Drama and theatre in Athenian society
In Athens, plays were not shown every night. They were part of religious festivals for Dionysus, god of wine, fertility and theatre. The biggest was the City Dionysia each spring; the Lenaia in winter was smaller.
- Competition: three tragic playwrights each showed three tragedies and one short, rude satyr play. Comic playwrights competed too. Judges chosen by lot picked winners.
- Funding: a rich citizen, the choregos, paid for the chorus as a public duty.
- Audience: thousands of citizens; poorer citizens were later helped to pay entry. Plays showed the city its own values, debates and fears.
- Civic ceremony: before the plays, the city displayed tribute from allies and honoured the sons of fallen soldiers. Theatre was part of democracy and civic pride.
All performers were men. Women played by men wore female masks and costumes.
The theatre space
- Theatron ("seeing place"): curved rows of seats cut into a hillside. Later theatres held about 14 000-17 000 people.
- Orchestra ("dancing place"): a flat circle where the chorus sang and danced, often with an altar (thymele).
- Skene: a wooden (later stone) building behind the orchestra. Actors changed masks inside, and its door could be a palace or temple. It gave us the word "scene".
- Parodoi: side passages where the chorus entered.
- Ekkyklema: a wheeled platform rolled out of the door to show what had happened inside, often a dead body (violence was usually kept off stage).
- Mechane: a crane to lift gods. A god who suddenly appears to solve the plot is a deus ex machina ("god from the machine").
Evidence: stone remains (the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens, the very well-preserved theatre at Epidaurus, famous for its acoustics), painted vases showing actors, masks and choruses, and the play texts themselves.
Masks, actors and chorus
Masks covered the whole head. They showed age, gender and type, helped the back rows see, and let one actor play several roles.
Actors: tradition says Thespis first stepped out of the chorus as a single actor (hence "thespian"). Aeschylus added a second actor, Sophocles a third. So three actors shared all speaking parts.
Chorus: a group (12-15 in tragedy, 24 in comedy) who sang and danced. It commented on the action, gave background, voiced the community's view and linked the scenes.
Shape of a tragedy: prologue (opening) → parodos (chorus enters) → episodes (scenes with actors) separated by stasima (choral songs) → exodos (ending).
The nature of tragedy
Tragedy deals with serious events, suffering, the gods and human choice. The three great tragedians were Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.
Later, the philosopher Aristotle described key ideas:
- Hamartia: an error or flaw that leads to the fall.
- Hubris: too much pride, especially against the gods.
- Peripeteia: a sudden reversal of fortune.
- Anagnorisis: the moment of recognition, when the hero learns the truth.
- Catharsis: the audience is cleansed by pity and fear.
Oedipus the King (Sophocles): a plague hits Thebes. King Oedipus, proud of his cleverness, swears to find the killer of the old king. Step by step he discovers that he himself killed his father and married his mother without knowing. He blinds himself. It is a play about fate, knowledge and the limits of human cleverness, and its plot is often called perfectly built.
Bacchae (Euripides): Dionysus returns to Thebes, where his cousin King Pentheus refuses to honour him. The god drives the women into wild worship and tricks Pentheus into spying on them; Pentheus is torn apart by the women, led by his own mother. It explores religion, control versus freedom, and the danger of denying a god. It is also a play about theatre, since Dionysus is its god.
The nature of comedy
Old Comedy, best known through Aristophanes, mixed fantasy plots, rude jokes, songs and sharp satire of real politicians, thinkers and poets. A special part, the parabasis, let the chorus step forward and speak directly to the audience about the city.
Frogs (Aristophanes): Athens is short of good tragic poets, so Dionysus travels to the Underworld to bring one back. On the way he crosses a lake with a croaking chorus of frogs. In the Underworld he judges a contest between Aeschylus (old, grand style) and Euripides (new, clever style). The play jokes about poetry, but also gives serious advice to a city at war.
Later, New Comedy (Menander) turned to everyday family life and love plots, which influenced Roman comedy and, much later, the sitcom.
Legacy
Greek theatre gave us the shape of the theatre building, the words of the stage, the forms of tragedy and comedy, and the idea that a play can make a whole community think. Rome copied it, Renaissance writers rediscovered it, and modern stagings and festivals still perform these plays and borrow the chorus and masks.
Try it: a practical
In the 3D: set actors to 1, then 3. How could only three actors play a play with eight characters? (Hint: masks.) Fly the crane and say one problem a god might solve.
At home: make two paper-plate masks, one tragic, one comic. With friends, act a 2-minute scene where a chorus of three speaks together to comment on what the actor does. Then sit in a semicircle and test: can people at the ends hear a whisper from the centre?
Key formulas and definitions
- Theatron = seats; orchestra = dancing circle; skene = stage building
- Max 3 actors (Thespis 1 → Aeschylus 2 → Sophocles 3) + chorus
- Tragedy shape: prologue → parodos → episodes + stasima → exodos
- Aristotle: hamartia, hubris, peripeteia, anagnorisis, catharsis
- Old Comedy: satire + parabasis (Aristophanes)
Worked examples
1. Why did Greek actors wear masks?
So the huge audience could see who each character was, so one actor could play several roles, and so men could play women.
2. In Oedipus the King, what is the anagnorisis?
The moment Oedipus realises that he is the killer he is looking for and that the old king was his father.
3. What is a deus ex machina? Where does the name come from?
A sudden outside solution to a plot. It comes from the mechane crane that lowered a god onto the stage.
4. Who paid for the chorus at the City Dionysia?
A wealthy citizen called the choregos, as a public service.
5. How does Frogs mix fun and serious ideas?
It jokes about Dionysus, frogs and the poets' styles, but the contest is really about which poet can give the best advice to save the city.
6. Name two kinds of evidence for how Greek plays were staged.
Stone theatre remains (Athens, Epidaurus) and painted vases showing actors, masks and choruses; also the stage directions hidden in the play texts.
Common mistakes
- Thinking plays ran every day like a modern theatre. They were mainly performed at religious festivals.
- Thinking women acted. All actors and chorus members were men.
- Mixing up orchestra and skene: the orchestra is the dancing circle; the skene is the building behind.
- Saying Greek tragedy shows lots of violence on stage. Deaths usually happen off stage and are reported or revealed.