1. Theatre History
A Study Guide

2. Greek Drama Thespis was first actor Created to honor Dionysus
Dithyrambs: choral chants and songs

3. Greek (cont.) Aeschylus: The Seven Against Thebes
Sophocles: Antigone, Oedipus the King
Euripides: Medea

4. Greek (cont.) Elaborate masks that amplified voices
Cothurnii: tall boots that made actors larger than life

5. Greek (cont.)
Drama was a form of worship
Used to represent large moral concepts and ideals

6. English Medieval
Originated in the Church
Was a way to present the Bible to the non-Latin speaking public

7. English Medieval Saint plays—lives of saints
Mystery plays—Bible stories
Morality plays—depicted broad Moral concepts

8. Medieval (cont.)
Performed on platform stages adjacent to the church or on the town square.
Used movable stages called pageant wagons

9. Medieval (cont.) Costuming was simple
Only surviving Morality play--Everyman

10. Italian Renaissance
Opera arose from a desire to return to the choral styles of the Greek
Main focus was the commedia dell’arte
first comedic drama
Used stock characters
Most famous stock character: Harlequin

11. Renaissance (cont) Mime was popular
Masks were painted directly onto the face
Italian Renaissance became the foundation for Western Drama to the present

12. Elizabethan Theaters were round, with tiers of seats.
The poorest people stood on the ground in front of the stage (called groundlings)
Most famous theatre: Globe
Considered “Golden Era” of Theatre

13. Elizabethan (cont.) Moliere—French playwright; wrote farces
Christopher Marlowe—contemporary of Shakespeare; wrote Doctor Faustus and Tambourlaine the Great
William Shakespeare—considered greatest playwright of all time; wrote Hamlet, Julius Ceasar, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet

14. 19th Century Plays enjoyed long runs
New lighting technology allows night performances
Elaborate and accurate sets, costumes, and props
Trapdoors and hydraulic lifts create special effects

15. 19th Cent. (cont.)
Many plays were melodramas—heavy on plot; light on character development
Oscar Wilde—The Importance of Being Earnest
Henrik Ibsen—A Doll’s House
Gilbert and Sullivan—wrote comic operettas; The Pirates of Penzance

16. 20th Century Many new innovations
Theatre of the Absurd: drama that explored the human psyche in strange, abstract ways
Musical Theatre: most popular form of theatre in this century
Rodgers and Hammerstein innovated the modern musical with Oklahoma!

17. 20th Cent. (cont.)
Film, a new form of drama, arose. Film is now the most commonly watched dramatic art.
First film with sound—The Jazz Singer
Walt Disney—pioneer in animation; Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs