History of theatre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The history of theatre charts the development of theatre over the past 2,5. While performative elements are present in every society, it is customary to acknowledge a distinction between theatre as an art form and entertainment and theatrical or performative elements in other activities. The history of theatre is primarily concerned with the origin and subsequent development of the theatre as an autonomous activity. Since classical Athens in the 6th century BC, vibrant traditions of theatre have flourished in cultures across the world.
This similarity of early theatre to ritual is negatively attested by Aristotle, who in his Poetics defined theatre in contrast to the performances of sacred mysteries: theatre did not require the spectator to fast, drink the kykeon, or march in a procession; however theatre did resemble the sacred mysteries in the sense that it brought purification and healing to the spectator by means of a vision, the theama. The physical location of such performances was accordingly named theatron. As societies grew more complex, these spectacular elements began to be acted out under non- ritualistic conditions. As this occurred, the first steps towards theatre as an autonomous activity were being taken. 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. Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods, . 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).
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New Comedy is known primarily from the substantial papyrus fragments of plays by Menander. Aristotle defined comedy as a representation of laughable people that involves some kind of error or ugliness that does not cause pain or destruction. The Roman historian Livy wrote that the Romans first experienced theatre in the 4th century BC, with a performance by Etruscan actors. Although Rome had a native tradition of performance, the Hellenization of Roman culture in the 3rd century BC had a profound and energizing 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 (5.
While both dramatists composed in both genres, Andronicus was most appreciated for his tragedies and Naevius for his comedies; their successors tended to specialise in one or the other, which led to a separation of the subsequent development of each type of drama. While surviving evidence about Byzantine theatre is slight, existing records show that mime, pantomime, scenes or recitations from tragedies and comedies, dances, and other entertainments were very popular. Constantinople had two theatres that were in use as late as the 5th century. As such, most organized theatrical activities disappeared in Western Europe. While it seems that small nomadic bands traveled around Europe throughout the period, performing wherever they could find an audience, there is no evidence that they produced anything but crude scenes. These dramatizations were included in order to vivify annual celebrations. These were extensive sets of visual signs that could be used to communicate with a largely illiterate audience.
These performances developed into liturgical dramas, the earliest of which is the Whom do you Seek (Quem- Quaeritis) Easter trope, dating from ca. However, sometime between 9.
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Hrosvitha was followed by Hildegard of Bingen (d. Benedictine abbess, who wrote a Latinmusical drama called Ordo Virtutum in 1. High and late Medieval theatre, 1. Only in Muslim- occupied Spain were liturgical dramas not presented at all. Despite the large number of liturgical dramas that have survived from the period, many churches would have only performed one or two per year and a larger number never performed any at all.
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The festival inverted the status of the lesser clergy and allowed them to ridicule their superiors and the routine of church life. Sometimes plays were staged as part of the occasion and a certain amount of burlesque and comedy crept into these performances. Although comic episodes had to truly wait until the separation of drama from the liturgy, the Feast of Fools undoubtedly had a profound effect on the development of comedy in both religious and secular plays. The Mystery of Adam (1. A number of other plays from the period survive, including La Seinte Resurrection (Norman), The Play of the Magi Kings (Spanish), and Sponsus (French). The importance of the High Middle Ages in the development of theatre was the economic and political changes that led to the formation of guilds and the growth of towns. This would lead to significant changes in the Late Middle Ages.
In the British Isles, plays were produced in some 1. Middle Ages. These vernacular Mystery plays were written in cycles of a large number of plays: York (4. Chester (2. 4), Wakefield (3.
Chapter 1: Theatre and History, An Introduction. The study of classical drama.
Unknown (4. 2). A larger number of plays survive from France and Germany in this period and some type of religious dramas were performed in nearly every European country in the Late Middle Ages. Many of these plays contained comedy, devils, villains and clowns. For example, at Valenciennes in 1.
Often providing their own costumes, amateur performers in England were exclusively male, but other countries had female performers. The platform stage, which was an unidentified space and not a specific locale, allowed for abrupt changes in location. Morality plays emerged as a distinct dramatic form around 1. The most interesting morality play is The Castle of Perseverance which depicts mankind's progress from birth to death. However, the most famous morality play and perhaps best known medieval drama is Everyman. Everyman receives Death's summons, struggles to escape and finally resigns himself to necessity. Along the way, he is deserted by Kindred, Goods, and Fellowship .
It contains satirical scenes and folk material such as faeries and other supernatural occurrences. Farces also rose dramatically in popularity after the 1. The majority of these plays come from France and Germany and are similar in tone and form, emphasizing sex and bodily excretions. In England, The Second Shepherds' Play of the Wakefield Cycle is the best known early farce. However, farce did not appear independently in England until the 1. John Heywood (1. 49. Richard III and Henry VII both maintained small companies of professional actors.
Their plays were performed in the Great Hall of a nobleman's residence, often with a raised platform at one end for the audience and a . Also important were Mummers' plays, performed during the Christmas season, and court masques. These masques were especially popular during the reign of Henry VIII who had a House of Revels built and an Office of Revels established in 1. Elizabeth I forbid all religious plays in 1. Similarly, religious plays were banned in the Netherlands in 1.
Papal States in 1. Paris in 1. 54. 8. The abandonment of these plays destroyed the international theatre that had thereto existed and forced each country to develop its own form of drama. It also allowed dramatists to turn to secular subjects and the reviving interest in Greek and Roman theatre provided them with the perfect opportunity. It originated in Italy in the 1. Commedia dell'arte was an actor- centred theatre, requiring little scenery and very few props.
Plays did not originate from written drama but from scenarios called lazzi, which were loose frameworks that provided the situations, complications, and outcome of the action, around which the actors would improvise. The plays utilised stock characters, which could be divided into three groups: the lovers, the masters, and the servants. The lovers had different names and characteristics in most plays and often were the children of the master. The role of master was normally based on one of three stereotypes: Pantalone, an elderly Venetian merchant; Dottore, Pantalone's friend or rival, a pedantic doctor or lawyer who acted far more intelligent than he really was; and Capitano, who was once a lover character, but evolved into a braggart who boasted of his exploits in love and war, but was often terrifically unskilled in both. He normally carried a sword and wore a cape and feathered headdress.
The servant character (called zanni) had only one recurring role: Arlecchino (also called Harlequin). He was both cunning and ignorant, but an accomplished dancer and acrobat. He typically carried a wooden stick with a split in the middle so it made a loud noise when striking something. Most actors were paid by taking a share of the play's profits roughly equivalent to the size of their role. The style of theatre was in its peak from 1. The Venetian playwright Carlo Goldoni wrote a few scenarios starting in 1.
He also wrote several plays based on real events, in which he included commedia characters. Golden age theatre. It was an accessible art form for all participants in Renaissance Spain, being both highly sponsored by the aristocratic class and highly attended by the lower classes. Storytelling traditions originating in Italian Commedia dell'arte.
Neo- Aristotelian criticism and liturgical dramas, on the other hand, contributed literary and moralistic perspectives. Spanish drama had an immediate and significant impact on the contemporary developments in English Renaissance theatre. Other sources include the . The Italian tradition of Commedia dell'arte, as well as the elaborate masques frequently presented at court, also contributed to the shaping of public theatre. Since before the reign of Elizabeth I, companies of players were attached to households of leading aristocrats and performed seasonally in various locations.