Classical, Hellenistic Greece and Magna Graecia , has a circular
orchêstra and probably gives the best idea of the original shape of the Athenian theatre, though it dates from the 4th century BC. ,
Sicily,
Magna Graecia, in present-day
Italy The
city-state of
Athens is where Western theatre originated. It was part of a broader
culture of theatricality and performance in
classical Greece that included
festivals,
religious rituals,
politics,
law, athletics and gymnastics,
music,
poetry, weddings, funerals, and
symposia. Participation in the city-state's many festivals—and mandatory attendance at the
City Dionysia as an audience member (or even as a participant in the theatrical productions) in particular—was an important part of
citizenship. Civic participation also involved the evaluation of the
rhetoric of
orators evidenced in performances in the
law-court or
political assembly, both of which were understood as analogous to the theatre and increasingly came to absorb its dramatic vocabulary. The Greeks also developed the concepts of
dramatic criticism and theatre architecture. Actors were either amateur or at best semi-professional. The
theatre of ancient Greece consisted of three types of
drama:
tragedy,
comedy, and the
satyr play. The origins of theatre in ancient Greece, according to
Aristotle (384–322 BCE), the first theoretician of theatre, are to be found in the festivals that honoured
Dionysus. The performances were given in semi-circular auditoria cut into hillsides, capable of seating 10,000–20,000 people. The stage consisted of a dancing floor (orchestra), dressing room and scene-building area (skene). Since the words were the most important part, good acoustics and clear delivery were paramount. The actors (always men) wore masks appropriate to the characters they represented, and each might play several parts. Athenian tragedy—the oldest surviving form of tragedy—is a type of
dance-drama that formed an important part of the theatrical culture of the city-state. Having emerged sometime during the 6th century BCE, it flowered during the 5th century BCE (from the end of which it began to spread throughout the Greek world), and continued to be popular until the beginning of the
Hellenistic period. No tragedies from the 6th century BCE and only 32 of the more than a thousand that were performed in during the 5th century BCE have survived. We have complete texts
extant by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The origins of tragedy remain obscure, though by the 5th century BCE it was
institutionalised in competitions (
agon) held as part of festivities celebrating Dionysus (the
god of
wine and
fertility). As contestants in the City Dionysia competition (the most prestigious of the festivals to stage drama), playwrights were required to present a
tetralogy of plays (though the individual works were not necessarily connected by story or theme), which usually consisted of three tragedies and one satyr play. The performance of tragedies at the City Dionysia may have begun as early as 534 BCE; official records (
didaskaliai) begin from 501 BCE, when the satyr play was introduced. Most Athenian tragedies dramatise events from
Greek mythology, though
The Persians—which stages the
Persian response to news of their military defeat at the
Battle of Salamis in 480 BCE—is the notable exception in the surviving drama. When Aeschylus won first prize for it at the City Dionysia in 472 BCE, he had been writing tragedies for more than 25 years, yet its tragic treatment of recent history is the earliest example of
drama to survive. More than 130 years later, the philosopher
Aristotle analysed 5th-century Athenian tragedy in the oldest surviving work of
dramatic theory—his
Poetics ().
Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods, "Old Comedy", "Middle Comedy", and "New Comedy". Old Comedy survives today largely in the form of the eleven surviving plays of
Aristophanes, while Middle Comedy is largely lost (preserved only in relatively short fragments in authors such as
Athenaeus of Naucratis). New Comedy is known primarily from the substantial papyrus fragments of
Menander. Aristotle defined comedy as a representation of laughable people that involves some kind of blunder or ugliness that does not cause pain or disaster. In addition to the categories of comedy and tragedy at the City Dionysia, the festival also included the
Satyr Play. Finding its origins in rural, agricultural rituals dedicated to Dionysus, the satyr play eventually found its way to Athens in its most well-known form. Satyr's themselves were tied to the god Dionysus as his loyal woodland companions, often engaging in drunken revelry and mischief at his side. The satyr play itself was classified as tragicomedy, erring on the side of the more modern burlesque traditions of the early twentieth century. The plotlines of the plays were typically concerned with the dealings of the pantheon of Gods and their involvement in human affairs, backed by the chorus of
Satyrs. However, according to
Webster, satyr actors did not always perform typical satyr actions and would break from the acting traditions assigned to the character type of a mythical forest creature. The Greek colonists in
Southern Italy, the so-called
Magna Graecia, brought theatrical art from their motherland. The
Greek Theatre of Syracuse, the , the , the , the , the , the and the most famous
Greek Theatre of Taormina, amply demonstrate this. Only fragments of original dramaturgical works are left, but the tragedies of the three great giants
Aeschylus,
Sophocles and
Euripides and the comedies of
Aristophanes are known. Some famous playwrights in the Greek language came directly from
Magna Graecia. Others, such as Aeschylus and
Epicharmus, worked for a long time in
Sicily. Epicharmus can be considered Syracusan in all respects, having worked all his life with the
tyrants of Syracuse. His comedy preceded that of the more famous Aristophanes by staging the gods for the first time in comedy. While Aeschylus, after a long stay in the Sicilian colonies, died in Sicily in the colony of
Gela in 456 BC. Epicarmus and
Phormis, both of 6th century BC, are the basis, for
Aristotle, of the invention of the Greek comedy, as he says in his book on
Poetics: Other native dramatic authors of Magna Graecia, in addition to the Syracusan Formides mentioned, are
Achaeus of Syracuse,
Apollodorus of Gela,
Philemon of Syracuse and his son Philemon the younger. From
Calabria, precisely from the colony of
Thurii, came the playwright
Alexis. While
Rhinthon, although Sicilian from Syracuse, worked almost exclusively for the colony of
Taranto in
Apulia.
Roman theatre '' player (House of the Tragic Poet,
Pompeii) Western theatre developed and expanded considerably under the
Romans. The Roman historian
Livy wrote that the Romans first experienced theatre in the 4th century BC, with a performance by
Etruscan actors. Beacham argues that Romans had been familiar with "pre-theatrical practices" for some time before that recorded contact. The
theatre of ancient Rome was a thriving and diverse art form, ranging from
festival performances of
street theatre, nude dancing, and acrobatics, to the staging of
Plautus's broadly appealing situation
comedies, to the
high-style, verbally elaborate
tragedies of
Seneca. Although Rome had a native tradition of performance, the
Hellenisation of
Roman culture in the 3rd century BC had a profound and energising effect on Roman theatre and encouraged the development of
Latin literature of the highest quality for the stage. Following the expansion of the
Roman Republic (509–27 BC) into several Greek territories between 270 and 240 BC, Rome encountered
Greek drama. From the later years of the republic and by means of the
Roman Empire (27 BC-476 AD), theatre spread west across Europe, around the Mediterranean and reached England; Roman theatre was more varied, extensive and sophisticated than that of any culture before it. While Greek drama continued to be performed throughout the Roman period, the year 240 BC marks the beginning of regular Roman drama. The first important works of
Roman literature were the tragedies and comedies that
Livius Andronicus wrote from 240 BC. Five years later,
Gnaeus Naevius also began to write drama. The Roman comedies that have survived are all
fabula palliata (comedies based on Greek subjects) and come from two dramatists:
Titus Maccius Plautus (Plautus) and
Publius Terentius Afer (Terence). In re-working the Greek originals, the Roman comic dramatists abolished the role of the
chorus in dividing the drama into
episodes and introduced musical accompaniment to its
dialogue (between one-third of the dialogue in the comedies of Plautus and two-thirds in those of Terence). The action of all scenes is set in the exterior location of a street and its complications often follow from
eavesdropping. All of the six comedies that Terence wrote between 166 and 160 BC have survived; the complexity of his plots, in which he often combined several Greek originals, was sometimes denounced, but his double-plots enabled a sophisticated presentation of contrasting human behaviour. Nine of Seneca's tragedies survive, all of which are
fabula crepidata (tragedies adapted from Greek originals); his
Phaedra, for example, was based on
Euripides'
Hippolytus. Historians do not know who wrote the only
extant example of the
fabula praetexta (tragedies based on Roman subjects),
Octavia, but in former times it was mistakenly attributed to Seneca due to his appearance as a
character in the tragedy.
Indian theatre '' or the demon as depicted in
Yakshagana, a form of musical
dance-
drama from
India The first form of
Indian theatre was the
Sanskrit theatre, earliest-surviving fragments of which date from the 1st century CE. It began after the development of
Greek and
Roman theatre and before the development of theatre in other parts of Asia. It emerged sometime between the 2nd century BCE and the 1st century CE and flourished between the 1st century CE and the 10th, which was a period of relative peace in the
history of India during which hundreds of plays were written. The wealth of archeological evidence from earlier periods offers no indication of the existence of a tradition of theatre. The ancient
Vedas (
hymns from between 1500 and 1000 BCE that are among the earliest examples of
literature in the world) contain no hint of it (although a small number are composed in a form of
dialogue) and the
rituals of the
Vedic period do not appear to have developed into theatre. The
Mahābhāṣya by
Patañjali contains the earliest reference to what may have been the seeds of Sanskrit drama. This treatise on
grammar from 140 BCE provides a feasible date for the beginnings of
theatre in India. The major source of evidence for Sanskrit theatre is
A Treatise on Theatre (
Nātyaśāstra), a compendium whose date of composition is uncertain (estimates range from 200 BCE to 200 CE) and whose authorship is attributed to
Bharata Muni. The
Treatise is the most complete work of dramaturgy in the ancient world. It addresses
acting,
dance,
music,
dramatic construction,
architecture,
costuming,
make-up,
props, the organisation of companies, the audience, competitions, and offers a
mythological account of the origin of theatre. In doing so, it provides indications about the nature of actual theatrical practices. Sanskrit theatre was performed on sacred ground by priests who had been trained in the necessary skills (dance, music, and recitation) in a [hereditary process]. Its aim was both to educate and to entertain. in the
Koodiyattam form of
Sanskrit theatre Under the patronage of royal courts, performers belonged to professional companies that were directed by a stage manager (
sutradhara), who may also have acted. This task was thought of as being analogous to that of a
puppeteer—the literal meaning of "
sutradhara" is "holder of the strings or threads". The performers were trained rigorously in vocal and physical technique. There were no prohibitions against female performers; companies were all-male, all-female, and of mixed gender. Certain sentiments were considered inappropriate for men to enact, however, and were thought better suited to women. Some performers played characters their own age, while others played ages different from their own (whether younger or older). Of all the elements of theatre, the
Treatise gives most attention to acting (
abhinaya), which consists of two styles: realistic (
lokadharmi) and conventional (
natyadharmi), though the major focus is on the latter. Its drama is regarded as the highest achievement of
Sanskrit literature. It utilised
stock characters, such as the hero (
nayaka), heroine (
nayika), or clown (
vidusaka). Actors may have specialised in a particular type.
Kālidāsa in the 1st century BCE, is arguably considered to be ancient
India's greatest Sanskrit dramatist. Three famous romantic plays written by Kālidāsa are the
Mālavikāgnimitram (
Mālavikā and Agnimitra),
Vikramuurvashiiya (
Pertaining to Vikrama and Urvashi), and
Abhijñānaśākuntala (
The Recognition of Shakuntala). The last was inspired by a story in the
Mahabharata and is the most famous. It was the first to be translated into
English and
German.
Śakuntalā (in English translation) influenced
Goethe's
Faust (1808–1832). The next great Indian dramatist was
Bhavabhuti (). He is said to have written the following three plays:
Malati-Madhava,
Mahaviracharita and
Uttar Ramacharita. Among these three, the last two cover between them the entire epic of
Ramayana. The powerful Indian emperor
Harsha (606–648) is credited with having written three plays: the comedy
Ratnavali,
Priyadarsika, and the
Buddhist drama
Nagananda.
East Asian theatre theatre in
Edo;
Triptych woodblock print by
Utagawa Toyokuni III The
Tang dynasty is sometimes known as "The Age of 1000 Entertainments". During this era, Ming Huang formed an acting school known as The
Pear Garden to produce a form of drama that was primarily musical. That is why actors are commonly called "Children of the Pear Garden". During the dynasty of Empress Ling,
shadow puppetry first emerged as a recognised form of theatre in China. There were two distinct forms of shadow puppetry, Pekingese (northern) and Cantonese (southern). The two styles were differentiated by the method of making the puppets and the positioning of the rods on the
puppets, as opposed to the type of
play performed by the puppets. Both styles generally performed plays depicting great adventure and fantasy, rarely was this very stylised form of theatre used for political propaganda. Japanese forms of
Kabuki,
Nō, and
Kyōgen developed in the 17th century CE. Cantonese shadow puppets were the larger of the two. They were built using thick leather which created more substantial shadows. Symbolic colour was also very prevalent; a black face represented honesty, a red one bravery. The rods used to control Cantonese puppets were attached perpendicular to the puppets' heads. Thus, they were not seen by the audience when the shadow was created. Pekingese puppets were more delicate and smaller. They were created out of thin, translucent leather (usually taken from the belly of a donkey). They were painted with vibrant paints, thus they cast a very colourful shadow. The thin rods which controlled their movements were attached to a leather collar at the neck of the puppet. The rods ran parallel to the bodies of the puppet and then turned at a ninety degree angle to connect to the neck. While these rods were visible when the shadow was cast, they laid outside the shadow of the puppet; thus they did not interfere with the appearance of the figure. The rods are attached at the necks to facilitate the use of multiple heads with one body. When the heads were not being used, they were stored in a muslin book or fabric-lined box. The heads were always removed at night. This was in keeping with the old superstition that if left intact, the puppets would come to life at night. Some puppeteers went so far as to store the heads in one book and the bodies in another, to further reduce the possibility of reanimating puppets. Shadow puppetry is said to have reached its highest point of artistic development in the eleventh century before becoming a tool of the government. In the
Song dynasty, there were many popular plays involving acrobatics and music. These developed in the
Yuan dynasty into a more sophisticated form known as
zaju, with a four- or five-act structure. Yuan drama spread across China and diversified into numerous regional forms, one of the best known of which is
Peking Opera which is still popular today.
Xiangsheng is a certain traditional Chinese comedic performance in the forms of monologue or dialogue.
Indonesian theatre performance near
Prambanan temple complex In
Indonesia, theatre performances have become an important part of local culture, theatre performances in Indonesia have been developed for thousands of years. Most of
Indonesia's oldest theatre forms are linked directly to local literary traditions (oral and written). The prominent
puppet theatres—
wayang golek (wooden rod-puppet play) of the
Sundanese and
wayang kulit (leather shadow-puppet play) of the
Javanese and
Balinese—draw much of their repertoire from indigenised versions of the
Ramayana and
Mahabharata. These tales also provide source material for the wayang wong (human theatre) of
Java and
Bali, which uses actors. Some wayang golek performances, however, also present Muslim stories, called
menak.
Wayang is an ancient form of storytelling that renowned for its elaborate puppet/human and complex musical styles. The earliest evidence is from the late 1st millennium CE, in medieval-era texts and archeological sites. The oldest known record that concerns wayang is from the 9th century. Around 840 AD an Old Javanese (Kawi) inscriptions called Jaha Inscriptions issued by Maharaja Sri Lokapala from
Mataram kingdom in
Central Java mentions three sorts of performers: atapukan, aringgit, and abanol. Aringgit means Wayang puppet show, Atapukan means Mask dance show, and abanwal means joke art. Ringgit is described in an 11th-century Javanese poem as a leather shadow figure.
Medieval Islamic traditions Theatre in the
medieval Islamic world included
puppet theatre (which included hand puppets,
shadow plays and
marionette productions) and live passion plays known as ''
ta'ziyeh, where actors re-enact episodes from Muslim history. In particular, Shia Islamic plays revolved around the istishhād'' (martyrdom) of
Ali's sons
Hasan ibn Ali and
Husayn ibn Ali. Secular plays were known as
akhraja, recorded in medieval
adab literature, though they were less common than puppetry and ''ta'ziya'' theatre.
Early modern and modern theatre in the West '' troupe
I Gelosi performing, by
Hieronymus Francken I, Theatre took on many alternative forms in the West between the 15th and 19th centuries, including ''
commedia dell'arte'' from
Italian theatre, and
melodrama. The general trend was away from the poetic drama of the Greeks and the
Renaissance and toward a more naturalistic prose style of dialogue, especially following the
Industrial Revolution. Theatre took a big pause from 1642 to 1660 in England because of the
Puritan Interregnum. Viewing theatre as sinful, the Puritans ordered the
closure of London theatres in 1642. On 24 January 1643, the actors protested against the ban by writing a pamphlet titled
The Actors remonstrance or complaint for the silencing of their profession, and banishment from their severall play-houses. This stagnant period ended once Charles II came back to the throne in 1660 in the
Restoration. Theatre (among other arts) exploded, with influence from French culture, since Charles had been exiled in France in the years previous to his reign. in the
West End was opened in May 1663, it is the oldest theatre in London. In 1660, two companies were licensed to perform, the
Duke's Company and the
King's Company. Performances were held in converted buildings, such as
Lisle's Tennis Court. The first
West End theatre, known as Theatre Royal in
Covent Garden, London, was designed by
Thomas Killigrew and built on the site of the present
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The seventeenth century had also introduced women to the stage, which was considered inappropriate earlier. These women were regarded as celebrities (also a newer concept, thanks to ideas on individualism that arose in the wake of
Renaissance Humanism), but on the other hand, it was still very new and revolutionary that they were on the stage, and some said they were unladylike, and looked down on them. Charles II did not like young men playing the parts of young women, so he asked that women play their own parts. Because women were allowed on the stage, playwrights had more leeway with plot twists, like women dressing as men, and having narrow escapes from morally sticky situations as forms of comedy. in 1829 Comedies were full of the young and very much in vogue, with the storyline following their love lives: commonly a young roguish hero professing his love to the chaste and free minded heroine near the end of the play, much like
Sheridan's
The School for Scandal. Many of the comedies were fashioned after the French tradition, mainly Molière, again hailing back to the French influence brought back by the King and the Royals after their exile.
Molière was one of the top comedic playwrights of the time, revolutionising the way comedy was written and performed by combining Italian
commedia dell'arte and
neoclassical French comedy to create some of the longest lasting and most influential satiric comedies. Tragedies were similarly victorious in their sense of righting political power, especially poignant because of the recent Restoration of the Crown. They were also imitations of French tragedy, although the French had a larger distinction between comedy and tragedy, whereas the English fudged the lines occasionally and put some comedic parts in their tragedies. Common forms of non-comedic plays were sentimental comedies as well as something that would later be called
tragédie bourgeoise, or
domestic tragedy—that is, the tragedy of common life—were more popular in England because they appealed more to English sensibilities. While
theatre troupes were formerly often travelling, the idea of the national theatre gained support in the 18th century, inspired by
Ludvig Holberg. The major promoter of the idea of the national theatre in Germany, and also of the
Sturm und Drang poets, was
Abel Seyler, the owner of the
Hamburgische Entreprise and the
Seyler Theatre Company. from 1918 in
Tartu,
Estonia Through the
19th century, the popular theatrical forms of
Romanticism,
melodrama,
Victorian burlesque and the
well-made plays of
Scribe and
Sardou gave way to the
problem plays of
Naturalism and
Realism; the
farces of
Feydeau;
Wagner's operatic
Gesamtkunstwerk;
musical theatre (including
Gilbert and Sullivan's operas);
F. C. Burnand's,
W. S. Gilbert's and
Oscar Wilde's drawing-room comedies;
Symbolism; proto-
Expressionism in the late works of
August Strindberg and
Henrik Ibsen; and
Edwardian musical comedy. These trends continued through the
20th century in the
realism of
Stanislavski and
Lee Strasberg, the political theatre of
Erwin Piscator and
Bertolt Brecht, the so-called
Theatre of the Absurd of
Samuel Beckett and
Eugène Ionesco, American and British musicals, the collective creations of companies of actors and directors such as
Joan Littlewood's
Theatre Workshop, experimental and
postmodern theatre of
Robert Wilson and
Robert Lepage, the
postcolonial theatre of
August Wilson or
Tomson Highway, and
Augusto Boal's
Theatre of the Oppressed. ==Types==