An easy-to-use guide to the nature and stagecraft of ancient plays

Publisher description

This Blackwell Guide introduces ancient Greek drama, which flourished principally in Athens from the sixth century BC to the third century BC. A broad-ranging and systematically organised introduction to ancient Greek drama. Discusses all three genres of Greek drama - tragedy, comedy, and satyr play. Provides overviews of the five surviving playwrights - Aeschylus, Sophokles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Menander, and brief entries on lost playwrights. Covers contextual issues such as: the origins of dramatic art forms; the conventions of the festivals and the theatre; the relationship between drama and the worship of Dionysos; the political dimension; and how to read and watch Greek drama. Includes 46 one-page synopses of each of the surviving plays.

In Theatre in Ancient Greek Society the author examines the social setting and function of ancient Greek theatre through the thousand years of its performance history. Instead of using written sources, which were intended only for a small, educated section of the population, he draws most of his evidence from a wide range of archaeological material - from cheap, mass-produced vases and figurines to elegant silverware produced for the dining tables of the wealthy. This is the first study examining the function and impact of the theatre in ancient Greek society by employing an archaeological approach.

'The more we learn about the original production of tragedies and comedies in Athens the more it seems wrong even to call them plays in the modern sense of the word, ' write the editors in this collection of critically diverse innovative essays aimed at restoring the social context of ancient Greek drama.

What is the nature of theatre's uneasy alliance with literature? Should theatre be viewed as a preliterate, ritualistic phenomenon that can only be compromised by writing? Or should theatre be grouped with other literary arts as essentially'textual,'with even physical performance subsumed under the aegis of textuality? Jennifer Wise, a theatre historian and drama theorist who is also an actor, director, and designer, responds with a challenging and convincing reconstruction of the historical context from which Western theatre first emerged. Wise believes that a comparison of the performance style of oral epic with that of drama as it emerged in sixth-century Greece shows the extent to which theatre was influenced by literate activities relatively new to the ancient world. These activities, foreign to Homer yet familiar to Aeschylus and his contemporaries, included the use of the alphabet, the teaching of texts in schools, the public inscription of laws, the sending and receiving of letters, the exchange of city coinage, and the making of lists. Having changed the way cultural material was processed and transmitted, the technology of writing also led to innovations in the way stories were told, and Wise contends that theatre was the result. However, the art of drama appeared in ancient Greece not only as a beneficiary of literacy but also in defiance of any tendency to see textuality as an end in itself.

This series of essays by prominent academics and practitioners investigates in detail the history of performance in the classical Greek and Roman world. Beginning with the earliest examples of 'dramatic' presentation in the epic cycles and reaching through to the latter days of the Roman Empire and beyond, this 2007 Companion covers many aspects of these broad presentational societies. Dramatic performances that are text-based form only one part of cultures where presentation is a major element of all social and political life. Individual chapters range across a two thousand year timescale, and include specific chapters on acting traditions, masks, properties, playing places, festivals, religion and drama, comedy and society, and commodity, concluding with the dramatic legacy of myth and the modern media. The book addresses the needs of students of drama and classics, as well as anyone with an interest in the theatre's history and practice.