Greek Era - Theatre History Test

Dionysus

god of wine, the party, and later theatre

Dithyrambs

special songs to honor dionysus

chorus

500+ people performing them, spoken or sung, would have 2 halfs in call and response

Thespis

first actor, stepped out of the chorus

Pesistratus

seized power in athens 560, uses dionysus and creates the city dionysia for popularity

Choregos

producer, wealthy patron who would fund the productions

Access to the Theatre

started free, would later have a cheap charge to create a more orgainized system, there was a stipend for those who couldn’t afford it (Theorikon)

Civic Duty

theatre was a civic duty (catharsis made people better citizens), started as apolitical move, and the religious aspect was honoring dionysus

Aeschylus

introduces the second actor, only extant trilogy (agmemnon’s death, Orestia), 13x winner

Sophocles

most sucessful, painted scenery, oedipus rex, 3rd actor, 24x winner

Euripedes

medea, only surviving satyr (cyclops), deus ex machina, 5x winner

6 elements of tragedy

plot (structure of incidents), character, theme, diction, song, spectacle

Plot

most important, soul of tragedy, BME structure

Hamartia

the great error, “missing the mark”, ex: oedipus pursuing the truth against warning

Peripeteia

reversal, action veers around to its opposite ex: oedipus goes from investigating the murderer to it being him

Anagnorisis

Recognition, change from ignorance to knowledge, oft best when combined w/ the reversal

Scene of Suffering

response to recognition, ex: oedipus gouge eyes out

Polis

city states: athens, sparta, corinth, thebes

Tragoidia

root of word tragedy, goat song, bc city dionisia winner would get a goat

Komodia

party song, root of comedy

genre

category, intended audience reaction

Tone

authors attitude towards the work, how serious are we meant to take it

Tragedy

hero isnt a victim, downfall is by their own actions (great error)

Drama

characters>plot

Melodrama

plot>character, genre movies

Comedy

Amuse, but empathize with characters

Tragicomedy

Comedy w/ unhappy ending

Dark Comedy

death, crime, violence involved

Satire

targeted comedy

Farce

belly laughs, 2D characters

Satyr Plays

earliest form of farce

Satyr

follower of dionysus, half goats, musical, horney

Cyclops

only extant satyr play, imprisoned by the cyclops

Satyr vs Comedy

Satyr = myths, rural

Comedy = current events, urban

Old Comedy

5th century

Aristophanes

old comic, political satire, innuendo, early sitcom, claimed comedy harder than tragedy

Lysistrata

protest of Peloponnesian war (sparta v athens), women withheld sex until the war ended, Lenaia Festival

effects of the war

more conservative, lower budgets, smaller choruses, more notalgic

New Comedy

4th Century

Menander

everday life, stock characters + situations, 5-act structure

Revivals

began reviving, first tragedies then comedies, nostalgia from pre-war

3rd Century

athens is no longer dominant, C/T preserved through roman revivals