Dionysus: The Classical Ancient Greek Theatre
Introduction.
More than 2000 years ago, the ancient Greek built the first theatre and developed it until the plays of the ancient Greek becomes famous on today’s world. The origin of the Greek classical theatre was first started between 550 BC and 220 BC where the plays were first starting in Athens. Plays during the ancient Greece were produced during a festival. The festival was known as a festival of honoring one of the Greek God called Dionysus, the God of Wine and Fertility. Dionysus was the reason to the development of the theatre during the ancient Greece. There are some features of the classical ancient Greek theatre which were important during that era.
The Actor.
The first feature of the ancient Greek theatre was the actor. At the
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The mask in the Greek term was known as ‘persona’ and it was an important element in the worship of Dionysus at Athens. The masks were built by using the wood, linen, cork and some real hairs. The structures of the masks covered all parts of face and head, there were holes for eyes, and small opening for the mouth. The masks were exaggerated expressions that defined the characters they were acting. The masks helped the actors to play more than one characters because of the actor were far from the audience. Inside the masks, there were somewhat like an amplifier to project the sound or the actors’ voices to the long distant audience so they may hear the character played the roles clearly.
Genres of the Ancient Greek Theatre.
The genres of the ancient Greek theatre contained of 3 genres which were Tragedy play, Comedy play and Satyr play. The Tragedy play and the Comedy play were the famous play during that era while the least known play was the Satyr era.
The Comedy at the first place was not always funny as the term ‘comedy’ regards itself but the play was a genre that showed a happy ending. It was somehow imitations of everyman life or humorous stories about ordinary people.
The structure of comedy contained of the ‘prologue’ which was leading the character creates a “happy idea”. Next, the ‘parabasis’ which was the chorus was voicing out to the audience on poet’s point of view on the play. Lastly, the ‘episodes’ which was the “happy idea” was developed and put into practical and application in the
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