Theater Appreciation: Ancient Greek Scripts: City Dionysia Festival

ALTOS DE CHAVÓN AMPHITHEATER

A replica 16th century Mediterranean village in the Dominican Republic.

and Italian master designer and cinematographer, Roberto Coppa.

Handcrafted by local artisans.

There are 33 Greek plays, 36 Roman plays and more than 400 Greco-Roman Theaters in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, anywhere the Roman Empire established a protectorate. There were four major celebrations, in honor of the Greek god Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, fertility and revelry.

Three of these celebrations, the City Dionysia, in the early spring (March), at Athens, and the Lenaia and Rural Dionysia in the winter, would involve drama. One of the elements of these celebrations was the dithyramb, a choral ode song to the Dionysus, which was sung by a chorus of fifty men. Aristotle tell us that Greek tragedy grew out of the dithyramb.

Greek mythology is the legends and stories behind the Greek gods. The earliest Greek dramas, especially those by Aeschylus (525-456 BCE), drew their plots and characters from these myths.

Aeschylus (525-456 BCE) won thirteen Tragic Contests. There have been found seven of the approximately 80 plays he wrote, including the only complete trilogy: Oresteia (458 BCE): Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, and Eumenides. He added the second actor, creating the possibility of dramatic dialogue. Thespis' tragedies utilized only one actor and the chorus.

Sophocles wrote Oedipus Tyrannos (430-425? BCE), also known as Oedipus Rex or Oedipus the King. Sophocles won eighteen Tragic Contests. Like Aeschylus, only seven of the more than 120 plays he wrote have survived. Oedipus is considered one of the great tragedies of all times. Oedipus is known as the Greek king who murdered his father and married his mother. Sophocles' contribution to the art of playwrighting is based on the fact that he added the third actor.

Euripides wrote The Trojan Women, among other plays. More plays by Euripides have been kept than those written by both Sophocles and Aeschylus combined. The Romans, who eventually over throw Greece's Macedonian rulers (168 BCE), considered Euripides (ca. 480-407 BCE) a greater playwright, hence taking better care of his manuscripts. He won only five Contests, but we have seventeen of his approximately 90 tragedies. About 3.5% of the tragedies written during Greece's Golden Age (from 534 to 400 BCE) have survived. All were written by these three playwrights.

Aristophanes (ca. 448 - ca. 380 BCE) is the only Old Greek Comedy playwright whose work has survived. He wrote political satire and high comedy. He is best remembered for the four plays titled after the chorus: the The Clouds (423 BCE), The Wasps (422 BCE), The Birds (414 BCE), and The Frogs (405 BCE). Probably his most often revived script is Lysistrata (411 BCE), the story of the women of Athens and Sparta who bring an end to the long war between these two city states through a sex strike.

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