Origins of European Drama

(Aspendos Theatre in Antalya)

It is the function of art to renew
our perception. What we are
familiar with we cease to see.
The writer shakes up the
familiar scene, and as if by
magic, we see a new meaning
in it.
Anaïs Nin

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 Drama is universal; all cultures, east and west,
have it in one form or another.

The Abydos Passion Play goes back 4500 BP (before present).

“Passion” here means resurrection. Depictions in ancient Egyptin
structures indicate this was a play about the resurrection of Osiris.
The Sumerians are also thought to have a similar play about Tammuz.
 Noh is a traditional Japanese masked drama with
dance, mime, and song, evolved largely from religious
rites.
Sanskrit Drama goes back at least 4000 years.
 In this course, we will focus on Western drama,
whose origins go back to the ancient Greek culture,
and the rites of Dionysus (also known as Bacchus),
the god of fertility and wine. (Aristotle disagrees.)
The theatre of Ephesus and the hillside it was built on

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Dionysus is also the God of Tragedy and
Comedy
 In ancient Greece, drama started in the form of
a religious ritual, with music, dance, and masks.
These rites were held especially in the honour of
Dionysus, the god of harvest and wine. Songs
praising this god were sung by a chorus, and as the
best singer was rewarded with a sacrificial goat,
these songs were called tragoidia, “the goat’s song”. In
time, these rites took the form of drama and
Dionysus became the god of tragedy and comedy.
Maenad, Dionysos and Satyr
Maenad (also known as Bacchae)
Maenad
 Drama was an important part of the lives of
ancient Greeks, and at the height of their
civilization, they produced several great
playwrights, such as;
• the legendary Thespis (600 B.C. ?), who added
the first actor (protagonist) to the chorus,
• Aeschylus, who added the second actor
(antagonist),
• Sophocles, who added the third actor and wrote,
among many other works, Oedipus Rex.
• When Euripides was born (around 500 B.C.), the
development of classical Greek drama was
completed.
Masks worn by actors in Classical Greek Plays

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 In between the acts of tragedies, there would be
short interludes of Satyr plays, probably for comic
relief. These would be bawdy, and enacted by
actors wearing satyr masks and exaggerated
phalluses.
A Satyr (half-man, half goat mythological
creature)
In comedy too, there were great
achievements, especially by Aristophanes and
Menandre.
Aristophanes wrote comedies of political
satire and social criticism. His surviving
comedies, such as The Wasps, The Clouds and
Lysistrata, are still enacted today.
Menandre wrote “the New Comedy”, which
was more apolitical and similar to situation
comedy and comedy of manners.
In comedy too, there were great achievements,
especially by Aristophanes and Menandre.
Aristophanes wrote comedies of political satire
and social criticism. His surviving comedies,
such as The Wasps, The Clouds and Lysistrata, are
still enacted today.
Menandre wrote “the New Comedy”, which was
more apolitical and similar to situation comedy
and comedy of manners.
 The Romans imitated the classical Greeks in art and
improved it even further, with tragedy writers such as Seneca,
and comedy writers such as Terence and Plautus. However,
after the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of Christianity
in Europe, the church leaders banned classical drama, thinking
it was pagan, profane and immoral. Interestingly, drama again
emerged as part of a religious ritual in Europe, in the middle
ages, when the clergy involved little plays in the Mass[1] in order
to instruct and entertain the congregation[2].

[1] The Catholic church service, when the church-goers gather in the church and worship.
[2] People who have gathered (in the church).
These religious plays enacted on holidays were so
popular that soon they had to be taken into wider areas,
such as the town square, so that more people would be
able to enjoy them. Once they went out of the church,
soon they were overtaken and performed by lay
(secular) people, such as the members of trade guilds1.
These performers, although they were not professional
actors, took play-acting very seriously. They performed
on movable platforms called “pageants”. They also
introduced comical elements into the plays, which were
still religious and moral in content. These medieval
types of drama are called morality and mystery plays.
1 A trade guild, in the medieval times, was the union of people belonging to the same
trade, e.g. the carpenters’ guild.
 Elizabeth I’s long reign of 48 years, known as the
Golden Age, England became a world power and
produced one of the best playwrights in history.
During the reign of Queen Elizabeth (16th
century), drama reached its height in England.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), who is perhaps
the most famous dramatic genius of all times, lived
in this period. He produced more than 30 plays,
among which are the tragedies Romeo and Juliet,
Tragedy of Hamlet, The Prince of Denmark, Othello,
Macbeth; and the comedies A Midsummer Night’s
Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Taming of The
Shrew. After his death, theatre declined in Britain
due to political reasons, but many good playwrights
have passed from the stage until the present day.
• A drawing of the
Globe made
during
Shakepeare’s
lifetime.
The inside of the Globe Theatre
Some definitions related to drama:

drama: 1. A composition in prose or verse, adapted to be acted

upon a stage, in which a story is related by means of dialogue
and action, and is represented with accompanying gesture,
costume, and scenery, as in real life; a play. e.g. The Glass
Menagerie.
2. With the: The dramatic branch of literature; the dramatic
art. e.g., Medieval drama, Shakespearean drama.

dramatic: 1. Characteristic of, or appropriate to, the drama;

often connoting animated action or striking presentation, as in a
play; theatrical. e.g., a dramatic event…
2. exciting, sensational. e.g., the dramatic past of the
popstar…
• Shakespeare wrote 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two
long poems (titled Venus and Adonis, and Rape of
Lucrece), and other poems.
• Unfortunately, very little of his works (some of
the sonnets and a few of the plays) were
published in his lifetime, and those were
probably pirated copies without his
authorization.
theatre: 1. the building where plays are enacted, an edifice
specially adapted to dramatic representations; a playhouse.
2. Dramatic performances as a branch of art, or as an institution;
the drama. Also, the drama of a particular time or place;
dramatic art as a craft, the theatrical profession.
3. A theatreful of spectators; the audience, or ‘house’, at a
theatre.

stage (n): 1. A floor raised above the level of the ground for the
exhibition of something to be viewed by spectators.
to go on the stage: To take part on a performance.

stage (v): to put a play upon the stage.

protagonist: The chief personage in a drama; hence, the principal character in
the plot of a story, etc. (antagonist: the nemesis of the protagonist.)

tragedy: 1. That branch of dramatic art which treats of sorrowful or terrible

events, in a serious and dignified style. Aristotle’s definition: “Imitation of sad
events”.
2. Applied to a modern stage-play.
3. An unhappy or fatal event or series of events in real life; a dreadful
calamity or disaster.

comedy: A stage-play of a light and amusing character, with a happy

conclusion to its plot. Aristotle’s definition: “Imitation of happy events”. Such
are the comedies of the ancient Greek and Latin writers, and of the modern
stage.
But in the Middle Ages the term was applied to other than dramatic
compositions, the ‘happy ending’ being the essential part of the notion. In
the English use of the term the following stages may be distinguished: Its
medieval use for a narrative poem with an agreeable ending.
act (n)(with reference to theatre): A ‘performance’ of part of a play; hence,
One of the main divisions of a dramatic work, in which a definite part of the
whole action is completed.

scene (n)(with reference to theatre): Comes from the Greek word skene,
which was the small building or tent where classical Greek actors changed
their masks to play different roles.
1. A subdivision of an act of a play (or of a short play which is not divided into
acts), marked by the entrance or departure of one or more actors (and, in
romantic or non-classic drama, often by a change of locale). Hence, the action
and dialogue comprised in any one of these subdivisions; a situation between
certain actors.
2. The place in which the action of a play, or part of a play, is supposed to
occur. Hence also, the setting of a dialogue, novel, etc. Phr. to lay the scene.
3. The material apparatus, consisting chiefly of painted hangings, slides, etc.,
set at the back and sides of the stage, and intended to give the illusion of a
real view of the locale in which the action of a play takes place; the view thus
presented to the spectators at any time during the action of a play. Also, any
one of the painted hangings, slides, etc. used for this purpose.