1. 1 Theatre and Drama in Ancient Greece (Stages and Staging)
Performance spaces were built on public land such as parks or marketplaces.
The oldest known “theatral area” is at the Minoan palaces at Phaistos and date back to 2000 B.C.E.
It is assumed to have been used for dances, ceremonies, and bull-leaping, but nobody really knows for sure.
The oldest actual theatre in Greece is at Thorikos.
By the 5th century, theatres included a circular area called the orchestra where action took place.
The area was about 66 feet in diameter!
This structure remained unchanged until the Christian Era.
The theatre at Thorikos.
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2. 2 Theatre and Drama in Ancient Greece (Stages and Staging)
A table or altar (thymele) was located in the orchestra, but it is debated whether it was placed in the center or to one side.
Later, a skene (“hut” or “tent”) was added – we know this as a scene building.
It’s where we get the word “scene” anyway!
Aeschylus’ Oresteia is the first existing play to require a building as a background.
Since all parts of these early scene houses have since disappeared, we cannot determine their appearance.
Historians usually assume that temporary skene were built for each festival.
The theatre at Delphi. Note the orchestra, the arrangement of seating, and what looks like remains of a skene!
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3. 3 Theatre and Drama in Ancient Greece (Stages and Staging)
Skene had only a few requirements that we know of, depending on the play, including:
One or more doors
An upper level used for the appearance of gods or to represent high places
One or more windows above ground level
It is widely assumed that after 458 B.C.E. all plays used the skene as the background.
They could easily meet the needs of most plays, since they are set in front of a temple, palace, or other type of building.
Historians argue about when skene decoration began, but it may have been between 468 an 456.
This is when the careers of Aeschylus and Sophocles overlapped, and both are credited with first using scene painting by different ancient writers.
The skene at a Roman theatre. No examples of Greek skene remain.
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4. 4 Theatre and Drama in Ancient Greece (Stages and Staging)
Two devices were used to change the appearance of the skene:
Pinakes – painted panels similar to modern flats. These could be attached to the scene building and changed as needed.
It is not documented if these were changed for every play, for individual scenes, or otherwise.
Periaktoi – triangular prisms with a different scene painted on each of the 3 sides. In later periods these were mounted on pivots to rotate.
Use of periaktoi in the 5th century is not documented.
It appears that Greek drama did not attempt illusionism (depiction of a believable alternative reality).
Instead scenery, etc. were symbolic or conventional (standard).
A small model of periaktoi. Note the different background seen on one side (center). Modern periaktoi are placed on pivots to rotate easily.
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5. 5 Theatre and Drama in Ancient Greece (Stages and Staging)
A limited amount of machinery was available for special effects.
Ekkyklema – a rolling used to reveal tableaux (usually bodies of characters killed offstage). Probably most often rolled out from the central doorway of the skene.
Machina – a crane used to show characters in flight or suspended above the earth.
Most often used for the appearances of gods.
It became grossly overused in the last part of the 5th century, especially by Euripides.
He often used gods to solve his plots, resulting in the term deus ex machina (“god from the machine”) – still used to this day!
Stage props were few and far between in tragedy, but numerous in comedy.
They were not used to create the illusion of reality but to make a dramatic point.
An illustrated example of how the machina may have worked.
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