HELLENISTIC THEATRE.   Term Paper ID:29203 Click to get this paper

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Paper Abstract: Examines characteristics and historical context. Discusses both the physical plant and the plays. How the playwrights and poets of the time functioned in the theatre. How the Hellenistic model influenced modern theatre. Differences between Classical and Hellenistic performance areas. Disappearance of the classical convention of the chorus. Emphasis on acting. The new comedy of manners. Paper Introduction: This research examines the characteristics of Hellenistic theatre, including both the physical plant and the plays that appeared during the period. The research will examine the historical context in which Hellenistic theatre flourished and then discuss how the playwrights and poets functioned in the theatre, with a view toward identifying how the Hellenistic model influenced modern theatre. The Hellenistic period of world history dates from the time Alexander the Great assumed the throne of Macedon in 336 BC until the death of Cleopatra in 30 BC. Its principal characteristic is that the territory of the Eastern Mediterranean area, from the Greek peninsula and the Balkans to Asia Minor and Persia, came under the domination of Greek culture, which was the heir of the Athenian classical tradition. Of primary artistic significance to Greek Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. .intended his smut and obscenity for the debauched and lewd, his invectiveand satire for the malicious and ill-humored" (Plutarch 74-6). Of primary artisticsignificance to Greek culture was the theatre, and theatre in theHellenistic period took the classical theatre of Greece as its model,although certain adaptations from the classical model distinguish the laterperiod. For example, theRomans were the first to physically link the performance area with theaudience area, whereas the Hellenistic theatre, like the classical Atheniantheatre, left open the parodoi, or space between the skene and thetheatron, which was used as a stage entrance for performers. Scenic conventions wereadhered to. 195 BC) looked toMenander, not the classical-era Greek comedy playwrights, as their model(Gassner and Allen 73-4). Golden Age tragedies were regularly performed during the Hellenisticperiod, but not the more topical Aristophanic comedies. The fact that the theatrebuildings became permanent structures during the Hellenistic periodundoubtedly affected theatre design in all subsequent periods of history,beginning with the Romans, whose designs were more sturdy and elaboratethan those of the Hellenistic Greeks. The Development of the Theatre. Gassner andAllen cite the liberal use of stock characters, or types, thatpractitioners of the New Comedy reworked in play after play. For example, the design of the proskenion associated with thetheatre at Priene appears to have originated in Alexandria. . 1. Kitto says that the Hellenistic period produced "little original dramaof any merit . Menander adheredto what Frost calls the three-actor rule, which was the convention,established in the classical period, that no more than three speakingcharacters were on the stage at the same time. One element of theclassical theatre plan that was retained in the Hellenistic plan was thecircular orchestra, with the auditorium seating surrounding it in a more-than-semicircle configuration. While the factthat actors wore distinctive masks and costumes, the consistency ofperformance was at issue, and "the actors involved would require skill inconveying by voice and movement a uniform impression of the character"Frost 3). 2-8.Gassner, John, and Ralph G. London: Harrap, 1966.Plutarch. "An Abstract of a Comparison Betwixt Aristophanes and Menander." Theatre and Drama in the Making. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964. As a group they follow thefloor plan of the physical theatre of Dionysus in Athens; however, certaindepartures from the classical model may be discerned. Ed. "The Classic Age." A Treasury of the Theatre. Trans. The Hellenistic theatrical configuration affected the kinds ofperformances that were presented and the priorities of aestheticdevelopment and practical use of the theatre. The audiences of Hellenistic antiquity,however, preferred the sophisticated and urbane Menander, whose "phrase isso well turned and contempered with itself . Phyllis Hartnoll. This research examines the characteristics of Hellenistic theatre,including both the physical plant and the plays that appeared during theperiod. Today Aristophanes isconsidered the superior playwright, not least because only fragments ofMenander's plays survive (Frost 1). Tragic scenes are delineated with columns, pediments, statues, and other objects suited to kings; comic scenes exhibit private dwellings, with balconies and views representing rows of windows, after the manner of ordinary dwellings; satyric scenes are decorated with trees, caverns, mountains, and other rustic objects delineated in rustic style (Vitruvius 15 ). John Gassner. That the Athenian theatre was known as the theatre of Dionysusand that the dramatic festivals were also religious observances isconsistent with the idea that classical theatre was meant to be part of areligious experience. . 4 8-9.Frost, K.B. TheHellenistic theatre had more apparatus suited to creating effectivespectacle, such as a thunder and lightning machine, or bronteion. Actingas an art became more highly developed, says Kitto (4 9), which isconsistent with the content of plays that were produced. Menander's comedy of manners, which includedepigrammatic moralizing, is a dramatic form that survives in the modernperiod as romantic comedy or straight comedy. "Greece: Hellenistic Age." Oxford Companion to the Theatre. However, by about 15 BC, the orchestracircle began to be invaded by the proskenion, the front, colonnade wall ofa permanent, stone version of the classical skene, which had been atemporary wooden structure. There was, indeed,a certain lack of sympathy between New Comedy and Old. Top surface = floor of raised stage.Dashed line = 2nd story distegia; long wall = episkenionColonnade (ground level) Ed. Another innovation was the use of ahigh stage, raised 8-13 feet above the orchestra level. The space behind the thyromatamight be just as deep as the acting area in front of it. Some but not allHellenistic theatres also had paraskenia, or two wings on either side ofthe stage building. However, Nicoll says that although plays ofPlautus, who was contemporaneous with the peak of Hellenism, called foraction on a second story, he did not write for the Hellenistic stage butinstead for the "South Italian Stage." Further to this point, Gassner andAllen note the absence of a manifestly phallic and satirical tone andexplain that the comedy is derived from "a series of intrigues involvingthe upper-class citizens of Athens and their immediate circle ofacquaintances" (73-4). The emphasis on acting owes something to the fact that inproduction there was a practice of part splitting, or having a characterplayed by more than one actor during the course of a play. Vol. The illustration is based ondrawings of the theatre at Ephesus, after Nicoll (185): [pic] A significant difference between the classical and Hellenisticperformance areas was that the later-era theatre featured permanent stonetheatre buildings, an innovation that occurred after the Golden Agedevelopment in the writing of plays. Some 4 Hellenistic theatres had been identified by the 2 th century,with the best extant theatres located in Priene, Oropus, Ephesus,Epidaurus, Pergamum, Corinth, and Alexandria. In other words, there was a tastefor spectacle relatively unmediated by the element of thought. Kittocharacterizes that as the "greatest contribution" of Hellenistic theatre tothe drama and to world literature. The first-century-ADRoman historian Plutarch, who would have witnessed the transition fromHellenistic to Roman theatre design, provides a comparison of Menander andAristophanes, who is identified with the Old Comedy. The first floor of the stage was supported by the proskenion, whichwas long (up to 12 feet) and narrow (8-13 feet deep). The research will examine the historical context in whichHellenistic theatre flourished and then discuss how the playwrights andpoets functioned in the theatre, with a view toward identifying how theHellenistic model influenced modern theatre. Exits and Entrances in Menander. Beside the fact that the Hellenistic period had a taste for comedy ofmanners and made an aesthetic connection to high tragedy must be setKitto's statement that during the Hellenistic period "purely spectacularproductions became common" (Kitto 4 9). Periaktoi, which are thought to bea Hellenistic innovation rather than a classical carry-forward (Barker),could be painted on each of the three sides with comic, tragic, and satyrscenes. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1934.-----------------------Theatron (open-air seating)OrchestraSkene. "Theatre, Costume, and Machinery." Oxford Companion to the Theatre. Allen, eds. "Stage Design." Britannica 2 1 Deluxe Edition CD-ROM.Beare, William. 5th ed. Vitruvius was a first-century-BC Roman, and it should be noted thatthe Hellenistic Age was soon to give way to the Roman Imperial Age.However, his account of the architecture of theatres appears to have beendrawn from direct observation. except, early in the period, the continuation of NewComedy in Athens" (Kitto 4 9). He also cites several minor Alexandriantragedians known as the Pleiad, with the best of the lot being Lycophron.Their plays would have been written and staged with Hellenistic theatricalconventions in mind. . Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964.Kitto, H.D.F. it still shows the same." Aristophanes wasseen as "importune, theatric, and sordid in his expression [and] . Beare cites their wearing 1 -inch-heeledboots, or korthornos (4 8-9). Actorswere also a part of the spectacle. Frank Granger. These could be used for entrances or, aswith the proskenion, decorated with pinakes. On Architecture. Hellenistic culture appears to have preferred what was styled the NewComedy, its most prominent exponent Menander (342-291 BC). Vitruvius elaborates on the linkages between the content of theplays and the space of their performance: There are three kinds of scenes, one called the tragic, second, the comic, third, the satyric. John Gassner and Ralph G. . Allen. Nicoll makes the point that the Hellenistic innovations to the theatreplant did not occur all at the same time at all of the Hellenistictheatres. Gradually, theepiskenion doors were converted into a series of up to seven openings, orthyromata, separated by columns. Theatre and Drama in the Making. Another aspect of Hellenistic theatreas opposed to that of the Golden Age is that it was far more secular inorientation. A back wall of thestage, or episkenion, measured 8-13 feet high and doubled as the front wallof a roofed upper story (distegia) of the skene. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1967. Ed. The Romanplaywrights Plautus (254-184 BC) and Terence (b. Between the columns of the proskenion wereplaced removable painted panels (pinakes). London: Oxford UP, 1967. 74-6.Vitruvius. According to Frost (5), plays that were set in Athens wereportrayed the city's harbor and city as lying to the audience's right, withthe countryside to their left. 4 9.Nicoll, Allardyce. The relevance of the stage setting to the content of the plays issuggested indirectly by Vitruvius's account of the periaktoi, which wererevolving triangular wood prisms that had with a different scene painted oneach of the three sides (Vitruvius 15 ). Phyllis Hartnoll. . It was during this period that the classical Greektheatre became styled as such, a consequence of the fact that Alexandrianscholars became engaged in "collecting, purifying, annotating, andpreserving texts of the great dramatists of the fifth century" (4 9). At first, the episkenionhad three doors, which could be used for entrances and exits; the structureitself was used by actors and for storage purposes. It is unclear whether the raised stage and orchestrawere used in Hellenistic performance, or whether the orchestra was used forthe older plays and the stage for the new ones. Roman theatres, as Vitruvius's discussionmakes clear, developed design conventions of their own. Their decorations are different and unlike each other in scheme. (Frost 3-4). Despite the relatively undistinguished dramatic content of Hellenisticplays, the forms of presentation that emerged during that period haveaffected the theatre of today. The Hellenistic period of world history dates from the time Alexanderthe Great assumed the throne of Macedon in 336 BC until the death ofCleopatra in 3 BC. Ed. that, while it traversesmany passions and humors . Oxford: Oxford UP, 1988.Gassner, John. Works CitedBarker, Clive. . . For all of these reasons, Menander is considered tohave written the first comedy of manners (Gassner and Allen 73). Menander did make use ofnonspeaking (mute) roles in the character of attendants, servants, guards,etc. Its principal characteristic is that the territory ofthe Eastern Mediterranean area, from the Greek peninsula and the Balkans toAsia Minor and Persia, came under the domination of Greek culture, whichwas the heir of the Athenian classical tradition. However, access from theorchestra level to the raised stage was accomplished by way of a rampextending sideward from the stage floor to the orchestra level (Gassner 6-8passim; Nicoll passim). Meanwhile, the classical convention of thechorus disappeared in the Hellenistic period, "except as a kind ofintermission entertainment between episodes" (Gassner and Allen 73). The plethora of "event"performances and motion pictures speaks to the modern era's debt to theHellenistic taste for spectacle, but the mere fact of scene painting, alsoassociated with spectacle, as a specialized effort in the theatrerepresented a break from the more austere classical period as well as aninnovation that survives to the present day. London: Oxford UP, 1967. In the Hellenistic period, the theatre became apublic and secular facility (Kitto 4 9), and it is in that character thatthe modern theatre functions as well. 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