The Roman Theatre and Its Audience

The Roman Theatre and Its Audience

Author: Richard C. Beacham

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 9780674779143

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Provides a general account of the Roman theater and its audience, and records some of the results of the author's experiments in constructing a full-scale replica stage based upon the wall paintings at Pompeii and Herculaneum, and producing Roman plays upon it.


The Theater of Plautus

The Theater of Plautus

Author: Timothy J. Moore

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2010-07-05

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 0292788061

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The relationship between actors and spectators has been of perennial interest to playwrights. The Roman playwright Plautus (ca. 200 BCE) was particularly adept at manipulating this relationship. Plautus allowed his actors to acknowledge freely the illusion in which they were taking part, to elicit laughter through humorous asides and monologues, and simultaneously to flatter and tease the spectators. These metatheatrical techniques are the focus of Timothy J. Moore's innovative study of the comedies of Plautus. The first part of the book examines Plautus' techniques in detail, while the second part explores how he used them in the plays Pseudolus, Amphitruo, Curculio, Truculentus, Casina, and Captivi. Moore shows that Plautus employed these dramatic devices not only to entertain his audience but also to satirize aspects of Roman society, such as shady business practices and extravagant spending on prostitutes, and to challenge his spectators' preconceptions about such issues as marriage and slavery. These findings forge new links between Roman comedy and the social and historical context of its performance.


Performance in Greek and Roman Theatre

Performance in Greek and Roman Theatre

Author: George Harrison

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2013-03-15

Total Pages: 601

ISBN-13: 9004245456

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Drawing on insights from various disciplines (philology, archaeology, art) as well as from performance and reception studies, this volume shows how a heightened awareness of performance can enhance our appreciation of Greek and Roman theatre.


Roman Theater and Society

Roman Theater and Society

Author: William J. Slater

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 9780472107216

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A thought-provoking and timeless volume, presenting Roman theater as the voice of the common citizen


Theater and Spectacle in the Art of the Roman Empire

Theater and Spectacle in the Art of the Roman Empire

Author: Katherine M. D. Dunbabin

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780801456886

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Theater, spectacle, and performance played significant roles in the political and social structure of the Roman Empire, which was diverse in population and language. A wide and varied range of entertainment was available to a Roman audience: the traditional festivals with their athletic contests and dramatic performances, pantomime and mime, the chariot races of the circus, and the gladiatorial shows and wild beast hunts of the arena. In Theater and Spectacle in the Art of the Roman Empire, which is richly illustrated in color throughout, Katherine M. D. Dunbabin emphasizes the visual evidence for these events.Images of spectacle appear in a wide range of artistic media, from the mosaics and paintings that decorated wealthy private houses to the sculpture of tomb monuments, and from luxury objects such as silver tableware to more humble ceramic lamps and pottery vessels. Dunbabin places the information derived from this visual material into the wider context provided by the written sources, both literary and epigraphic. This allows us to understand the functions that these images served in the social rituals of public and domestic life. By explicating both the social and cultural role of the spectacles themselves and the nature of their representation in art, Dunbabin provides a comprehensive portrait of the popular culture of the period.


Roman Theatre

Roman Theatre

Author: Timothy J. Moore

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012-05-03

Total Pages: 185

ISBN-13: 0521138183

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An exciting series that provides students with direct access to the ancient world by offering new translations of extracts from its key texts.


Slave Theater in the Roman Republic

Slave Theater in the Roman Republic

Author: Amy Richlin

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017-12-28

Total Pages: 582

ISBN-13: 1108216439

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Roman comedy evolved early in the war-torn 200s BCE. Troupes of lower-class and slave actors traveled through a militarized landscape full of displaced persons and the newly enslaved; together, the actors made comedy to address mixed-class, hybrid, multilingual audiences. Surveying the whole of the Plautine corpus, where slaves are central figures, and the extant fragments of early comedy, this book is grounded in the history of slavery and integrates theories of resistant speech, humor, and performance. Part I shows how actors joked about what people feared - natal alienation, beatings, sexual abuse, hard labor, hunger, poverty - and how street-theater forms confronted debt, violence, and war loss. Part II catalogues the onstage expression of what people desired: revenge, honor, free will, legal personhood, family, marriage, sex, food, free speech; a way home, through memory; and manumission, or escape - all complicated by the actors' maleness. Comedy starts with anger.


A Cultural History of Theatre in Antiquity

A Cultural History of Theatre in Antiquity

Author: Martin Revermann

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-08-08

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1350135305

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Theatre was at the very heart of culture in Graeco-Roman civilizations and its influence permeated across social and class boundaries. The theatrical genres of tragedy, comedy, satyr play, mime and pantomime operate in Antiquity alongside the conception of theatre as both an entertainment for the masses and a vehicle for intellectual, political and artistic expression. Drawing together contributions from scholars in Classics and Theatre Studies, this volume uniquely examines the Greek and Roman cultural spheres in conjunction with one another rather than in isolation. Each chapter takes a different theme as its focus: institutional frameworks; social functions; sexuality and gender; the environment of theatre; circulation; interpretations; communities of production; repertoire and genres; technologies of performance; and knowledge transmission.


Roman Theatres

Roman Theatres

Author: Frank Sear

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2006-07-20

Total Pages: 612

ISBN-13: 0191518271

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book is a definitive architectural study of Roman theatre architecture. In nine chapters it brings together a massive amount of archaeological, literary,and epigraphic information under one cover. It also contains a full catalogue of all known Roman theatres, including a number of odea (concert halls) and bouleuteria (council chambers) which are relevant to the architectural discussion, about 1,000 entries in all. Inscriptional or literary evidence relating to each theatre is listed and there is an up-to-date bibliography for each building. Most importantly the book contains plans of over 500 theatres or buildings of theatrical type, as well as numerous text figures and nearly 200 figures and plates.


Theater of the People

Theater of the People

Author: David Kawalko Roselli

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2011-06-01

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 0292744773

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Greek drama has been subject to ongoing textual and historical interpretation, but surprisingly little scholarship has examined the people who composed the theater audiences in Athens. Typically, scholars have presupposed an audience of Athenian male citizens viewing dramas created exclusively for themselves—a model that reduces theater to little more than a medium for propaganda. Women's theater attendance remains controversial, and little attention has been paid to the social class and ethnicity of the spectators. Whose theater was it? Producing the first book-length work on the subject, David Kawalko Roselli draws on archaeological and epigraphic evidence, economic and social history, performance studies, and ancient stories about the theater to offer a wide-ranging study that addresses the contested authority of audiences and their historical constitution. Space, money, the rise of the theater industry, and broader social forces emerge as key factors in this analysis. In repopulating audiences with foreigners, slaves, women, and the poor, this book challenges the basis of orthodox interpretations of Greek drama and places the politically and socially marginal at the heart of the theater. Featuring an analysis of the audiences of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Menander, Theater of the People brings to life perhaps the most powerful influence on the most prominent dramatic poets of their day.