Tonight we begin a new series, and it begins in the open air, on the side of a hill in Athens, five hundred years ago. Every spring, the whole city came to the theatre for a festival of the god Dionysus, and watched plays from morning till night for days.
Greek Drama · Part 1 · How Greek drama worked · B1
The Theatre of Dionysus
Part 1 of Greek Drama: how theatre was born in Athens. A festival for the god Dionysus, a hillside where fifteen thousand people sat in the open air, a chorus of singers and dancers, three actors in masks playing every part, and a competition with prizes. And the man who, they say, stepped out of the chorus and became the first actor: Thespis. The present simple and the passive for how things work (the plays are performed, the chorus is paid for by…), and the language of the theatre, with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
SOPHIA
MARCOS
All day? Didn’t they get bored?
SOPHIA
They argued about them for weeks afterwards, Marcos. Those plays are still performed today, and our Library keeps the official copies. Tonight you’ll learn how a Greek theatre worked: who paid, who acted, who judged, and why everyone wore a mask.
PHILO
I confess I have been to the theatre here more than once. I once saw a whole audience leap to its feet at a single line of Euripides.
Read: a day at the theatre
Before you read
Athens, the City Dionysia, from the 6th to the 4th century BCE
Greek drama grew out of songs and dances for Dionysus, the god of wine and theatre. Tradition says that around 534 BCE a poet called Thespis stepped out of the chorus and spoke as a character, becoming the first actor; actors are still called thespians. The Greek word for actor, hypokritēs, meant “one who answers”.
The main festival was the City Dionysia in Athens every spring. Plays were performed in the Theatre of Dionysus on the south slope of the Acropolis, where perhaps fifteen thousand people sat on the hillside. In the competition, each of three tragic poets presented three tragedies and a satyr play (a short, rude comedy with a chorus of satyrs); comic poets competed too. The chorus was paid for by a rich citizen, the chorēgos, as a kind of tax. Ten judges chosen by lot gave the prizes.
All the actors were men, and all wore masks, so that a few actors could play many parts, men and women, and be seen from the back rows. At first there was one actor; Aeschylus added a second and Sophocles a third. The chorus of twelve or fifteen sang and danced in the round orchestra; behind it stood the skēnē, a building used as a palace or temple, from which we get the word “scene”. A crane, the mēchanē, could lift a god into the air: the deus ex machina, “the god from the machine”.
In the theatre, a whole city looks at itself.
PHILO
Read the story. Who was Thespis? What was the City Dionysia? What did each tragic poet present? Who paid for the chorus? Why did actors wear masks?
SOPHIA
Then answer Section A.
The story
Retold for this lesson from Aristotle’s Poetics, Athenian inscriptions and the archaeology of the Theatre of Dionysus, with Philo’s own memory of the theatre.
On the first day of the festival, before dawn, the whole of Athens was already climbing the south slope of the Acropolis. Farmers who had walked in from the countryside, sailors from the Piraeus, merchants, priests, old men with cushions, boys with bread and onions in their pockets, and visitors from every Greek city: perhaps fifteen thousand people, sitting on wooden benches and stone steps, filling the hillside like a great bowl. At the bottom of the bowl lay a round, flat dancing floor, the orchestra, and behind it a wooden building with three doors, the skēnē, painted to look like the front of a palace.
The day before, the statue of Dionysus had been carried through the streets in a great procession and placed at the edge of the orchestra, so that the god himself could watch. Now a priest sacrificed a piglet to purify the theatre, and the names of the ten judges were drawn from ten urns, one for each tribe of Athens. Then a trumpet sounded, and the chorus came in: fifteen men in masks and costumes, singing and dancing in rhythm, their voices filling the hillside. They were not professionals. They were ordinary Athenian citizens who had rehearsed for months, and the cost of their costumes and their teacher had been paid by a rich man called the chorēgos, who would share the glory if the play won.
A door in the skēnē opened, and a king came out: a tall figure in a painted mask and long robes, with thick-soled boots to make him taller. He was played by one of only three actors. In the next scene, the same actor might come back as a queen, a messenger or a god, simply by changing his mask. All day long the plays went on: three tragedies by the same poet, telling one story or three, and then a short, wild satyr play, with a chorus of drunken half-goat men, to send the audience home laughing.
Old men in the audience remembered stories of how it had all begun, eighty years before, when a poet called Thespis had driven a cart from village to village with a chorus of singers. One day he had stepped out of the chorus, put on a mask, and answered the chorus as if he were a character in the story. He was the first actor. And at the end of the festival, the judges would write their verdicts and put them in an urn, and five would be drawn out at random. The winning poet would be crowned with ivy, the god’s plant, and his name would be carved in stone, and would still be read two and a half thousand years later.
The present simple for how things work
MARCOS
The festival takes place every spring. Each poet presents four plays. The audience sits on the hillside. The chorus sings and dances in the orchestra.
SOPHIA
The present simple describes how something regularly works, as in a guidebook or an encyclopaedia: The judges choose the winner.
The passive for how things are done
DEMETRIA
The plays are performed in the open air. The chorus is paid for by a rich citizen. The judges are chosen by lot. Women’s parts are played by men.
SOPHIA
am / is / are + past participle when what is done matters more than who does it. Past: The theatre was built of stone in the 4th century.
The language of the theatre
PHILO
An actor plays a role on the stage. The audience watches. The chorus comments on the plot. A playwright writes the script. A tragedy ends sadly; a comedy ends happily.
SOPHIA
Words, many from Greek: theatre, drama, scene, chorus, orchestra, tragedy, comedy, character, protagonist, catastrophe, climax, mask, audience, rehearse, perform, applaud.
Sophia’s comparison: the books of the Athenians, and Philo at the theatre
SOPHIA
Here is something you may not know. A Ptolemy king borrowed the official copies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides from Athens, leaving fifteen talents of silver as a guarantee. He kept the books in our Library and let the Athenians keep the silver. That is why the best texts of the tragedies are here, in Alexandria.
PHILO
And it’s true: I do go to the theatre. I have written that I once watched a whole audience rise to its feet at a line of Euripides praising freedom. My teachers were not all pleased. But I think a wise man can learn from any stage, as long as he remembers what is true and what is only acted.
Sophia’s summary
| Words and forms | Use | Example |
|---|---|---|
| takes place / presents / sits | present simple for how things work | The festival takes place every spring. |
| is performed / are chosen / is paid for | present passive | The judges are chosen by lot. |
| was built / were written | past passive | The theatre was built of stone. |
| actor, chorus, audience, stage, playwright | theatre words | The chorus sings in the orchestra. |
| tragedy, comedy, satyr play | kinds of plays | Each poet presented a satyr play. |
Practice
Read the story for Section A, then do the rest. Press “Check my answers” at the end. You can try again as many times as you like.
A · The story
Read the story and choose the best answer.
1. Who was Thespis?
2. When was the City Dionysia?
3. What did each tragic poet present?
4. Who paid for the chorus?
5. Why did actors wear masks?
6. What was the deus ex machina?
B · Grammar and vocabulary
Write the missing word or words.
7. The festival place every spring. (take)
8. The plays are in the open air. (perform)
9. The chorus is paid by a rich citizen.
10. The judges are by lot. (choose)
11. An actor plays a . (a part)
12. The people who watch a play are the .
C · Right or wrong?
Is the sentence correct English?
13. “The plays is performed in the open air.”
14. “The chorus is paid for by a rich citizen.”
15. “Each poet present four plays.”
16. “Women’s parts were played by men.”
Talk and write
Discussion and writing
Run a festival. In groups, plan your own drama festival: who pays, who performs, who judges, what the prizes are. Present it using the present simple and the passive.
Discuss. 1. Why do you think the whole city went to the theatre? 2. Would you like plays with only three actors in masks? 3. What is the closest thing to the City Dionysia today?
Write (100–120 words). Write a guidebook entry about the Theatre of Dionysus, using the present simple and the passive.