Choruses can be characters themselves, with their own biases and preoccupations. The chorus may be neutral or even hostile toward certain characters. The chorus may listen, then voice internal thoughts of the character. They may not always make sense and are often incorrect in their assessment. They can represent the voice of the common man or word on the street. The chorus often represent the “home crowd” of where the story is set. The chorus had 12-15 masked dancers with one leader who could speak. The choral passages were in extremely complex meters, sung and accompanied by elaborate choreography. Greek drama was always composed of verse mostly elements of iambic. The second technique is called stichomythia (line-speech) where each character says one line and they go back and forth. Two important dialogue techniques: agon (contest or struggle) in which one character makes a long speech representing one side of an argument, then the other character has a long speech representing the opposite side. Facial expressions were irrelevant, so body language, gestures, and voice projection were all-important. ![]() All actors wore masks and played multiple roles, for there were only two or three actors on the stage. The mechane was a pulley system that allowed actors to appear and disappear by air. ![]() The ekkuklema could roll out and was conventionally used to show interior space, bringing the indoors out. A wooden platform and building, or skene, represented interior space. Wooden benches rose up the slope on three sides. The theater was in the open air with the orchestra at the lowest point in the valley. The audience was mostly male and all the cast members were male. The writer of the play sometimes did everything, even act in his own play. The costumes, gestures, music, props, and visual effects all worked together to create an overall effect. Words were only a small part of these plays. The only complete works of Greek drama that have survived are a small selection of tragedies from Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides with a few comedies by Aristophanes. Most of the works from this time are lost. Dramatists learned from Homer how to create vivid dialogue and fast exciting narrative, as well as sympathy for a range of different characters. ![]() Many tragedies dealt with heroes who fought in the Trojan War. One person stepping out from the chorus changed the entire direction of theater from then on.Īthenians loved the performance of poetry contests and the Homeric poems were an essential model for later drama. He “stepped out of the Chorus” creating a part for a single actor who could talk back to the chorus. Thespis was the name of a person from whom we get thespian who is traditionally said to have invented tragedy in the year 534 B.C. Tragedy, or “goat song” is a genre that originated as part of a ritual goat sacrifice or one was offered as a prize. These festivals celebrated the subversive outsiders.Ĭomedy comes from komos, the Greek idea of a drunken procession. Festivals like the Great Dionysia and the Lernaea incorporated both comedy and tragedy. New plays were performed at festivals involving dance, drama, music, open-air spectacles, poetry, politics, religion, and slapstick. Greek drama was performed differently than we experience it today. human perspectives, family, human relationships, justice, state, suffering, and violent/melodramatic plots.
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