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Ancient Greece: Theater

Theater was prevalent all throughout Ancient Greece as a way to come together as a community. It was a way to inform commoners about politics, or to ponder some philosophy, or to laugh, or cry, and to be set free from everyday life. The actors would over exaggerate their emotions to make it clear to the audience what they were feeling and would make detailed masks of monsters or people with intense expressions. Music was also a very important part of Greek theater. The Greeks found a way to separate their plays into two genres: tragedy and comedy. We still use these to categorize plays to this day. Tragedy plays include Oedipus Rex, Antigone, and Medea. The Clouds, Lysistrata, and The Birds are some of the more famous comedy plays. These plays were performed all the time in Ancient Greece; for festivals, for kings, for competitions. It such a normal part of Greece at the time that I'm surprised they didn't get wiped out from exhaustion or alcohol poisoning.

Comments

  1. Stella ParadiseNovember 8, 2017 at 5:22 AM

    This is very interesting- I didn't know that Greek theater could be used to inform commoners about politics.

    ReplyDelete

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