THE HISTORY OF THEATRE

 GREEK THEATRE

• Created to celebrate religious festivals
• Chorus used to sing or chant a script
• Unkown if Thespis was a playwright, an actor or priest, but he has been credited for creating the "first actor" who broke away from the chorus, speaking to the chorus as an individual character. (THESPIANS)
• lead to the creation of character
• Masks were used

CREATION OF CHARACTER

• Aeschylus introduced the idea of using a second or third actor which allowed for interactions between characters
• Sophocles continued, using chorus less + creating more dialogue

ROMAN THEATRE

• Romans were influenced by Greek theatre
• "Play" comes from the Latin word "Ludus"
• Roman playwright Terence introduced subplots
• Less influenced by religion than greek theatre
• The audience was loud and rude
• Much of the plays were repetitive
• Actors developed a code which would tell the audience about a character just by looking at them

E.G.

• A black wig (the character was a young man)
• A red wig (the character was a slave)
• A yellow robe (the character was a woman)
• Yellow tassel (the character was a god)

MEDIEVAL EUROPEAN THEATRE

• After the fall of the roman empire, cities were abandoned, Europe became increasingly more agricultural
• Towns re-emerged
• Roman Catholic Church dominated religion, education and politics
• Theatre was "reborn" as "liturgical dramas" which were written in Latin and performed by priests or church members.
• Plots were taken from the Bible
• Performances held to celebrate religious festivals
• Later "vernacular dramas" were written in common language
• Plays were performed in town squares on wagon stages

Vernacular dramas were

• Mystery plays 0 based on the Old and new testament
• Miracle Plays - based on the lives of the saints
• Morality plays - taught a lesson through symbolic characters representing virtues or faults

COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE ITALY'S CONTRIBUTION

• required few props and no sets
• Didn't come from scripts but by scenarios which were an outline of a plot
• Actors improvised the dialogue with comedic stunts (called LAZZI)
• Actors wore half masks which indicated to the audience which character they were playing
• A Commedia troupe typically consisted of 10 to 12 members
• Plays were based on stock characters
• Pantalone, an elderly Venetian merchant (Mr Burns)
• Arlecchino, a servant who was a trouble maker (Bart)

RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION

• Italy - Further contributions to Theatre were made by Italians through the development of the proscenium.
• England - "apron stages" were used
• Audience members surrounded the stage, sometimes on the stage
• The emphasis in plays was on the dialogue.
• Later religious themes were replaced by themes of loyalty to the government
• Performers were organized into troupes or companies who developed a repertory of plays that they could perform
• The 16th century, England government swung back and forth from Catholicism to Protestantism
• Playwrights working to revive plays in Latin were believed to be supporting the Catholic church
• Playwrights working to revive Greek plays were seen at Protestants
• Depending on who was in power at the time, a playwright could be put to death for reviving the wrong play
• Many playwrights began to avoid the revival of classic work and wrote non-political and non-religious plays
• political problems in England made theatre dangerous
• Civil unrest could be inspired by performances
• Associated with the temptation to spend time watching performances
• Theatres were also associated with prostitution
• Added to the political problems, fear of the plague closed theatre
• These conditions lead to the licensing of acting companies which lead to more government control of theatre by state

ELIZABETHAN THEATRE

• Shakespeare is the most notorious playwright in the history of theatre
• + Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson
• Shakespeare and his contemporaries encouraged a more natural style of speaking and acting. They also explored the theme of "good government"
• Shakespeare's characters were also more "human" with both positive and negative aspects of their character being explored
• During this time, players were still presented in open-air theatres or at times, presented in court

THE REPUBLIC AND THE RESTORATION

• In 1642, the English Parliament closed all English theatres
• English actors fled to France
• Theatre focused on the scenery
• Plays now included costume, dance and clever scenery
• Theatres also used proscenium style of theatre
• The french allowed women to perform on stage. (When theatre returned to England in 1660, women were allowed on stage there too. 

18th CENTURY THEATRE

• Became popular pastime
• During the first half of the 18th century, actors assumed poses and performed their lines in a 'sing-song' manner
• Dressed in modern fashionable clothes
• The rivalry between actresses at to who would wear the finest dress
• The pantomime was popular and promoted the development of spectacular staging, slapstick and SFX
• David Garrick - one of Britain's greatest actors. 1741 to 1776 - actor, producer and theatre manager. He wrote more than 20 plays and adapted many more
• Emphasized a more natural form of speaking and acting
• Naturalism 
• Banished the audience from the stage
• Plays began to be written about ordinary people
• Theatre became more commercial

19th CENTURY

• Gaslighting was first introduced in 1817 in London's Drury Lane Theatre
• By the end of the century, electrical lighting made its appearance on stage
• Elaborate mechanisms for changing scenery were developed, including fly-lofts, elevators, and revolving stages.
• MELODRAMA  - poor quality lighting + advances of set design lead to theatre-style emphasising action.
• Comes from "music drama" music created emotions on stage
• Actors performed their characters using gestures and body poses
• Simplified moral universe
• SFX was part of the performance: fires, explosions, and or earthquakes
• The villain poses a threat, the hero escapes, end with a happy ending
• During the first half of the century, playwrights were poorly paid
• THE ERA OF THEATRE GREATS - later half of the 19th century, 3 incredible playwrights changed theatre
• Began "realism"
• Would be as if the audience were watching a film (fourth wall)
• Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw, Anton Chekho
• The serious and realistic drama that was being created in the second half of the 19th century challenged actors to learn new method of acting
• Stanislavski wrote several works on the art of acting, such as "An Actor Prepares"
• Following actors include Jack Nicholson, James Dean, Marlon Brando, Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Benicio Del Toro, Johnny Depp

20th CENTURY THEATRE

• The world changed (2 world wars, and much social and political upheaval)
• Realism movement in theatre. and the creation of naturalistic acting style developed)
• Many other theatre movements also began; one such theatre style was Theatre of the Absurd
• Theatre of the Absurd, which grew out of the post-modern movement which believed that life has no meaning, and there is no god
• This style of theatre grew out of Europe in the later 1940s

THE END

• the craft of acting is constantly changing in reaction to audiences' tastes, political and social movements, and advances in technology