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HISTORY OF THE THEATER IN ANCIENT TIMES

The first theaters

The oldest extant spaces to be classified as "theatrical areas" are found in four Minoan palaces on the island of Crete. The oldest of these, in Phaestus, dates back to 2000 BC. C., while that of Amnisus may have been built up to 700 BC. C .. These are L-shaped outdoor spaces built in stone with a rectangular stage. The house is a set of wide and low steps that end in a blank wall to one side of the stage. A grand staircase (leading to the palace) provides additional audience space on an adjoining side. The wide steps seem better suited for the type of stools that are illustrated in various Minoan murals, while the grand staircase could easily accommodate dozens and dozens of audience members, either seated or standing. The maximum audience capacity has been estimated at 500. However, nothing is known about what was seen in those spaces, so their identification as theaters is speculative. These spaces share some similarities with the earliest known theaters in mainland Greece, but there is no evidence that the Greeks knew anything about them.

It was classic

Greece and Rome

The first identification of theater as a distinctive art form in the city-state of Athens dates back to 534 BC. C., when the first prize was awarded in a tragedy contest. The Roman writer Horace, who wrote 500 years later, believed that Thespis, who won the contest, had developed the theater while traveling with a chariot that he used as a stage in any open area where an audience could gather. These portable stages were used for centuries in the realization of various entertainment (called mimes). The 12th century Byzantine encyclopedia known as Suda indicates that the oldest theater in Athens was built in its market square (agora) and used temporary wooden stands (ikria) for seating and a cleared area of ​​the market for a stage. This arrangement would have resembled, and might even have inspired, the oldest existing Greek theaters, found at Árgos and Thorikos, both built before 500 BC. C .. These were open-air theaters in which the house (theatron, or "a place to see", in Greek) was a bench of seats in a straight line (perhaps originally of wood but eventually of stone) supported by a hillside, while the stage (orchēstra, or "a dance venue") was a roughly rectangular space at the foot of the hill. At these sites there is little evidence today of unskene (from Greek skēnē, or "scene building"), which was the third basic component of later Greek theaters, so it is assumed that if such a structure existed, it was temporary. Greek theaters of this form continued to be built in the 3rd century BC.

Sometime before 497 BC C., the Athenians moved their theater from the market square to an enclosure dedicated to the god Dionysus on the southeast slope of the Acropolis. It is likely that it initially followed the straight-line shape of the theater in the agora, but gradually the seating benches were arranged in wedge-shaped sections that formed a polygon around part of the northern half of the stage, giving es a push stage setting. In the middle of the 5th century BC. , the stage area had taken the shape of a U, with a polygonal house of wooden benches around just over the middle of the north loop (the bottom of the U), a straight- line scene building closing the extreme south (the top), and an empty space just below the top of the U to which the entrances led (parodoi). The scene building was substantial enough to provide a small play space on its roof and at least a couple of doors leading onto the stage. The doors may have led to a porch, raised two or three steps above the orchestra so that it could serve as a raised stage or "place to speak" (logeion). This was certainly a feature of later Greek theaters, when in fact small buildings were constructed at each end of the skeleton to enclose the ends of such a tall stage. The performance area of ​​Greek theaters was often divided into two sections, the main stage and a raised stage at the rear. The scene building had enough space for the operation of complex stage machinery, both for actors in flight on or off stage and to reveal a frame of an interior scene on a platform deployed from inside. This building also provided up to three entrances along the rear of the elevated stage.