Drama

In literary terms, drama is a written work featuring poetic verse or prose designed to be performed in front of an audience. In ancient Greece, drama was at the core of community life. Greek playwrights used performance art not only to offer amusement or prompt introspection, but to investigate the world around them and study what it meant to be human. A Greek playwright was a cultural historian as well as an artist. He defined factual history for the masses and created a lasting record of Greek society.

Greek theatre, a likely evolution of the lyrical performance of ancient epic poetry, began in Athens when tragedy plays were performed at religious festivals. Tragedies rarely dealt with current events, but they did inspire the later Greek comedy plays, which tackled timely issues and satirized current public officials. These two main types of Greek drama proved extremely popular, and performances spread around the Mediterranean and influenced Hellenistic and Roman theatre.

Both Greek tragedies and comedies involved a limited number of actors and a chorus. They relied on the common tropes of mistaken identity, the battle of the sexes, and sex jokes. Because of their lasting popularity, the works of the great Greek playwrights laid the foundation on which all modern theatre is based.

When actors guilds formed in the third century BCE and professional troupes became mobile, Greek theatre spread across the Mediterranean with theatres becoming a common feature of the city landscape. Plays were later translated and imitated in Latin, and the genre paved the way for pantomime, a new art form from the first century BCE that was inspired by Greek tragedy. Theatre became firmly established as a popular form of entertainment that endures to the present day.

Background

The theatrical culture of ancient Greece flourished from about 700 BCE onward, when the city-state of Athens was the center of cultural power. Tragedy and comedy were born during this era, and both rose to prominence around 500 to 490 BCE

Greek drama’s origins are obscure and frequently debated, but have fascinated ancient Greeks from the fifth century BCE onward. Aristotle and other writers have proposed theories about the development of drama, including that the name drama was derived from the word drôntes, which means “doing” and which describes the activity of the characters.

Greek drama has two main genres—comedy and tragedy—plus a combination genre known as a satyr play, which some authors classify as tragicomic. Tragedy is considered the highest form of Greek drama, which evolved from the religious ceremonies in which masked participants sang songs in honor of gods such as Dionysus.

The first comedies were conventionally structured and employed satire to mock powerful people, including politicians, philosophers, and fellow artists, for vanity and foolishness. All performers were male.

The first master of comedy was Aristophanes, who lived about 460 to 380 BCE. He, along with Menander, 342 to 291 BCE, were among the most well-known Greek comic playwrights. Aristophanes helped to define the period of Old Comedy, in which the chorus and actors interacted directly with the audience and topical satire and lampoon were prominent. Aristophanes wrote more than forty plays, but only eleven survive intact.

Menander is credited with helping to create New Comedy and introducing a young romantic lead in his plays. New Comedy brought an increase in plot twists, heightened suspense, and treatment of common people with common people’s problems. New Comedy dominated the later period of ancient Greece, after Rome had reached its cultural height. Unlike the satire of high-ranking citizens and political issues, New Comedy focused on domestic issues as well as the romantic struggles of young city dwellers. It is considered a forerunner of the modern sitcom.

Comedies used choruses with as many as twenty-four performers singing and dancing and wearing outlandish costumes. Witty verbal debates between actors highlighted the second phases of the shows, which contained fantastical plot elements and involved quickly changing scenes. In the third phase of the play, the chorus directly addressed the audience before performing another song and dance routine in a finale. The poems of Hipponax from the sixth century BCE, and Archilocus from the seventh century BCE, with their crude sexual humor, were early sources for comic playwrights.

Tragedy, on the other hand, was almost always inspired by Greek mythology, which was usually part of Greek religion, and focused on themes of love, loss, pride, abuse of power, and relationships between people and gods. Complex moral questions were often at the heart of Greek tragedies. Moral issues tackled included the nature of moral responsibility, the conflict between the individual and society, and the character of the divine. Violence was not permitted, and the death of a character could not be seen, but only heard off stage. Typically the main protagonist committed a serious crime without realizing his own foolishness and arrogance. Tragic heroes often were brought down by a tragic character flaw.

The three great playwrights of Greek tragedy were Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, who were all associated with the Golden Age of Greece. When scholars reference the greatest playwrights of all time, they typically include these three.

Aeschylus, 525 BCE to 456 BCE, was known for his innovation. He was credited with more than eighty plays, but few survive today. He helped advance the development of scenery and costuming. Sophocles, 496 BCE to 406 BCE, became the first poet to exclusively write, rather than perform, his own plays. He also was known for his colorful scenery. Euripides, 484 BCE to 407 BCE, has been lauded for his clever dialogue and the thought-provoking awkward questions he posed to the audience. He was as productive as Aeschylus and Sophocles but less successful. His works included more social commentary than was typical at the time. A larger number of his plays—eighteen tragedies and one satyr play—have survived.

The earliest Greek tragedy plays were performed in open-air theatres and included just one actor, costumed and masked, who might speak to the leader of a chorus who sang and danced but did not himself speak. He also had to take on multiple roles and might do several costume changes. Later versions saw two, then three actors allowed on stage. Tragedy plays could have unlimited non-speaking performers. The use of masks allowed an actor to impersonate a god and hints at a possible link to earlier religious rituals that a priest might have carried out.

Tragedies had simple structures. A prologue was spoken before the chorus entered singing and dancing. Scenes then alternated between spoken dialogue and sung sections. The fourth-century BCE philosopher Aristotle argued that tragedy cleansed the heart through pity and terror, purging insignificant concerns in favor of an awareness about the nobility of suffering, which is known as catharsis.

The third, hybrid genre of Greek drama, satyr plays, were short plays performed between the acts of tragedies that poked fun at the tragedy's characters. The satyrs were mythical half-human, half-goat figures. Actors is satyr plays wore large phalluses for comic effect. Few examples of these plays survive today.

All Greek plays, unlike most plays in the modern United States, were outdoors. The audience could be seated or standing and would generally listen to a chorus sing about a god or hero. The orchestra, or dancing space, was typically circular and, in early times, made of hard earth. At the orchestra’s center was an altar. Spectators were housed in the theatron, or viewing place, which was usually part of a hillside overlooking the orchestra and wrapped around a large part of the orchestra. The skene was the backstage area from which actors entered and exited. It contained a roof allowing actors playing gods to appear on it if needed. The chorus and some actors entered and exited through the parodoi, or passageways.

Overview

In the library of great Greek theater, several plays stand out. Aeschylus, whose first play was performed when he was just twenty-six years old, is often recognized as the father of tragedy and arguably the founder of all significant Greek drama. He is credited with adding a second actor to Greek tragedy and reducing the role of the chorus. Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived intact. The most famous is The Oresteia Trilogy, which included Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides.

Aeschylus is credited with inventing the trilogy, a series of three tragedies that tell one long story. Trilogies were often performed sequentially over the course of a day, from sunrise to sunset. At the end of the last play, a satyr play lifted the spirits of those who had witnessed the heaviness of the preceding tragedies.

Aeschylus’ war story The Persians also is among his most notable and oldest surviving work. It was written after he was called into military service against the Persians for the second time in 480 BCE. He fought against Persian King Xerxes’ invading forces at the Battle of Salamis. This naval battle holds a prominent place in The Persians, which was performed in 472 BCE and won first prize at the Festival of Dionysus.

The Great Dionysia

This festival, also called the Great Dionysia, was the theatrical event of the year in fifth-century Athens and was considered the most important arts festival in the ancient world. In ancient Greece, religion played a major role in society. Because the gods were believed to have influenced everything, the people prioritized celebrating, worshipping, and making appropriate offerings to them.

Each March, in honor of the god of wine and festivals, the Great Dionysia brought together playwrights and spectators for seven days of performance and revelry. People from all over Greece attended.

Opening day brought a procession to the Theater of Dionysus bearing a wooden statue of the god as well as dithyramb competitions among choruses of men and boys representing the ten political tribes of Athens. Dithyrambs were epic poems that a chorus would chant in unison.

The most respected playwrights would present their works over the next three days—three tragedies and one satyr play apiece. In 487 BCE, another day of competition was added, with five playwrights presenting one comedy each.

The judges, one from each tribe, voted on the best performance in each competition. In 534 BCE, the festival's first award, a goat, was given to the actor and playwright Thespis. Thespis is credited as the first actor to speak to the audience and change costumes during a performance and is why actors are sometimes called thespians to this day.

On the festival’s last day, judges announced the winners and awarded prizes. An ivy wreath was given for first place. The festival was a precursor to a series of performance festivals that followed and continue in the modern world, both in the United States and abroad. Modern examples include the Cannes Film Festival in France and the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides

By 473 BCE, after the death of his chief rival Phrynichus, Aeschylus was winning first prize in nearly every competition at the Dionysia. In addition to The Persian and The Oresteia Trilogy, Aeschylus’ other surviving tragedies are The Suppliants, Seven Against Thebes, and Prometheus Bound, whose authorship is now disputed. All of these plays, except possibly Prometheus Bound, are known to have taken first place at Dionysia. Aeschylus had two sons and a nephew follow in his footsteps and become Greek playwrights.

Sophocles was a rival to the previously unchallenged Aeschylus. He introduced a third actor to staged tragedies, increased the chorus to fifteen members, broke the cycle of trilogies, and brought scenery to theater. His choruses did less explanatory work than Aeschylus’ choruses. He focused on deeper character development and staged conflict. Key happenings were often left unexplained or unjustified, forcing the audience to reflect upon the human condition.

The plays of Sophocles were tragedies that told the stories of noble, high-ranking families and contained lofty themes. They revolved around the tragic flaw. Oedipus is the most famous Greek tragedy character and his story the most tragic. The tale of his life and the life of his children is told in the Sophocles’ trilogy that includes Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone. Frequently cited plot lines involving Oedipus are that he killed his father (fulfilling a prophecy foretold at his birth), unwittingly married his mother, and solved the riddle of the Sphinx.

Euripides, whose works often present scheming women, had more characters than Sophocles and focused on more human issues in plays that were emotional and disturbing. He was a realist and a technical experimenter and tended to focus on psychological dynamics and feelings as a way to help tragic events unfold. His characters were portrayed as insecure and troubled by internal conflict. Female protagonists were often sensitive and tormented with irrational impulses that battled against reason.

Euripides wrote The Women of Troy, Hippolytus, Iphigenia ay Aulis, The Bacchae, Medea, and Hecuba, all of which remain relevant in their commentary on war and the human condition even though they were written more than 2,400 years ago. In Medea, Euripides created one of the first strong female main characters. The character kills her husbands and children to avenge an infidelity. Hecuba is another violent character. She blinds a king and murders his children to avenge the death of her child. Euripides also invented a pulley and crane system that lowered and raised the gods in and out of the action in his plays.

Greek Comedy

In the comedy genre, standout dramas include Lysistrataand Thesmophoriazusae. The remaining ancient Greek comedies that have survived into modern times are by Aristophanes, 448 to 380 BCE, and are classified as Old Comedy. Aristophanes’ comedy was based in the satyr play tradition and tied to the physical nature of humanity. It had strong, overt sexual themes, especially by modern standards. The satyr tradition of comedy also was the mode that gave rise to satire. Aristophanes’ plays are all satirical and highlight social, political, and cultural issues by using comedy and pointed humor.

Lysistrata, by Aristophanes, is one of the most beloved Ancient Greek comedies and is among those that have translated the easiest throughout history. It has been reinterpreted and staged all over the world countless times and has even been turned into an opera.

The play, first performed in 411 BCE, takes place during the Peloponnesian War and portrays the title character as a woman tired of the constant, meaningless fighting among the men. She persuades the women from all of the Greek city-states to join her in trying to stop the unending wars and employs the method of withholding sex to do so.

Thesmophoriazusae (Women at the Thesmorphoria) takes shots at the tragic poet Euripides. Powerful female protagonists decide that Euripides has unfairly represented them as seducers, schemers, betrayers, or helpless victims, so they decide to rise up and punish the playwright.

Scholars consider at least three other Aristophanes comedies, The Frogs, The Clouds, and The Birds, among his best-known works. The Frogs tells the story of the Greek god Dionysus mourning the loss of the tragic playwright Euripides, who had died the year before. Dionysus visits his half-brother, Heracles, for advice on how to get to Hades to bring Euripides back from the dead. Heracles tells him he should either hang himself or jump off a tower to make it to the underworld quickly. Instead, Dionysus chooses to travel across Lake Acheron dressed in Heracles’ clothing. A choral interlude of croaking frogs is heard and an annoyed Dionysus engages in a mock debate with them. When he reaches the underworld, mistaken identities take over and a competition between the two great playwrights results.

The Clouds came in last place when it premiered at the Dionysia in 423 BCE, which led to Aristophanes revising it and letting people read the manuscript. It then went on to become a Greek masterwork. Its main protagonist is Strepsiades, a man deeply in debt due to his son’s gambling habit. Strepsiades decides that because he is a poor public speaker, he should go to Socrates for help developing oratorical skills to defend himself in court. It turns out that his miscreant son is the better orator.

The Birds, a satire, was first performed at Dionysia in 414 BCE and took second prize. The fantasy play is one of Aristophanes’ oldest surviving works and one of the most widely studied. It explores the classic theme of how those who try to escape oppression often become the oppressors themselves.

Modern Influence

The legacy of ancient Greek drama still plays a huge role in modern society with many ancient Greek plays performed to this day. Most of what we recognize as essential to twenty-first-century theater derives from the structures and practices of ancient Greece.

Theater in ancient Greece provided not only the roles and edifices of modern theater but introduced many of the devices that make up modern storytelling. Numerous Greek playwriting concepts are still common today.

Among the many examples are anagnorisis, which is when a character discovers previously unknown personal circumstances. The chorus, which functioned in Greece as storytelling performers, has the same job today in opera and musical theater. Other modern elements that hearken back to Greece include deux ex machina (god from a machine), which refers to using a crane to lower a god or object onto the stage; hubris, or excessive pride, which was seen in ancient characters such as Oedipus and Icarus (who flew to close to the sun) and today is a trait prominent in modern theatrical figures; and peripeteia, which is a reversal of circumstances. Peripeteia is typically seen when protagonists’ fatal flaws turn their good fortune into their downfall. Modern morality tales, such as those made for the TV series The Twilight Zone, contain multiple examples of it.

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