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Types of Plays:
Greek Tragedy
Greek Comedy
Greek Satyr
Stage Setup
Parts of the theater
Types of Plays
There were three types of drama composed in Athens: tragedy, comedy, and satyr plays. Drama started out as a form of religious ritual. Later it became more of a form of entertainment for audiences. Greek drama has some of the same characteristics as religious ritual works do: explaining the relation of humans to God, of humans to the world, violence and its origins, and attempting to control the irrational and material worlds. However, Comedy isn’t necessarily looked on as “funny,” and neither is a tragedy always “tragic” in the same sense. The actors also wore masks in the comedy and tragedy plays.
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Greek Tragedy
Tragedy deals with big themes like love, loss, pride, abuse of power, and the relationships between gods and men. Usually the main character in the tragedy commits some type of horrible crime without realizing how foolish and arrogant he has been. Then, when he realizes his error, tragic things happen that he can’t control. Three of the greatest tragedians were Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The Aristotelian tradition defined tragedy as a drama about above average people, such as heroes, kings, or gods. Tragedy characters suffer a transition from good fortune to bad,and speak in an elevated language. It is believed that the purpose of tragedy is to purge the soul of “fear and pity.” Tragedy comes from the word ‘tragos’ which means goat. A tragedy received its name from how it was performed, because in tragedies actors would wear goatskins and dance like goats. The best performers were given a kid goat as a prize.
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Greek Comedy
Some of the first Greek comedies were mainly satirical, and they mocked men in power for their foolishness and vanity. One of the masters of comedy was the playwright Aristophanes. Later, Medander wrote comedies about ordinary people. The comedy style is based on the Aristotelian tradition that states that comedy concerns average, or below average, people who have a change for their bad circumstances to turn good. The characters speak everyday language, and this type of play is written to be realistic and believable.
A Greek comedy mask
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Greek Satyr
Satyr plays are usually short, and are performed between the acts of the tragedies. They make fun of the plight of the tragedy’s characters, but only sometimes do the satyrs relate to the tragedy. A satyr in mythology is a half-human, half-goat figure, and several of the actors would wear large phalluses for comic effect. There are few examples of this type of play that has survived of the years. Another name for them is a ‘tragicomic’ or comedy dramas.
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Stage setup
Every Greek theater is unique and has a distinctive setup. Originally, theatres were made to hold religious ceremonies. They had an altar, a tithing house, and a tiring house (dressing room). As the theater became more important, the setup began to evolve. The altar got smaller, the tithing house became a treasury, and the tiring house joined with the skene, the setting where actors performed. The tiring house also became an entrance and exit.
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Parts of the Theater
There are three major parts of the theatre: the skene, the orchestra, and the koilon, or theatron (parodos means "pathways"). The skene, a little like a modern stage, was the place where actors performed and was originally a hut, tent, or booth. It faced the audience and had entrances and exits for the actors. Inside a permanent skene, there were machines, such as the aeorema (a crane that enabled the gods to appear on stage). The periactoi, a machine that changed the background of the skene, was placed inside pillars on the left and right side of the stage. The ekeclema, a platform on wheels, was used to bring the bodies of the dead out to show the audience.
The Orchestra, or as it’s literally translated, “dancing place,” was a main part of the stage where the chorus danced at. The orchestra was located in the front of the skene and was the center of the theater.
The koilon (or theatron) was the auditorium of the theater where spectators sat to watch the performance. It was shaped in a semi-circle around the orchestra, and was divided into two levels (the upper and the lower).
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Theater of Dionysus
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