roman theatre

drama:

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• LIVIUS ANDRONICUS:  (240-204)
•              translator & tragedian
• GNAEUS NAEVIUS:  (270-201)
•               comedian...but wrote both

pantomime

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• solo dance
• lutes, pipes, cymbals, chorus
• masks
• mythology
• seriocomedic

mime:

after 2nd century A.D

• spoken, short satires
• elaborate, but no masks
• had women!
• Violence & sex depicted literally (218-222)
• Scoffed at Christianity

comedy:

only a pair:

• TITUS MACCIUS PLAUTUS (254-184)
•         21 extant plays, 130+ total (slapstick, music)
•         Pot of Gold, The Menaechmi, Braggart Warrior
• based on GNC, allusions, Latin dia, poetic meter, wit
• STYCHOMYTHIA: dialog w/short lines (tennis match)

PUBLIUS TERENIUS AFER (Terence)

• (195 OR 185-159)
• Carthage...slavery...freedom
• 6 including: The Brothers, Mother in Law
• complex, contrasts, double plots
• elegant language, Greek characters

Differences:

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• chorus eventually abandoned
• no acts or scenes
• (Plautus: 3 songs:2/3) (Terence: 0:1/2)
• Everyday domestic affairs
• action placed in the street

tragedy:

None survived BUT

• 1 known playwright
• LUCIUS ANNAEUS SENECA (5 OR 4-65)
• 9 extant tragedies, 5 adapted fr. Euripedes
• popularity declined, committed suicide
• closet dramas: never presented or expected to be

Senecan tragedy

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• 5 EPISODES, acts divided by odes
• Elaborate speeches...forensics begin!
• SENTENTIAE: (short generalizations about the human condition)
• Violence & horror onstage, characters dominated by a single passion
• Soliloquies/asides/supernatural

theory:

horace (65-8)

• Theoretician:  Ars Poetica 
• Unpopular/Renaissance
• Less Theory, more practice
• UNITIES:  time, place, action

buildings

54 or 55 B.c.

• up 5 ft. 20-40 deep 100-300 long, 10-15000 audience
• 3-5 doors in rear wall & one in the wings
• Skene=scaena; paradoi=vomitorium; 
• orkestra section was cut in 1/2

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• scaena frons
• stage covered w/a roof
• dressing rooms/trap doors
• audience covered by awning
• 78 b.c. things got COOL

circus maximus (600 B.C.)

amphitheatres (46 b.c.)

The colosseum (80 a.d)

• gladiators, animals
• 3-4 levels, 4,157x620x513 ft, 50,000 
• animal elevators
• periaktoi, many performers & spectacular effects
• 3 dimensional scenery & curtains

the actors

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• Greek traditions survived:  masks, doubling
• Tragedy: slow, declamatory
• Comedy: rapid & conversational
• think big! specialists! encores!
• costumes/masks/music

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• famous:  Rocius...became nobility
• mimes were inferior...
• troupe size remains a mystery
• the Diva is born! (1B.C.)
• Theodora=*+ Justinian, retired. (6 a.d.)

curtain call

6 A.D. christianity comeback

• Emperor Constantine (324-337)  Christianity=legal!
• Emperor Theodosius everything else illegal
• 400:  no fests, 404:  no fights, 523: no Vicks 

& the church says: "NO!!!"

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• association with pagan gods
• licentiousness
• ridicule of church sacraments by mimes

& the winner, by unanimous decision

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• the Roman empire begins to decay
• Barbarians at the gates...
• 533 A.D= last record of a performance
•             this was mentioned in a letter...