Group 3's Rome Blog: the Roman Theatre stuff

----- the Roman Theatre -----

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The theatre of ancient Rome refers to dramatic performances performed in Rome and its dominions during classical antiquity.

Ancient Roman theatre was heavily influenced by the Greek tradition, and as with many other literary genres Roman dramatists tended to adapt and translate from the Greek. For example, Seneca's Phaedra was based on that of Euripides, and many of the comedies of Plautus were direct translations of works by Menander. The Romans were more interested in comedy however and many found tragedies to be boring and too depressing for the stage.

When comparing and contrasting ancient Roman theatre to that of Greek theatre it can easily be said that Roman theatre was less influenced by religion. Also, Roman theatre was more for aesthetic appeal. In Roman theatre war was a more common thing to appear on stage as opposed to the Greek theatre where the plays were mimed and repetitive. The actors developed a kind of code that would tell the audience about the characters just by looking at them.

A purple robe meant the character was a young man.
A yellow robe meant the character was a woman. (Needed in early Roman theatre, as originally female characters were played by men, however as the Roman theatre progressed, women slaves took the roles of women in plays.)
A yellow tassel meant the character was a god.
Roman costumes mirrored traditional Greek garments. Actors commonly wore a long robe called a chiton. Chitons were often colored to denote character and rank.

Plays lasted for two hours, and were usually comedies. Most comedies involved mistaken identity (such as gods disguised as humans).

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NOTES:

* the Roman theatre eventually became so bloody that people actually died in it.

* the tassel or robe that an actor playing a god was dyed using urine :p

* Originally men acted as women (women weren't allowed to act) but then they started bringing female slave girls.

* add more here