The dawn of ancient Greek drama originated from the song and dance performances in ancient Greek sacrificial ceremonies. At the end of the 6th century BC, when Alion performed Ode to Dionysus in Spring Rite, he improvised poems to answer the questions raised by the chorus leader, and developed Ode to Dionysus into a new artistic style with narrative characteristics, which was called "the drama of the sheep people". Thespis is known as the earliest actor in the song and dance of Ode to Dionysus. Talking with the leader of the chorus is considered as the original dramatic factor and the origin of the ancient Greek tragedy. Aeschylus, the founder of ancient Greek tragedy, increased the number of actors to two, gradually reducing the factors of song and dance narration and increasing the factors of drama, and drama was formed here as an independent art style. In ancient Greece, when festivals were held in winter, people dressed as birds and animals marched in the carnival, which was called "the song of the carnival team". By the 6th century BC, it developed into a farce in Greece and was regarded as a primitive comedy. In 487 BC, a comedy was officially staged at the sacrificial ceremony in Athens. At that time, there were only three actors, and the role of chorus was not so important in the tragedy. In the development of ancient Greek comedy, the role of chorus is getting smaller and smaller.
The history of western drama originated in ancient Greece can be divided into: ancient Greek and Roman drama, medieval drama, Renaissance drama, classicism drama, Enlightenment drama,19th century drama, modern drama and contemporary drama. In some historical periods, according to different styles, many schools can be divided. The geographical scope has also gradually expanded from ancient Greece and Rome to Jewish Christian civilization and Italy and Spain.
Ancient Greek drama flourished from the end of the 6th century BC to the beginning of the 4th century BC, when Athens was also the center of ancient Greek drama. Drama and theater in ancient Greek drama had a lasting and far-reaching influence on the development of western drama and culture.
In the 5th century BC, drama officially became an important part of Athenian culture and civic life. The important content of the annual Dionysian Theater bacchanalia has become a grand drama competition. Each playwright must submit a tragic trilogy and a sheep play with related contents as entries, and the style of the latter is often more relaxed and enjoyable than the former. In the development of drama, the number of roles in drama has increased to two, and the chorus plays a more independent role than a simple narrator. The theme of the play is no longer limited to praising Dionysus, but begins to draw materials from the whole ancient Greek mythology.
It was during this period that the influence of drama spread to places outside Athens. Bacchanalia in Athens is still the most important drama activity in a year, and every ancient Greek city-state has built its own theater. The best preserved one today is Epidos Theatre. Every ancient Greek drama is related to religious celebrations and myths and legends.
Ancient Greek drama is the childhood of human drama and the first prosperous period of human drama, and many tragedies and comedies have been handed down. Famous tragic writers include Aeschylus, Sophocles and euripides. Famous comic writers include aristophanes and Minand. Their creation and Aristotle's theoretical writings constitute everyone's understanding of ancient Greek drama.
After the Peloponnesian War, the strength of Athens was greatly weakened, and the development of ancient Greek drama seems to have gradually lost its vitality. However, in the Hellenistic era, especially after a series of expansion wars by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC, drama has been continuously developed. The main form of drama in the Hellenistic era is "new comedy". The characters in comedy are ordinary people, not princes and nobles, and their personality and behavioral psychology are flawed. This comedy shows people who are getting worse and worse, which makes people laugh. The biggest feature is humor and irony. The important contribution of the new comedy to the later generations is that it influenced the later Roman comedy. The drama culture in ancient Rome lacked originality, and it inherited and imitated the ancient Greek drama.
Every art has its own special means of expression, thus forming the external form of image. As a comprehensive art, ancient Greek drama combines many artistic expressions, which are directly and externally manifested as a complex: literature, mainly referring to scripts; Plastic arts, mainly refers to scenery, lighting, props, clothing, makeup; Music mainly refers to sound, episode, soundtrack, etc. In a theatrical performance; Dance mainly refers to the dance elements contained in ballet and opera art.
From the perspective of creation, Aristotle summarized the characteristics of ancient Greek drama as "three unifications", that is, the consistency of time, place and performance. The plot of ancient Greek drama usually takes place only in one day, and the location remains the same. There is often only one main line in the plot, and no other sub-plots are allowed. Aristotle's theory of "three unifications" is intended to describe an objective form, not to specify an ideal state. Not all ancient Greek dramas follow the rigid "three unifications", but this theory is applicable to most situations.
Aristotle mentioned six elements of drama in Poetics, namely plot, role, thought, language, music and landscape. At that time, it was thought that tragedy and comedy were two completely different drama styles, and no ancient Greek drama could cover the characteristics of both at the same time. Although the theme of the play of the sheep is the same as the tragedy, it satirizes the protagonist through the spirit of banter and vulgar language, and has a comedy style, thus realizing the successful integration of the two.
In the script, ancient Greek dramas add bold descriptions and eulogies to people's feelings, humanity, human values and dignity, and focus on describing and praising the human body, which shows that the humanistic spirit of the classical era has permeated. Among them, the tragic writer Sophocles has a line in antigone: "Although there are many miracles in the world, nothing is more strange than people." This became a famous humanistic motto in ancient Greek classical culture. It can be said that humanism is a theme feature of ancient Greek drama creation.
The concrete expression of humanistic spirit of ancient Greek drama is the solemn, elegant, beautiful and harmonious literary style of the whole drama art process, which is a noble, simple and quiet greatness. It emphasizes the dialectical unity, balance and even the highest harmony between form and content, reality and ideal, norms and freedom, purity and richness, which are perfectly embodied in ancient Greek dramas, such as the norms of tragedy (three unifications). Humanistic spirit and classical artistic style are both expressed by form, so ancient Greek drama, as an artistic style, has formed a set of distinctive forms of expression and has been developing vigorously.
Architecturally speaking, ancient Greek theaters were generally open-air, including orchestra pit (or main hall, dance floor), theater and audience. The orchestra pit is usually located in the center of a building and is usually used as a stage. It is a circular area with a circumference of150m. The orchestra pit is a place where actors perform and singers sing, and also a place where religious ceremonies are held. There is often an altar in the middle of the orchestra pit. In Athens, this altar is usually built in memory of Dionysus. Behind the orchestra pit is a rectangular building named "Jason Wu", which means "tent" or "hut". The function of the landscape house is equivalent to the backstage of the ancient Greek theater, where actors can change clothes and masks. Usually there are three doors leading to the orchestra pit outside the scenic house. Some theaters have a performance area protruding from the ground in front of the set, which is the embryonic form of the front stage in modern theaters. As its original meaning, the earliest landscape house is often a tent-like structure, built for religious celebrations and demolished after the celebrations. Later, as drama became a mainstream artistic style, the theater also became a permanent building. Sometimes people draw patterns on the outside of landscape houses as the stage background. This is also the origin of the word "scenery" in English.
The inclined structure around the orchestra pit is the auditorium. The auditorium is usually built according to the slope of a small hill, and the audience sits on neatly arranged benches to watch the performance. The theaters in ancient Greece could only be built on slopes with suitable shapes. The theaters in ancient Greece were usually large, with a capacity of 15000 audience. These theaters are generally open, and the audience can clearly see other people around them, including actors and singers, as well as the scenery around the theater.
In performance, the huge scale of the ancient Greek theater decided that the actors' performances had to be exaggerated. They should recite their lines loudly and make various gestures, because only in this way can the audience see and hear their performances. Similarly, props with relatively small size cannot be used in theatrical performances, and actors should use gestures to represent certain objects. There are usually only two or three actors in ancient Greek drama, so one actor usually plays several different roles at the same time, and one role in the drama can also be played by multiple actors at the same time. Most ancient Greek dramas contain elements of music and dance. The rhymes and roles recited and sung by the chorus are accompanied.
In terms of clothing and masks, because the distance between the actor and the audience is far away, the actor must often change clothing and masks to attract the attention of the audience. Actors use thick-soled boots to make themselves look taller, and sometimes they wear brightly colored gloves to let the audience recognize their gestures.
Mask is the symbol with the most ancient Greek characteristics in drama. In a play, each actor has his own unique mask. These masks are usually made of linen or cork, so they can't be preserved today, but we can learn the shapes and styles of those masks from paintings and sculptures with the theme of ancient Greek actors. The masks used in tragedies are often expressions of pain or mourning, while those used in comedies are usually smiles or a little evil expressions. The actor covered his whole face, including his hair, with a mask during his performance. Facts have proved that the shapes of these masks are conducive to the spread of actors' voices, making their voices more penetrating and easier for the audience to hear clearly.