate these factors.
If a play has a theme, we should be able to state it in general terms and in a single sentence, even at the risk of oversimplification. The theme of Hamlet is usually stated as the failure of a youth of poetic temperament to cope with circumstances that demand action. The theme of Macbeth is that too much ambition leads to destruction; that he who strives hardest to find happiness oftentimes finds the least; and of Green pastures, which even God must change with the universe.
DIALOGUE : Dialogue provides the substance of a play. Each word uttered by the character furthers the business of the play, contributes to its effect as a whole. Therefore, a sense of DECORUM must be established by the characters, ie., what is said is appropriate to the role and situation of a character. Also the exposition of the play often falls on the dialogue of the characters. Remember exposition establishes the relationships, tensions or conflicts from which later plot developments derive.
CONVENTION : This means what the playwright employs are determined at least in part by dramatic convention. Greek: Playwrights of this era often worked with familiar story material, legends, about gods and famous families that the audience was familiar with. Since the audience was familiar with certain aspects of these, the playwrights used allusion rather than explicit exposition. In representing action, they often relied on messengers to report off-stage action. For interpretation the Greeks relied on the CHORUS, a body of onlookers, usually citizens or elders, whose comments on the play reflected reactions common to the community. These plays were written in metered verse arranged in elaborate stanzas. This required intense attention from the audience. Minor characters play an important role in providing information and guiding interpretation. The confidant, a friend or servant, listens to the complaints, plans and reminiscences of a major character. Minor characters casually comment among themselves on major characters and plot development. Extended soliloquy enables a major character to reveal his thoughts in much greater detail than in natural dialogue. ASIDES, remarks made to the audience but not heard by those on the stage, are common. Realism: Toward the end of the nineteenth century, realistic depiction of everyday life entered the genre of drama, whereas the characters may be unconventional and their thoughts turbulent and fantasy-ridden. Contemporary: Experimentation seems to be the key word here. A NARRATOR replaces the messenger, the chorus and the confidant. FLASHBACKS often substitute for narration. Many contemporary playwrights have abandoned recognizable setting, chronological sequence and characterization through dialogue
GENRE : Genre is a term that describes works of literature according to their shared thematic or structural characteristics. The attempt to classify literature in this way was initiated by Aristotle in the Poetics, where he distinguishes tragedy, epic, and comedy and recognizes even more fundamental distinctions between drama, epic, and lyric poetry. Classical genre theory, established by Aristotle and reinforced by Horace, is regulative and prescriptive, attempting to maintain rigid boundaries that correspond to social differences. Thus, tragedy and epic are concerned exclusively with the affairs of the nobility, comedy with the middle or lower classes.
AUDIENCE : It is the act or chance of hearing; a reception by a great person; the person to hear. Playhouse, script, actors, scene, audience are inseparable parts of the theatre. The concept of drama insists that the audience have an indispensable role to play. Every man, women, or child who has expressed an opinion concerning a dramatic performance has, in a sense, proclaim himself to be a critic. Whether his reaction has been good or bad, his opinion will have some effect on the thinking of those who have heard or read his comment, and what have been said will become a part of the production 's history. The statement may have been inadvertent, biased, unfair, without thought or foundation, but once spoken or repeated, it cease to be just an opinion and is accepted as a fact. Who has not heard, accepted, repeated, and been affected by such generalization as: "They say its terrible!" or "They say its terrific!"
STAGE CRAFT : The stage creates its effects in spite of, and in part because of, definite physical limitations. Setting and action tend to be suggestive rather than panoramic or colossal. Both setting and action may be little more than hints for the spectator to fill out.
SYMBOLS : Dramas are produced to a great extent through the use of symbols - or representations - standing in for real things. Many of the following can be understood as symbols; like props, gestures, expressions, costume, lighting and setting.
CONTRAST : The use of contrast in drama productions like stillness contrasted with activity, or silence contrasted with noise - is a useful way to focus the audience’s attention. A drama being played with no change of pace or rhythm, mostly fails to hold on to the audience’s interest, but can be brought to life with the use of contrasting sights and sounds. An example of such contrast could be in a courtroom drama.
DRAMATIC STRUCTURE : It refers to the form of drama and the way the story is told, the way the characters play their parts, and/or the way the themes are explored. Dramatic structure involves the overall framework or method by which the playwright uses to organize the dramatic material and or action. It is important for playwrights to establish themes but the challenge comes in applying structure to the ideas and inspirations. Understanding basic principles of dramatic structure can be invaluable to the playwright. Most modern plays are structured into acts that can be further divided into scenes. The pattern most often used is a method by where the playwright sets up early on in the beginning scenes all of the necessary conditions and situations out of which the later conditions will develop. Generally the wants and desires of one character will conflict with another character. With this method the playwright establishes a pattern of complication, rising action, climax, and resolution. This is commonly known as cause to effect arrangement of incidents.
MUSIC : It means the sound, rhythm and melody of the speeches. Music can encompass the rhythm of dialogue and speeches in a play or can also mean the aspects of the melody and music compositions as with musical theatre. Each theatrical presentation delivers music, rhythm and melody in its own distinctive manner. But, music can be included to mean all sounds in a production. Music can expand to all sound effects, the actor’s voices, songs, and instrumental music played as underscore in a play. In the aspects of the musical the songs are used to push the plot forward and move the story to a higher level of intensity. Composers and lyricists work together with playwrights to strengthen the themes and ideas of the play. Character’s wants and desires can be strengthened for the audience through lyrics and music.
SPECTACLE : The spectacle in the theatre can involve all of the aspects of visual elements of the production of a play; the scenery, costumes, and special effects in a production. The visual elements of the play created for theatrical event. The qualities determined by the playwright that create the world and atmosphere of the play for the audience’s eye. It also refers to the shaping of dramatic material, setting, or costumes in a specific manner. Each play will have its own unique and distinctive behaviors, dress, and language of the characters. The style of a playwright is shown in the choices made in the world of the play: the kinds of characters, time periods, settings, language, methods of characterization, use of symbols, and themes.
Aristotle was born in Stagirus, Macedonia, Greece in 384 BC and died 62 years later in 322 BC. He was a student at Plato 's Academy and later became one of the greatest philosophers of Ancient Greece. In one of his treatises, The Poetics, he outlines the Six Elements of Drama, based on the Ancient Greek belief that tragedy was the highest form of Drama. This outline has become a guideline for many playwrights throughout history, and is especially emphasized in the works of William Shakespeare.
Aristotle’s Definition of Tragedy

“A tragedy is the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself; in appropriate and pleasurable language;... in a dramatic rather than narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish a catharsis of these emotions.”
Aristotles Six Elements of Drama
PLOT – what happens in a play; the order of events, the story as opposed to the theme; what happens rather than what it means.
THEME – what the play means as opposed to what happens (plot); the main idea within the play.
CHARACTER – the personality or the part an actor represents in a play; a role played by an actor in a play.
DICTION/LANGUAGE/DIALOGUE – the word choices made by the playwright and the enunciation of the actors delivering the lines.
MUSIC/RHYTHM – by music Aristotle meant the sound, rhythm and melody of the speeches.
SPECTACLE – the visual elements of the production of a play; the scenery, costumes, and special effects in a production.
Freytag
Gustav Freytag was a German writer and critic born in Kreuzburg, Silesia, in July of 1816, and died in 1895. In his book Technique of the Drama (1863), he proposed a method of analyzing plots derived from Aristotle 's concept of unity of action that came to be known as Freytag 's Triangle or Freytag 's Pyramid.
Freytag 's Triangle
[pic]

III. DISCUSSION
In a strict sense, plays are classified as being either tragedies or comedies.
The broad difference between the two is in the ending. Comedies end happily. Tragedies end on an unhappy note.
The tragedy acts as a purge. It arouses our pity for the stricken one and our terror that we ourselves may be struck down. As the play closes we are washed clean of these emotions and we feel better for the experience. A classical tragedy tells of a high and noble person who falls because of a "tragic flaw," a weakness in his own character. A domestic tragedy concerns the lives of ordinary people brought low by circumstances beyond their control. Domestic tragedy may be realistic seemingly true to life or naturalistic realistic and on the seamy side of life. A romantic comedy is a love story. The main characters are lovers; the secondary characters are comic. In the end the lovers are always united. Farce is comedy at its broadest. Much fun and horseplay enliven the action. The comedy of manners, or artificial comedy, is subtle, witty, and often mocking. Sentimental comedy mixes sentimental emotion with its humor. Melodrama has a plot filled with pathos and menacing threats by a villain, but it does include comic relief and has a happy ending. It depends upon physical action rather than upon character probing. Tragic or comic, the action of the play comes from conflict of characters how the stage people react to each other. These reactions make the play.
V.REFERENCES :
Durant, Will & Ariel Durant. 1963 The Story of Civilization, Volume II: The Life of Greece. 11 vols. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Banham, Martin, ed. 1998. The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

EARLY DRAMA

Drama comes from Greek words meaning "to do" or "to act." A play is a story acted out. It shows people going through some eventful period in their lives, seriously or humorously. The speech and action of a play recreate the flow of human life. A play comes fully to life only on the stage. On the stage it combines many arts those of the author, director, actor, designer, and others. Dramatic performance involves an intricate process of rehearsal based upon imagery inherent in the dramatic text. A playwright first invents a drama out of mental imagery. The dramatic text presents the drama as a range of verbal imagery. The language of drama can range between great extremes: on the one hand, an intensely theatrical and ritualistic manner; and on the other, an almost exact reproduction of real life. A dramatic monologue is a type of lyrical poem or narrative piece that has a person speaking to a select listener and revealing his character in a dramatic situation.
EARLY DRAMA
DRAMA (from the Greek dran — to do) is described as an art form dealing with beauty particularly as it is found in the imitation of human action from nature. It is also defined as a story presented on the stage by actors impersonating characters in a given situation. This story, written in the form of dialogue, is called the play. Unlike other literary works, the drama involves three other elements aside from the playwright and his play, namely, a theater, actors (and director), and an audience.

The term drama may also refer to the whole body of works written for the theater.
Drama is written either in poetry or in prose, or sometimes in a combination of both. Most of the drama from the ancient times to the nineteenth century is generally in poetic form: modern and contemporary, drama is usually in prose, although some of today’s playwright have chosen to write plays in verse
In the same way that the full beauty of poetry is achieved when it is read aloud, the artistic and authentic values of drama are fully realized when it is acted before an audience.

I. Types of Drama. The general and traditional classification of the drama is into tragedy and comedy, but there are other types that fall under each, the more popular of which will be taken here:
A. Tragedy. The classified definition of tragedy as elucidated in Aristoctle’s Poetics is the imitation of an action which is serious, complete and with a certain magnitude; in language embellished by every artistic ornament.., in the form of action, not narrative, through pity and fear effecting the purgation of such emotions”.
The tragic hero is a man of high estate, and the action usually culminates unhappily in his death, or in some catastrophe or disaster, but somehow the struggle of the protagonist or hero against the conflict (which arises from nature, from other persons, or from himself) is such that is affirms his capacity for greatness. In modern tragedies, however, the tragic hero is not necessarily high-born, but he maintains a “nobility of character” in the midst of the conflict and in its usually unhappy conclusion.
The hero has a tragic flaw or weakness which may manifest itself as pride, rashness of judgement, indecision, or some such similar imperfections; or he may make a wrong choice which will play a large part in his downfall.
This type of tragedy is sometimes called pure or true tragedy. Examples are Oedipus Rex and Antigone by Sophocles; Macbeth King Lear, Othello, Hamlet by William Shakespeare; A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams; The Death of the Salesman and The Crucible by Arthur miller, Phaedre by Jean Racine; the Father by August Strindberg; Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot; the First-Born by Christopher Fry.
1. Serious Drama. This refers to drama which may have tragic overtones or details, and a general tone of seriousness, but which may not end in catastrophe for the protagonist The conclusion may even be hopeful. The protagonists are ordinary men and women, as contrasted with the tragic heroes of classical tragedy. Serious drama, usually written in prose, is a fitting description for many modern non-comic plays written in the realistic style.

2. Tragicomedy. This has similar characteristics to serious drama and was prevalent sometime in the
17th and 18th century, especially in the theatre of England. Tragicomedy, as the name implies, was a combination of the tragic and comic, and was described then as a play “lacking deaths but bringing some near it (death), which was enough to make it a comedy”. At present, this term is sometimes used for plays belonging to the category of serious drama.
3. Melodrama. This type is serious in tone but characterized by the sensational and the theatrical. Characters and situations are somewhat exagerated to produce an excessive appeal to the emotions of the audience. Characterizations is usually superficial: the heroes are very good and the villains, very bad. There is a predominance of physical movement, and it generally ends in a contrived triumph over unlikely circumstances.
Melodrama is a popular form in cinema and television drama. It also includes scripts with supernatural, horror, murder, mystery and action plots.
B. Comedy. Comedy is drama which portrays the lighter and brighter aspect of life and is meant to evoke laughter. It deals with human folly and foibles which are neither painful not destructive. The conflict involved is fortunately solved to give the play a happy ending. The plot is generally sustained and credible, its dialogue witty, its character realistic, and physical action generally subdued.
The comic interest may originate from the specific traits of a character (comedy of humours or comedy of character); from the situation of a plot (comedy of situation); from the manners, customs, and lifestyle of a particular class of society or used in the Farce but with the use of exaggeration.
Farce “is to comedy what melodrama is to tragedy”. Highly exaggerated character types are placed in ridiculous and improbable situations intended to produce broad and boisterous laughter. The dialogue is not subtle and may be coarse or contrived; there is a predominance of physical action, sometimes called slapstick. Farce has the same sources comic interest as the comedy; the difference lies in its presentation.

II. STYLE OF DRAMA. The basic style used by the playwright in his approach to and presentation of the subject matter of his plays are the realistic and the non-realistic.
A. The Realistic or Illusionistic or Representation Style. This style presents the play happening as close to reality as possible, in the manner of actual life; as though the characters in the play were acting within four walls (the fourth wall being the imaginary wall between the actors and the audience) and being watched through a “peep-hole”. The setting, character, plot and language are those that one might encounter in real life. There is an attempt to give an illusion of representation of reality. A realistic play does not always have an explicit, clear ending. The curtain may fall, but the life depicted in the play may go on, for better or for worse. Most modern plays, especially those written from the time of the playwright. Henrik Ibsen (mid-l9th century) are realistic.

B. The Non-Realistic or Non-Realistic or Presentation Style This style is theatrical. The play is directly presented to the audience by the playwright as a play there is no attempt to portray the situations as though they were actually happening in real life with the audience (or reader) merely “eavesdropping”:
Thus, there may be a chorus, or a narrator, character delivering their dialogue in verse or directly addressing the audience, and dancing and singing interspersed with dialogue. Mime may also be used, and dramatic convention such as soliloquies and asides, or a stage set and lighting that do not give a perspective of real life.
Non-realistic plays include Oriental plays, classical Greek and Roman plays, Shakespearean plays, and other types of drama from the ancient times to the time of Ibsen. At present, however, a growing number of playwrights are writing in the non-realistic style because it challenges their imagination and their creative skills.

DISCUSSION :
The Greeks ' history began around 700 B.C. with festivals honoring their many gods. The Greek drama began as a religious observance in honour of Dionysus. To the Greeks this god personified both spring and the vintage, the latter a very important time of year in a vine-growing country, and he was a symbol to them of that power there is in man of rising out of himself, of being impelled onwards by a joy within him that he cannot explain, but which makes him go forward, walking, as it were, on the wings of the wind, of the spirit that fills him with a deep sense of worship. We call this power enthusiasm , a Greek word which simply means the god within us. Originally, the story was told in the form of a song, chanted at first by everyone taking part in the festival, and later by a chorus of about fifty performers. By degrees the recitation became of greater importance than the song; it grew longer, and at the same time the chorus became smaller and of less importance in the action of the drama, until at last it could consist of only fifteen performers
Four Qualities of Greek Drama:
1. Performed for special occasions (festivals)
Athens had four festivals worshipping Dionysus -- (Bacchus in Latin, Roman) god of wine, fertility, rebirth. The son of Zeus [a god] and Semele [a mortal], reared by satyrs, killed, dismembered, and resurrected (was actually reborn) --
Competitive -- prizes awarded
Actors and playwrights competed --Oedipus apparently didn 't win (was 2nd) -- 430 B.C.
3. Choral -- singing seems to have been an important part
A chorus of men (varied in size form 3 to 50) -- many think the choral song -- dithyramb-- was the beginnings of Greek drama (but origins are unclear)
4. Closely associated with religion - stories based on myth or history
Some believe the chorus sang, moved, danced. Most believe the chorus underscored the ideas of the play, provided point-of-view, and focused on issues of the play and implications of the action, established the play 's ethical system, and participated in the action
In a strict sense, plays are classified as being either tragedies or comedies. The broad difference between the two is in the ending. Comedies end happily. Tragedies end on an unhappy note. The tragedy acts as a purge. It arouses our pity for the stricken one and our terror that we ourselves may be struck down. As the play closes we are washed clean of these emotions and we feel better for the experience. A classical tragedy tells of a high and noble person who falls because of a "tragic flaw," a weakness in his own character. A domestic tragedy concerns the lives of ordinary people brought low by circumstances beyond their control. Domestic tragedy may be realistic seemingly true to life or naturalistic realistic and on the seamy side of life. A romantic comedy is a love story. The main characters are lovers; the secondary characters are comic. In the end the lovers are always united. Farce is comedy at its broadest. Much fun and horseplay enliven the action. The comedy of manners, or artificial comedy, is subtle, witty, and often mocking. Sentimental comedy mixes sentimental emotion with its humor. Melodrama has a plot filled with pathos and menacing threats by a villain, but it does include comic relief and has a happy ending. It depends upon physical action rather than upon character probing. Tragic or comic, the action of the play comes from conflict of characters how the stage people react to each other. These reactions make the play.
REFERENCES :
The Origins and Early Forms of Greek Tragedy, Cambridge, MA 1965.
Sourvinou-Inwood, Christiane, Tragedy and Athenian Religion, Oxford:University Press 2003.
Davidson, J.A., Literature and Literacy in Ancient Greece, Part 1, Phoenix, 16, 1962, pp. 141-56.

GREEK TRAGEDIES

Ancient cultures provide some of our deepest connections to the humanities, drawing life from that distant time when the study of history, philosophy, arts, literature, and language itself began. Through this lesson, students can return to those times, re-enter that age of discovery, and learn from their study the timeless nature of the human condition and the profound effects of the human drama on people of any era.
This lesson begins with the study of the origins of Greek tragedy and the universal issues it raises about power, gender, family obligation, ethics, and honor. It then moves to an exploration of ancient Greece theatre, accents the importance of theater and its staging, the nature of tragedy in this culture, and culminates in the perusal of the dramatic conventions of Greek tragedy.
GREEK TRAGEDIES
GENRE : The word "tragedy" refers primarily to tragic drama: a literary composition written to be performed by actors in which a central character called a tragic protagonist or hero suffers some serious misfortune which is not accidental and therefore meaningless, but is significant in that the misfortune is logically connected with the hero 's actions. Tragedy stresses the vulnerability of human beings whose suffering is brought on by a combination of human and divine actions, but is generally undeserved with regard to its harshness. This genre, however, is not totally pessimistic in its outlook. Although many tragedies end in misery for the characters, there are also tragedies in which a satisfactory solution of the tragic situation is attained.
DEFINITION : Tragedy depicts the downfall of a noble hero or heroine, usually through some combination of hubris, fate, and the will of the gods. The tragic hero 's powerful wish to achieve some goal inevitably encounters limits, usually those of human frailty (flaws in reason, hubris, society), the gods (through oracles, prophets, fate), or nature. Aristotle says that the tragic hero should have a flaw and/or make some mistake (hamartia). The hero need not die at the end, but he / she must undergo a change in fortune. In addition, the tragic hero may achieve some revelation or recognition (anagnorisis--"knowing again" or "knowing back" or "knowing throughout" ) about human fate, destiny, and the will of the gods. Aristotle quite nicely terms this sort of recognition "a change from ignorance to awareness of a bond of love or hate."
ACTORS : The actors in tragedy were hired and paid by the state and assigned to the tragic poets probably by lot. By the middle of the fifth century three actors were required for the performance of a tragedy. In descending order of importance of the roles they assumed they were called the protagonist2 `first actor ', (a term also applied in modern literary criticism to the central character of a play), deuteragonist `second actor ' and tritagonist `third actor '. The protagonist took the role of the most important character in the play while the other two actors played the lesser roles. Since most plays have more than two or three characters (although never more than three speaking actors in the same scene), all three actors played multiple roles.
Since women were not allowed to take part in dramatic productions, male actors had to play female roles. The playing of multiple roles, both male and female, was made possible by the use of masks, which prevented the audience from identifying the face of any actor with one specific character in the play and helped eliminate the physical incongruity of men impersonating women. The masks with subtle variations also helped the audience identify the sex, age, and social rank of the characters. The main duty of an actor was, of course, to speak the dialogue assigned to his characters. This, however, was not the only responsibility of the actor. He occasionally had to sing songs solo or with the chorus or with other actors (e.g., a song of lament called a kommos). The combination of acting and singing ability must have been as rare in the ancient world as it is today.
CHORUS : The chorus is not one of the conventions of modern tragedy. We associate the chorus with such musical forms as opera, musical comedy and oratorio. But tragedy was not just straight drama. It was interspersed with songs sung both by actors and chorus and also with dancing by the chorus. The modern parallel for tragedy is actually opera (along with its descendant, musical comedy), which is a dramatic form containing song and dance.
The chorus, unlike the actors, was non-professionals who had a talent for singing and dancing and were trained by the poet in preparation for the performance. The standard number of members of a chorus was twelve throughout most of Aeschylus 's career, but was raised to fifteen by Sophocles. The chorus, like the actors, wore costumes and masks.
The first function of a tragic chorus was to chant an entrance song called a parodos as they marched into the orchestra. The entrance song took its name from the two ramps (parodoi) on either side of the orchestra which the chorus used as it made its way into the orchestra. Once the chorus had taken its position in the orchestra, its duties were twofold. It engaged in dialogue with characters through its leader, the Coryphaeus, who alone spoke the lines of dialogue assigned to the chorus. The tragic chorus 's most important function was to sing and dance choral songs called stasima (singular = stasimon).
STRUCTURE : Tragedy has a characteristic structure in which scenes of dialogue alternate with choral songs. This arrangement allows the chorus to comment in its song in a general way on what has been said and/or done in the preceding scene. Most tragedies begin with an opening scene of expository dialogue or monologue called a prologue.
After the prologue the chorus marches into the orchestra chanting the parodos. Then follows a scene of dialogue called an episode, which in turn is followed by the first stasimon. The alternation of episode and stasimon continues until the last stasimon, after which there is a final scene of dialogue called an exodos `exit ' scene '. The exodos is in general a scene of dialogue, but, as in the case of episodes, sometimes songs are included, especially in the form of a kommos.
Here is the structure of a typical tragedy (some tragedies have one more or one less episode and stasimon)3 :
Prologue
Parodos
First Episode
First Stasimon
Second Episode
Second Stasimon
Third Episode
Third Stasimon
Fourth Episode
Fourth Stasimon
Exodos
Dramatic Conventions of Greek Tragedy:
1. Continuous presence of the chorus after the prologue; no intermissions
2. No interior scenes
3. No lighting effects
4. No acts of violence before the audience
5. Mythological subjects; the audience is familiar with the main outlines of the plot in advance
6. Poetic form
7. Actors: (a) only males; (b) wore conventional costumes - masks and cothornus (a high thick-soled boot worn by actors in ancient Greek and Roman tragedy); (c) sometimes spoke in stichomythia (dialogue in brief, alternate lines -- sometimes approximating actual conversation, sometimes building to an emotional climax; (d) would sing occasional arias
8. Frequent use of a messenger
The three greatest tragedians (writers of tragedy) in Athens were Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. They all wrote during the 5th century. Aeschylus added the second actor to tragedy, thereby reducing the importance of the chorus, and he improved the scenery and costuming. He also was the first to compose a real trilogy, that is, to develop a single myth through all the tragedies he presented on a single day. He is best known for his confidence in divine and Athenian justice, his devotion to religion, and his grandiloquent style.
Sophocles increased the size of the chorus from twelve to fifteen members, added a third actor, and first used scene painting. He is usually considered to display a more profoundly tragic view of life than Aeschylus or Euripides.
Euripides, who was only a little younger than Sophocles, is primarily noted for his profoundly critical and skeptical attitude toward gods and religion, and toward human motives and vices; especially noteworthy are his analyses of women 's passions.
DISCUSSION :
Greek tragedies were performed in late March/early April at an annual state religious festival in honor of Dionysus. The presentation took the form of a contest between three playwrights, who presented their works on three successive days. Each playwright would prepare a trilogy of tragedies, plus an unrelated concluding comic piece called a satyr play. Often, the three plays featured linked stories, but later writers like Euripides may have presented three unrelated plays. Only one complete trilogy has survived, the Oresteia of Aeschylus. The Greek theatre was in the open air, on the side of a hill, and performances of a trilogy and satyr play probably lasted most of the day. Performances were apparently open to all citizens, including women, but evidence is scanty. The theatre of Dionysus at Athens probably held around 12,000 people (Ley 33-34).
The presentation of the plays probably resembled modern opera more than what we think of as a "play." All of the choral parts were sung (to flute accompaniment) and some of the actors ' answers to the chorus were sung as well. The play as a whole was composed in various verse meters. All actors were male and wore masks, which may have had some amplifying capabilities. A Greek chorus danced as well as sang. (The Greek word choros means "a dance in a ring.") No one knows exactly what sorts of steps the chorus performed as it sang. But choral songs in tragedy are often divided into three sections: strophe ("turning, circling"), antistrophe ("counter-turning, counter-circling") and epode ("after-song"). So perhaps the chorus would dance one way around the orchestra ("dancing-floor") while singing the strophe, turn another way during the antistrophe, and then stand still during the epode.
Plays in Athens were not simply entertainment. They were performed as the city 's form of worshiping a god. All citizens attended; the state paid the admission price for the poor. The main festival for presenting tragedies was the City Dionysia, held in late March to early April as part of a fertility rite. Poets submitted their plays to the archon, the highest official in the Athenian government. He chose from these and assigned each chosen poet a chorus and a choregus. The choregus was a wealthy citizen who had the honor of being taxed by the polis(the city state form of government) to pay the (high) cost of production: rehearsals, costumes and equipment.
REFERENCES :
Xavier Riu, Dionysism and Comedy, 1999
Justina Gregory (ed.), A Companion to Greek Tragedy, 2005.
Felski, Rita (ed.), Rethinking Tragedy (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008). Pp. viii, 368.

References: : Xavier Riu, Dionysism and Comedy, 1999 Justina Gregory (ed.), A Companion to Greek Tragedy, 2005. Felski, Rita (ed.), Rethinking Tragedy (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008). Pp. viii, 368.