Ancient Greek Theatre/Theatres In Ancient Greece

The ancient Greek theatre flourished during the time between 550 BC and 220 BC. Athens, was the center of all the theatratics. There were three main genres of dramatics, which included comedy, satyr play and tragedy. The western theatre had first originated in the city state of Athens and that theatre plays a very important role on the western culture today, as a whole.

Now the actors were chosen by the poets. Often, these poets would simply act out roles themselves. But as the competition for theatre started increasing, they started to want more and more of professional actors. So by the end of the 5th century, the actors used to be chosen by the state. Now, the actors, apart from playing the lead also had other jobs too. These included those on the orchestra, playing dumb roles and so on.

Now an important part of the disguise of these actors, were the masks that they wore. The masks would have huge holes in them for the eyes as well as the mouth. Moving on to the costumes, historians dont really know much about the type of costumes which they wore during that time. This is because the materials perished over the time, but they have been able to establish some idea, according to the painting on the pottery.

When ancient Greek theatre first started, the actors would paint their bodies as the costumes. Slowly, they started using animal skins, feathers, ears and so on. The actors were always male actor, even if the part was fit for a female. As mentioned before, there were three types of dramatics, comedy, originated from the Dionysian cult. The comedy was apparently done to mock all of the situations as well as the people.

After this, came, the satiric drama in ancient Greek theatre, whose structure was kind of the same as that of a tragedy. The only difference was that, in length it was a lot shorter. The final one was called a tragedy, defined by Aristotle as an imitation of an important and complete action, which has a specific length, written in an embellished language, with its separate parts set in order and not randomly, in active and not narrative form, tending through pity and fear to the catharsis of passions.

Information on: Ancient Greece Theatres, Theatres in Ancient Greek

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