theatre origins

Western Theatre traces its origins to the ancient Greeks for whom theatre was originaly a religios practice. Diyoneses, god of pleasure, theatre, and wine, was primarly the honored diety, however Apollo, god of music, order, and strength, also played a pivitol role in many of the plays. the plays generaly rvolved around the lives of prominent Greek figues and addressed the question "how should we live?" plays were extremely philisophical and addressed moral codes. Tragedies occured from the imbalence of society's order and chaos, represeted by Diyonises and Apallo. For example, in Oedipus Rex, the tragedy results as a disruption in the natual cycle due to Oedipus's act of patricide and the children born to him by his mother. this represents an over abundence of the dyonicean side of the greek psyke. in Antigone, in contrast, the overpowerment is on the side of the Apallonian, the laws of the society call for antigone to not pay proper honor to the gods and the dead and thus result in everyones death. the concept of the comedy/tragedy masks comes from greek theatre as they wore large exagerated costumes. also the idea of Deus ex Machina was born in this theatre. the gods or other dieties such as the oracle at delphi or the seers made frequent apperences which stressed the importance of religios observance portents from the gods etc... the most famous of the playwrites from this time was Euripadies. the most famous plays were probably the Oedipus trilogy mostly Oedipus Rex. These shows were performed in the apetheatres, natural cutouts in the land which provided great acoustics. The plays were performed as part of festivals to celabrate particular gods and the plays performed often reflected accordingly.