ROMAN COMEDY ORIGINS

Inspirations for Roman Comedy Greek comedy practiced in Italy Attic comedy Native forms of entertainment (including Atellana)

Comedy in Italy 6th - 5th century BCE EPICHARMUS a Sicilian writer of comedy (Arist. 1448b 32) Testimonies: titles, citations, and fragments of plays in the Sicilian Doric dialect. His specialty: mythological burlesque.

Attic comedy Possibly performed in the 4th-3rd century by the technitai of Dionysus in addition to Euripidean tragedy (which had many comic features)

Greek comedy in Latin 3rd century BCE Comoedia palliata ‘comedy in Greek clothes’ Best known authors: Plautus and Terence. Plays used the scripts of Greek New Comedy adapted to suit the taste of Roman audiences

Stages Originally wooden structures, no seats Long narrow wooden stage (pulpitum) Comedy: background building (scaena) represents two houses with an alley in between (angiportus); Exit to the left  forum; Exit to the right  the harbor or countryside.

ichard Beacham, �Eke out our performance with your mind�; reconstructing the theatrical past with the aid of computer simulationﾊﾊﾊﾊ(abstract)From Information Technology and Scholarship: Applications in the Humanities and Social Sciences, edited by Terry Coppockｩ The British Academy 1999

M屍ida: stage of the Roman Theatre

Roman theaters 154 BCE a theater under construction demolished 145 BCE Mummius’ wooden theater 55 BCE Theater of Pompeius 13 CE theaters of Cornelius Balbus and Marcellus

Producers & Performers Originally: poets would produce and perform in their own plays; Later: professional domini gregis owners of troupes of actors bought the piece and contracted its performance for the aediles who financed the entertainment.

left: 3 actors from mime (Roman, first century CE); right: 2 comic actors (Etruscan, second century BCE)
London, British Museum. Credits: Barbara McManus, 1999
Keywords: drama, theater, comedy