1. A Brief History of Drama
Styles, Stages, and More
A Brief History of Drama
Greek Structure and Tragedy

2. How does drama differ from fiction and poetry?
Absence of narrator/mediator (usually): we have to construct meaning directly.
Stagecraft: lighting & other elements to create setting/mood on stage.
Collaborative effort: director & actors must interpret the playwright’s words.
Every production of a play is different.
Theatre is a group experience: actors affected by audience response; audience members affect each other.

3. Dialogue Pay attention to style and tone, diction and syntax
How does the character speak?
Idiom, figures of speech, formal, etc.
Different speech styles make it easier to follow characters when they speak.

4. Setting (NOT Set) Place where actions occurs Time when action occurs
On an island, in the city, in a room, etc.
Time when action occurs
Stone Age, the year and month, season, hour
Cultural Context of action
Social and historical events that shade, color the action.
Types of Setting – general, specific

5. Structure of Greek Drama

6. Theatre in the Round Arena Style theatre in Amphitheatre.
All seats get to view.
Actors wear masks, project, “overact.”
Plays performed in daylight.
Men play all roles.

7. Prologue Greek drama begins with the Prologue.
The Prologue’s purpose is to give background information to situate the conflict.
Often, the Chorus – a group of actors who comment on the action in the play and provide exposition – give the Prologue.

8. Parados – first ode
Choral song chanted by the Chorus as they enter the area in front of the stage.
Parados literally means passage.

9. The Odes – follows each scene
Serves to separate one scene from another (since there were no curtains in Greek theaters).
Also allowed the Chorus’s response to the preceding scene.

10. First Scene
Following the Parados, the first scene presents the conflict of the play.

11. Paean (follows scene 5)
A hymn in praise of a god.

12. Exodos
Final scene of the play.

13. Greek Tragedy

14. A General Definition of Tragedy
Aristotle: tragedy evokes fear and pity in audience, causing catharsis (cleansing or purging)
The Tragic Spirit is…
More or less pessimistic… suffering is required.
Essentially humanistic, centered on the interest and claims of humans, the emotional reaction to the events not the horror seen on stage.
not cynical (cynical is to be distrustful).
an affirmation of positive values; great tragedies do not end in sheer terror, horror, or despair even if they end unhappily.

15. Purpose of Tragedy Tragedy enriches our experience by:
Deepening
Widening,
Refining our consciousness of the possibilities of life.
Tragedy examines the problem of human fate:
Relations to his total environment,
Position in the universe,
The ultimate meaning of his life.
Greek tragedy promoted life by promoting wisdom.
The old stories were told to be more philosophical than historical.

16. Characteristics of the Greek Tragic Hero. The Character…
Is not all good or bad
Is of the noble class or highly renowned and prosperous
Has a tragic flaw
Recognizes his error and accepts the consequences
Arouses the audience’s pity and fear
Is from a well-known myth

17. Oedipus Myth

18. Oedipus Delphic Oracle – The Prophecy and Apollo Corinth
The Riddle of the Sphinx
Self-punishment
Children:
Eteocles
Polyneices
Ismene
Antigone

19. Part I
Laius and Jocasta (Thebes), receive warning from the Delphic oracle soon-to-be-born son will kill his father and marry his mother.
After its birth, to avoid the prophecy, infant’s feet are pierced and bound, given to a shepherd who is instructed to abandon the child on the slopes mountain
The shepherd takes pity on the child, gives it to another shepherd from Corinth, who brings it to the childless Polybus and Merope (Corinth), to be brought up as their own son.
Name him Oedipus, which means "swollen foot."

20. Part II
Oedipus reaches adulthood, learns from oracle he is destined to kill his father and marry his mother.
To evade his fate, Oedipus leaves Corinth
During journey, his chariot and another’s meet where three roads cross.
No one is willing to move; fight ensues, hot-headed Oedipus kills the other man — his biological father, King Laius.

21. Part III
Oedipus reaches Thebes, confronted the Sphinx, a mythological creature with the head of a woman and the body of a lion.
She terrorizes the city by asking a riddle, killing those that cannot answer it.
Oedipus gets same cryptic question and he answers it,
Oedipus proclaimed city’s savior and king by queen’s bro, Creon
Oedipus marries Laius’ widow — his own mother — and has four children with her: Antigone, Ismene, Eteocles, and Polynices.
After ruling benevolently for many years, a plague suddenly descends upon the city and this is where the story begins…

22. As you read the play Take notes after each BEAT…
There are no scenes in Oedipus, so a beat is made up of the characters in that particular beat; the beat CHANGES when another character comes in.
Take notes on what is happening in each beat: write a quick summary of the beat, who is in the beat and questions you have so far

23. Before Antigone
Oedipus is banished and stays in Colonus where Theseus takes pity on him
Creon demands that Oedipus returns to Thebes and even tries to kidnap Antigone and Ismene
Oedipus ends up dying and buried in a secret location
Polyneices (Argos) and Eteocles (Thebes) fight against each other and end up killing each other
When the play opens, both brothers are dead, Oedipus is buried in a secret location, Creon is king and Antigone wants a decent burial for her brother Polyneices.

24. The Greeks believed that the spirit of a dead person could enter Hades only after the body had been purified and buried. Until the proper rites were performed, the person hovered at the gate of Hades, neither alive nor completely dead.
Women in ancient Greece had to depend on male relatives for support. Girls married when they were thirteen or fourteen, and their husbands often were more than twice their age. Women in wealthy households were secluded, had no legal rights, and did not inherit property. If a woman's husband died, a man in her family, her guardian, would try to find her another husband.