Ancient Greek drama and theater. Ancient drama

Ancient drama (from the Greek “action”) - a type of literature that developed from a ritual action in honor of the god Dionysus. It was usually accompanied by round dances, dances and songs. The content of these songs was a legend about the adventures of Dionysus. The performers reproduced this legend with their dances and facial expressions. Then a leader stood out from among the choir, to whom the choir answered. His role was often performed by professional actors who already existed at that time. The ancient drama is presented in three versions: tragedy, satirical drama, comedy.

The legacy left by antiquity in the field of art is enormous; it is the subject of study and imitation in all subsequent centuries. For example, during the Renaissance the first literary comedies and tragedies modeled on ancient authors. Later, outstanding Western European playwrights (Shakespeare, Corneille, Racine, Schiller, Goethe, etc.) repeatedly turned to the rich theatrical heritage left by antiquity. Many playwrights of the 20th century. also used more than once antique stories and images (O'Neill, Sartre, etc.).

Ritual performances took place during festivals in honor of Dionysus, which are the origins of Greek theater. It comes from the dithyramb Greek tragedy , which at first retained all the features of the myth of Dionysus. From praises telling about Dionysus, they gradually moved on to showing them in action. Dramatic works were usually given by authors as competitions. The authors played the main roles, wrote the music for the tragedies themselves, and directed the dances. The organizer of theatrical competitions was the state. They tried to use the theater as a tool for agitation and propaganda of their ideology.

The three greatest tragedians of Greece - Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides - consistently reflected in their tragedies the ideology of the landowning aristocracy and merchant capital at various stages of their development. The main motive of Aeschylus' tragedy is the idea of ​​the omnipotence of fate and the doom of the fight against it.

The tragedies of Sophocles reflect the era of the victorious war between the Greeks and the Persians, which opened up great opportunities for trading capital. In this regard, the authority of the aristocracy in the country fluctuates, and this accordingly affects the works of Sophocles. At the center of his tragedies is the conflict between family tradition and state authority. Sophocles believed reconciliation was possible social contradictions- a compromise between the trade elite and the aristocracy. The tragedy of Sophocles is recognized as the canonical form of Greek tragedy.

And finally, Euripides - a supporter of the victory of the trading stratum over the landowning aristocracy - already denies religion. In the works of the atheistically inclined Euripides actors drama is exclusively people. Dramatic action He is motivated by the real properties of the human psyche.

Ancient Greek comedy - was born at the same festivals of Dionysus as the tragedy, only in a different setting. If tragedy is a ritual worship service, then comedy is a product of amusements that began when the liturgical part of the Dionysius, gloomy and serious, ended. IN Ancient Greece Then they organized processions (komos, hence the comedy) with riotous songs and dances, put on fantastic costumes, and exchanged witticisms and jokes, often obscene.

During these amusements, the main elements of the comic genre arose: an everyday scene and a choral song. The choir improvised their songs. Over time Active participation Professional actors began to take part in these amusements, who introduced their permanent masks and techniques into them. Poets worked on mythical subjects for them, refracting them satirically. Later comedies that were staged on theater stage, concerned topical political issues. There were often cases of banning the production of certain comedies due to their disrespectful attitude to the rulers and caricaturing certain aspects of state life.

Homeric epic

Homer- the legendary ancient Greek poet-storyteller, who is credited with the creation of the Iliad and Odyssey. Nothing is known for certain about the life and personality of Homer. It is customary to date his activities to the 8th-7th centuries. BC. In ancient times, Homer, in addition to the Iliad and Odyssey, was credited with the authorship of other poems, but modern researchers usually believe that their authors lived later than Homer.

It is clear, however, that the Iliad and Odyssey were created much later than the events described in them, and that these works are the result of the long development of unwritten epic creativity, which constituted one of the varieties of Greek folklore. They are the first written monuments Greek literature.

The plot of the Iliad and Odyssey is taken from the cycle of myths about the Trojan War. "Iliad" tells about one of the central episodes Trojan War- about the events of the tenth year of the war, which ended with the death of Hector. "Odyssey" tells how Odysseus, king of Ithaca, an island in western Greece, after long and dangerous wanderings and adventures returned home to his wife Penelope. Unlike the Iliad, which takes place primarily in and around Troy and is told as a sequential narrative, the Odyssey frequently changes scene. In contrast to the tragic ending of the Iliad, poetic justice triumphs in the finale of the Odyssey: the good are rewarded, the bad are destroyed.

Epic Technique. The Iliad and Odyssey are believed to have appeared as a result oral creativity. This determines an essential feature of the poems - that the poet composes his poems to a large extent from ready-made formulas that were pre-selected to fit into different metrical positions in the verse and describe standard situations that arise in accordance with the plot. Those. the poet-storyteller uses much more finished material than an author using paper and pen.

Among other features in both poems, it should be noted detailed comparisons (often representing lively sketches everyday life), metaphors (like the “lily voices” of cicadas) and archaisms.

Influence at later literature . In almost all periods European literature The Iliad and Odyssey were considered the pinnacle of epic poetry. Epic authors Renaissance and more later periods European literature was created looking back at Homer. In comparatively recent times, especially in connection with the admiration of the Romantics for the Greeks at the beginning of the 19th century, many lyricists and prose writers were inspired by the poems of Homer and drew material from them for creativity.

Origins of Ancient Greek Drama and Theatre. The appearance of drama in Greece was preceded by a long period, during which the dominant place was occupied first by the epic, and then by the lyrics of the Iliad, Odyssey, and the works of lyric poets of the 6th century. BC The birth of Greek drama and theater is associated with ritual games, which were dedicated to the patron gods of agriculture, Demeter, her daughter Kore, and Dionysus.

Such rituals sometimes turned into cult drama.

Dionysus or Bacchus was considered a god creative forces of nature, he later became the god of winemaking, and then the god of poetry and theater. Plants served as symbols of Dionysus, especially vine. He was often depicted as a bull or goat. At holidays dedicated to Dionysus, not only solemn, but also cheerful carnival songs were sung. The mummers who made up Dionysus's retinue had a noisy party. Participants in the festive procession smeared their faces with wine grounds and put on masks and goat skins.

From ritual games and songs in honor of Dionysus, three genres of ancient Greek drama grew: tragedy, comedy and satyr comedy, named after the chorus consisting of satyrs. The tragedy reflected the serious side of the Dionysian cult, the comedy - the carnival-satirical side. Satirovskaya drama seemed to be an average genre. Cheerful playful character and a happy ending determined its place at the holidays in honor of Dionysus, the satyr drama was staged as a conclusion to the presentation of tragedies.

The very words tragedy and comedy can tell us a lot about the origins of Greek drama. The word tragedy comes from two Greek words tragos - goat and ode - song, i.e. song of the goats. This name again leads us to the satyr companions of Dionysus, goat-footed creatures who glorified the exploits and sufferings of the god. The word comedy comes from the words komos and ode. Komos is a procession of a tipsy crowd of mummers, showering each other with jokes and ridicule, at rural festivals in honor of Dionysus.

Therefore, the word comedy means the song of revelers. Greek tragedy, as a rule, took plots from mythology, which was well known to every Greek. Using a mythological shell, the playwright reflected in the tragedy the socio-political life of his time, and expressed his ethical, philosophical, and religious views. Therefore, the role of tragic ideas in the socio-political and ethical education of citizens was enormous.

Already in the second half of the 6th century. BC e. The tragedy has reached significant development. Ancient history reports that the first Athenian tragic poet was Thespis of the 6th century. BC e. The first production of his tragedy took place in the spring of 534 BC. e. at the Feast of the Great Dionysius. This year is considered to be the year of the birth of world theater. Thespis is credited with the improvement of masks and theatrical costumes. But Thespis’s main innovation was the separation of one performer, an actor, from the choir. This actor could address the choir with questions, answer the choir’s questions, portray various characters during the action, leave stage area and return to it. Thus, early Greek tragedy was a kind of dialogue between actors and chorus.

At the same time, although the actor’s part in the original drama was small and main role the choir played, it was the actor who, from his very appearance, became the bearer of an effective, energetic principle. Comedy is much broader than tragedy mythological motives everyday ones were mixed in, which gradually became predominant or even the only ones, although in general comedy was still considered dedicated to Dionysus.

Thus, small scenes of everyday and parody-satirical content began to be played out. These improvised skits represented an elementary form of folk farce theater and were called mimes, which means imitation, reproduction; the performers of these skits were also called mimes. The heroes of the mimes were traditional masks folk theater a would-be warrior, a market thief, a charlatan scientist, a simpleton fooling everyone, etc. Comedy of the 5th century BC e. was political in content.

She constantly raised questions political system, foreign policy of the Athenian state, issues of youth education, literary struggle and others. The topicality of the ancient Attic comedy was aggravated by the fact that it allowed complete freedom in the caricature of individual citizens, who were also depicted under their real names by the poets Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Agathon, the leader of the Athenian democracy Cleon, the philosopher Socrates and others - Aristophanes. At the same time, the ancient Attic comedy Usually he creates not an individual image, but a generalized one, close to the mask of a folk comedy theater.

For example, Socrates in Aristophanes' Clouds is not endowed with traits real person, but with all the properties of a charlatan scientist, one of the favorite masks of folk carnivals. Such a comedy could only exist under the conditions of Athenian slave-owning democracy.

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Participants in the ritual action put on masks with goat beards and horns, depicting the companions of Dionysus - satyrs (hence the name - satyr drama). Ritual performances took place during the Dionysia (festivals in honor of Dionysus), in spring and autumn. There were “great” Dionysias - in the city, very magnificent, and “small” - rural, more modest. These ritual performances are the origins of Greek theater.

The Greek theater was an open building of enormous size. The stage consisted of a long narrow platform and was surrounded on three sides by walls, of which the back one (with a canopy) was called skene, the side ones were called paraskenions, and what we call the stage was called proskenion.

The semicircle of seats for spectators, rising in ledges, was called an amphitheater, the place between the stage and the amphitheater - an orchestra; a choir was located here, which was controlled by a coryphaeus (choir leader). With the development of dramatic action, a tent (skene) was added to the orchestra, where the actors dressed and changed clothes (each of the actors played several roles).

From mimic praises telling about the sufferings of Dionysus, they gradually moved on to showing them in action. Thespis (a contemporary of Peisistratus) and Phrynichus are considered the first playwrights. They introduced an actor (the second and third were then introduced by Aeschylus and Sophocles). Dramatic works were usually given by authors as competitions. The authors played the main roles (both Aeschylus and Sophocles were major actors), wrote the music for the tragedies themselves, and directed the dances.

The organizer of theatrical competitions was the state. In the person of a member of the Areopagus specially allocated for this purpose - the archon - it rejected or allowed certain tragedies to be presented. This is where the class approach usually comes into play when assessing dramatic works. The latter had to be in tune with the moods and interests upper class. For this purpose, the right to provide a choir to the playwright was reserved for the so-called choregs, large landowners, special patrons theatrical arts. They tried to use the theater as a tool for agitation and propaganda of their ideology. And in order to exert their influence on all free citizens (slaves were prohibited from visiting the theater), they established a special theatrical cash distribution for the poor (theorik - under Pericles).

These views expressed the protective tendencies of the ruling class - the aristocracy, whose ideology was determined by the consciousness of the need for unquestioning submission to a given social order. The tragedies of Sophocles reflect the era of the victorious war between the Greeks and the Persians, which opened up great opportunities for trading capital.

In this regard, the authority of the aristocracy in the country fluctuates, and this accordingly affects the works of Sophocles. At the center of his tragedies is the conflict between tribal tradition and state authority. Sophocles considered it possible to reconcile social contradictions - a compromise between the trade elite and the aristocracy.

And finally, Euripides - a supporter of the victory of the trading stratum over the landowning aristocracy - already denies religion. His Bellerophon depicts a fighter who rebelled against the gods for patronizing treacherous aristocratic rulers. “They (the gods) are not there (in heaven),” he says, “unless people want to madly believe old fairy tales.” In the works of the atheistically inclined Euripides, the characters in the drama are exclusively people. If he introduces the gods, it is only in those cases when it is necessary to resolve some complex intrigue. His dramatic action is motivated by the real properties of the human psyche. The majestic, but spiritually simplified heroes of Aeschylus and Sophocles are replaced in the works of the younger tragedian by, if more prosaic, then complicated characters. Sophocles spoke of Euripides this way: “I portrayed people as they should be; Euripides depicts them as they really are.”

Ancient Greek comedy

Question about origin ancient Greek tragedy is one of the most difficult in history ancient literature. One of the reasons for this is that the works of ancient scientists who lived in the 5th century. BC e. they didn’t reach us. The earliest evidence belongs to Aristotle and is contained in Chapter IV of his Poetics. Later ancient sources do not agree with him in everything and often give such versions (for example, Horace in “Poetics”), the very origin of which requires additional research. Therefore, among a number of researchers there is a skeptical attitude towards Aristotle’s messages and attempts are made to explain the origin of the tragedy, bypassing his data. However, the results of such reconstructions rarely stand up to serious criticism, and Aristotle's evidence should be considered most credible. “Having initially emerged from improvisations... from the initiators of dithyrambs, the tragedy grew little by little... and, having undergone many changes, stopped, having reached what lay in its nature,” we read in “Poetics” (Chapter IV). “The speech from a humorous one later became serious, since the tragedy arose from the performance of satyrs.” The dithyramb to which Aristotle raises initial stage tragedy, is a choral song that formed an integral part of the cult of Dionysus, which embodied the ideas primitive man about the winter dying and spring awakening of nature. His cult song - a dithyramb - is called the “Bull Chaser”. It is reliably known that the ancients considered Thespis to be the first tragic poet in Attica. There were enormous opportunities here for further development genre, and the original form of tragedy can be imagined as a dialogue between the actor, the performer of a series of small narrative speeches, and the choir, who responded to them in their songs. As for the chorus asking questions to the responding actor, the most suitable companions for the god Dionysus were the so-called “satyrs” - cheerful goat-like creatures. The dithyramb, in which the vocal choral parts were sung by satyr goats, could rightfully be called a “goat song”, which corresponds to the literal meaning of the Greek word “tragoidia” (the modern “tragedy”: “tragos” in Greek means “goat” and "oide" - "song"). Consequently, the very name of the genre confirms Aristotle's view that tragedy was originally a "performance of satyrs." The transformation of a playful satyr's performance into a pathetic tragedy already occurred on purely Attic soil, and the reasons for this should be sought in the ideological shifts of the period of formation of the Athenian democratic state. The tragedy in Attica was first staged in 534 BC. e. under the tyrant Pisistratus, when, on his initiative, Thespis, who had already proven himself successful, was summoned to the city for this purpose theatrical performances. By establishing the state cult of Dionysus, the Athenian ruler sought to strengthen his power. Since then, the holiday of the Great Dionysius, which fell at the end of March - beginning of April, included the mandatory performance of tragedies. After the overthrow of the Peisistratids, around 501-500, a new order of presenting tragedies on behalf of the state was determined, which was then preserved throughout the brilliant period of the Athenian theater. Every year, three playwrights performed at the Great Dionysia as an artistic competition, which ended with the awarding of honorary awards to the winners. Together with the poet and - subsequently - the first actor, the award was also given to the chorega - a wealthy citizen who, on behalf of the state, took upon himself the material costs associated with staging tragedies.

Structure The participation of the choir determined the main features in the construction of ancient Greek tragedy. Even in the early tragedies of Aeschylus, the appearance of the chorus (the so-called people) on the stage (orchestra) marked their beginning; in most of the tragedies of Aeschylus and always in Sophocles and Euripides, the parody is preceded by an introductory monologue or a whole scene containing a statement of the initial situation of the plot or giving its beginning. This part of the tragedy is called the prologue. The entire further course of the tragedy occurs in the alternation of choral and dialogic scenes. At the end of the speech part, the actors leave the orchestra, and the choir, left alone, performs the stasim. Stasim literally means “standing song”: the choir sings it while remaining in the orchestra. Songs both in parod and in stasims are usually symmetrical in nature, that is, they are divided into stanzas and antistrophes, which, as a rule, exactly correspond to each other in terms of poetic meter. Sometimes symmetrical stanzas end with an epod, a song conclusion; they may also be preceded by a brief introduction by the luminary. The latter also takes part in dialogic scenes, coming into direct contact with other characters.

In Aeschylus, a small final dialogical scene is often accompanied by an extensive final song, accompanying the departure of the choir from the orchestra in a solemn or funeral procession. Antiquity considered the founder of this genre to be the poet Pratin (late 6th - first quarter of the 5th century BC) from the Dorian city of Phlius, but he was, most likely, not the creator of satyr drama, which arose much earlier, but the first poet who gave it specific literary form. In the obligatory addition of the satyr drama to the tragic trilogy, the memory of the “satyr” past of the tragedy itself was undoubtedly preserved; at the same time, the atmosphere of relaxed fun generated by the presence of satyrs in the orchestra returned the viewer to the atmosphere of the joyful spring festival of Dionysus.

Aristotle, demanding “purification of the passions” from tragedy, speaks in the language of telestics and cathartics, religious disciplines about the healing sanctification of the soul and body. In essence, the author of the Poetics repeats the old religious truth about the Dionysian purification; but he seeks to give it a new light, interpreting it purely psychologically and independently of religious background. Aristotle is referring to the religious psychiatry of pathological states of corybanthiasm and enthusiasm, the principle of which was the artificial intensification of ecstasy through stimulating influences to the extent of its harmonious resolution - just as he himself, however, speaks of “sacred melodies that intoxicate the soul.” Aristotle's "compassion" (eleos) grew out of an orgiastic lament for divine destruction, the resolution of which was jubilant joy. According to Aristotle, purification comes through compassion. To do this, the viewer needs to clearly feel the main character. The main character of the tragedy is given a special place, since he must evoke compassion among the audience.

The surviving part of the Poetics deals mainly with tragedy. Through compassion and fear, tragedy purifies passions. Aristotle speaks more than once about compassion and fear as the main experiences of the audience of the tragedy. These emotions, in his opinion, are called surprise, a turning point. For example, in Sophocles' Oedipus, a messenger comes to Oedipus to announce who he really is and thereby free the hero from fear, but in reality achieves the opposite. In this case, fear can be caused provided that the tragic hero is not too different from the viewer, for fear is a feeling for someone similar to oneself. Compassion can only be evoked for a hero who suffered undeservedly, therefore, in a tragedy, a change, a turning point in the hero’s fate should lead not from misfortune to happiness, but from happiness to misfortune, and the reason for this should not be the depravity of a person, but “ big mistake" Only such an action, Aristotle thinks, can evoke fear (trepidation) in the souls of the viewer - by identifying oneself with tragic hero, and compassion. The poet in the tragedy gives the audience pleasure - “the pleasure of compassion and fear through imitation of them.” This effect of the tragedy on the audience is also characterized as purification - catharsis.

According to Aristotle, the goal of catharsis (or “purification”) is to excite and strain a person’s affective ability, to extract pleasure precisely from the crime of everyday measures of affect, from violating the boundaries of the “normal” in affects through “compassion and fear.” To understand the process of purification itself, one must find out what Aristotle understood by tragedy, fear and compassion.

Lyrics and slave society.

Being an outpouring of the individual soul, lyric poetry by its very essence in all literature turns out to be necessarily connected with the greater development of subjective life, and this presupposes greater independence of the individual and, consequently, a weakening of its connection with the tribal collective. The way out of the contradictions of tribal society in Greece was the slave society. So, the lyrics classical period was significantly connected with the origin and development of this new society.

The lyrical moods of this huge era were limited either to the description of the physical, physiological states of man, or the struggle of aristocracy and democracy within the polis, or the struggle between the same poleis, or the struggle of the entire polis Greece against the despotic East. It was a huge arena for all kinds of lyrical outpourings. But here we cannot expect the poet to plunge into the bottomless depths of the personality or go into endless quests, since this kind of lyricism already presupposes going beyond the boundaries of slave culture and connection with other social formations that provide the individual with greater freedom than that of which slavery was capable .

The victory of the individual over the race and the birth of drama.

Ancient lyrics of the classical period cannot be associated with the complete victory of the individual. The lyrics here are the product of the outpouring of an independent personality, but one that has not yet subjugated the tribal collective, and has only actually freed itself from it. The personality had to experience and internally process, make understandable to itself the very basis of tribal life. For this, the ancient consciousness had to pass through the powerful influence of the cult of Dionysus, which precisely gave the feeling of a faceless, all-generating and all-consuming world destiny. That is why only a dithyramb dedicated specifically to Dionysus brought ancient lyric poetry into line with the finally victorious democratic society; nevertheless, other types of lyricism still arose as a result of the individual’s struggle for his power over the clan, and not from the fact of final victory over it.

An individual personality, emerging from the clan and opposing itself to it, finally wins and begins to dominate it. Having gone through the orgiastic religion of Dionysus, man ceases to contemplate the incomprehensible myth from the outside, but confronts it as a self-flowing soul. This means that the myth is experienced internally and dramatically by the poet.

Thus, being at first a direct antithesis of the epic, the lyrics, developing more and more, reached the point of absorbing the epic myth along with its inherent objective action and objective reality, thereby creating all the prerequisites for the emergence of drama.

We will not dwell in detail on the primitive drama, which accompanies almost every ritual action in primitive society and which has not yet emerged from the general labor processes, magic, everyday life, and in general from the social sphere of the culture of that time. But already in the Cretan-Mycenaean era (second half of the 2nd millennium BC), the artistic element of primitive drama tended to turn into an independent theatrical and spectacular performance.

However, drama as an independent work of art originated only in Greece, and, moreover, not earlier than the 6th century. BC, and was embodied in the form of tragedy and comedy. After all, drama presupposes greater independence of the human personality and a clash of personalities among themselves, as well as a clash of individuals with nature or society. This could only appear in Greece in connection with the rise and establishment of a democratic society. The individual who once stood out from the clan community had to master the elemental power of the clan and be able to internally understand the life-giving creative forces of the natural world. This is where the cult of such deities, which, of course, dates back to primitive times, came in handy, which was primarily a generalization of precisely these creative processes.

There were always a lot of deities of this kind throughout the entire territory of the primitive world. But during the period of the birth and rise of Greek democracy, Dionysus turned out to be such a deity, whose cult from the non-Greek areas of Thrace in the north, Asia Minor in the east and Crete in the south swept like a violent whirlwind throughout Greece during the 7th-6th centuries. BC.

This orgiastic cult captured the imagination of the Greeks of that time. The cult participants themselves represented themselves as Dionysus, who had another name - Bacchus, and therefore were called Bacchantes and Bacchants. And since Dionysus was nothing more than a generalization of the creatively productive processes of nature and society, he was thought to be embodied in every living creature, which seemed to be torn to pieces and then resurrected, like the deity himself. This undoubtedly contributed to the emergence and growth of various kinds of ideas about the struggle of one individuality with another, that is, the emergence and growth of a dramatic understanding of life.

Dionysian delight and orgasm by its very nature destroyed all barriers between people, and therefore the former clan and aristocratic nobility in relation to this new deity were already on the same level with the lower strata of the population. That is why the religion of Dionysus from the very beginning came into conflict with the former, aristocratic Olympian gods and quickly defeated them, and Dionysus himself now seemed to be the son of Zeus and was also placed on Olympus, to which he had previously had nothing to do. Consequently, the main source of Greek drama during the period of rising democracy was rooted primarily in the profound Dionysian reform of the former Olympian, and in particular Homeric, mythology. It is known that it was the rulers of the 6th century. BC. propagated the cult of Dionysus in their countries. So, for example, the Athenian tyrant Pisistratus, who relied on democratic strata and pursued an anti-aristocratic policy, established the festival of the Great Dionysius in Athens, and it was under Pisistratus that the first tragedy was staged in Athens. Another tyrant, Cleisthenes, who ruled in the city of Sikyon, handed over to Dionysus the holiday that had previously been celebrated in honor of the local hero Adrastus.

The path from the cult of Dionysus to Greek classical tragedy as a work of art was very complex and long, although it was passed in Greece with incredible speed, just as the classical period of Greek literature itself passed incredibly quickly.

Ancient Greek theater.

Theatrical performances, which grew out of the cult of Dionysus, have always had a mass and festive character in Greece. The ruins of ancient Greek theaters amaze with their capacity for several tens of thousands of visitors. The history of ancient Greek theater can be clearly seen in the so-called Theater of Dionysus in Athens, located in the open air on the southeastern slope of the Acropolis and accommodating approximately 17 thousand spectators. Basically the theater consisted of three main chsi_1sy. ^^.^,ynry dl/i ^ri and _d,.*.g.., . , .. ., nicknamed Dionysus in the middle, seats for spectators (theater, that is, spectacular places), in the first row of which there was a chair for the priest of Dionysus, and skene, that is, buildings behind the orchestra, in which the actors changed clothes. At the end of the 6th century. BC. The orchestra was a round, tightly packed platform, surrounded by wooden benches for spectators. At the beginning of the 5th century. wooden benches were replaced by stone ones, descending in a semicircle along the slope of the Acropolis. The orchestra, which contained the choir and actors, became horseshoe-shaped (it is possible that the actors played on a slight elevation in front of the skene). In Hellenistic times, when the choir and the actors no longer had an internal connection, the latter played on a high stone stage adjacent to the skene - proskenium - with two projections on the sides, the so-called paraskenia. The theater had excellent acoustics, so thousands of people could easily hear the actors with strong voices. The seats for spectators covered the orchestra in a semicircle and were divided into 13 wedges. On the sides of the proscenium there were parods - passages for the audience, actors and choir. When staging the tragedy, the choir consisted first of 12, then of 15 people, led by a luminary - the head of the choir, dividing into two half-choirs, performing songs and dances, depicting persons close to the main characters, men or women, dressed in costumes corresponding to the action. The tragic actors, whose number gradually increased from one to three, played in extremely colorful, magnificent costumes, increasing their height with buskins (shoes with thick soles like stilts) and high headdresses. The size of the body was artificially increased, brightly colored masks of a certain type were put on their faces for heroes, old people, youths, women, and slaves. The masks testified to the cult origins of the theater, when a person could not perform in his usual form, but put on a kind of mask. In the huge theater, masks were convenient for the public to see and made it possible for one actor to play several roles. All female roles were played by men. The actors not only recited, but also sang and danced. In the course of the action, lifting machines were used, necessary for the appearance of the gods. There were so-called ekkiklems - platforms on wheels that were moved to the scene of action in order to show what happened inside the house. Machines were also used for noise and visual effects (thunder and lightning). At the front of the skene, usually depicting a palace, there were three doors through which the actors exited. This part of the screen was painted with various decorations, which gradually became more complex with the development of the theater.

The public - all Athenian citizens - received from the end of the 5th century. BC. from the state special entertainment money for visiting the theater, in exchange for which metal numbers were issued indicating the place. Since the performances began in the morning and continued throughout the day (three tragedies and one satyr drama were staged for three days in a row), the audience came stocked with food.

A playwright who wrote a tetralogy or a separate drama asked the archon in charge of organizing the holiday for a choir. The archon entrusted a choreg chosen from among wealthy citizens, who was obliged, as a state duty, to recruit a choir, train it, pay it and arrange a feast at the end of the festival. Choregia was considered an honorable duty, but at the same time it was very burdensome, accessible only to a rich person.

Judges were elected from among the 10 Attic phyla. After three days of competition, five from this panel, chosen by lot, made the final decision. Three winners were confirmed and received a monetary reward, but ivy wreaths were awarded only to those who won the first victory. The actor-protagonist who played the main role was held in high esteem and even carried out government assignments. The second and third actors were entirely dependent on the first and received payment from him. The names of poets, choregs and actor-protagonists were recorded in special acts and stored in the state archive. From the 4th century BC. It was decided to carve the names of the winners on marble slabs - didascalia, the fragments of which have survived to this day. The information that we use from the works of Vitruvius and Pausanias relates mainly to the Hellenistic theater, so some aspects of the ancient state of theatrical buildings in Greece are not clear and definite.