in this video we will begin our discussion on ancient Greek theater ancient Greek theater with the ancient Greeks we have a drama that was so outstanding that it's never been surpassed that's what scholars will tell you that no theatrical era since the period that we're about to discuss has ever offered as much to this artform or to civilization to be quite frank with you as the ancient Greek theater the Golden Age of Greece which is the time period that we're going to be talking about took place from 500 to 400 BC it was the Golden Age of Greece this time brought us a lot of things among them they're among the top three actually were tragedies outstanding creativity in agriculture and governing principles a government similar to practices that we employ today tragedy architect agriculture and government think about that for a civilization to pride themselves in something like the theater as much as they do as agriculture and government which we look at as essentials in our normal everyday existence ought to tell you just how much significance they put toward this art form so let's talk about how the theatrical art form got its beginnings during the ancient Greek period the Greek theater started in something that we refer to as the Dionysian rights deities in rituals to make it sound a little bit more familiar Dionysian rituals are dionysian rites RI tes these rituals paid homage to the Greek goddess Dionysus who was the Y goddess of wine and fertility and you know I think the greats knew if they were going to create celebrations around any specific God or any specific goddess it would make sense to do one that you can honor by partying all the time the god of wine and fertility they were public celebrations they were held these celebrations were these festivals were held around altars that were made of stone and these altars were built they were constructed at the foot of a hilly vineyard so there would be the large hill that you know that the people would sit on and at the base of that hill would be the altar that was just a celebration at this point early on there we didn't have tragedies in the way that we know them or anything that looked like theatrical production our so forth they were just these these festivals to honor the Greek goddess Dionysus and like I said there were public celebrations there was a lot of dancing a lot of merrymaking you can make of that what you will and a lot of singing of hymns these hymns had a name these hymns were known as different D Y th are am BS and all of this singing and dancing and merrymaking and you know all the different they were designed to honor Dionysus the Greek goddess of wine and fertility they were religious seller celebrations the Greeks were a religious people and as these religious celebrations grew contests began to form among the very choruses that were singing the death ram's I think I mentioned earlier on in another video that the Greeks were very competitive so as these choruses started singing death ramps they started this course just started trying to get better at it than this one was trying to get better at this one and they decided to formally establish contests between these choruses and these so what they would do is they would have a festival of death Rams singing of these hymns to honor die and ice and usually the the choruses were written to have a tragic component to it and so forth and this these festivals of choral contests actually developed into what we know to be tragedy today and the word tragedy by the way is it comes from a Greek word tragedy is not the Greek word tragedy comes from the Greek word tradeshows tra gos which literally translated this surprises a lot of people it literally translated tragedy means goat song that's what the word tradeshows mean men so when they put these competitions together they call it goat song now there's a lot of disagreement among scholars as to why they chose the word goat song to reference these choral contests why they chose to call them tragedies but there are three main theories that stand out some scholars say that since the chorus the chorus members within each different chorus war goat skins as part of their attire during these formal celebrations they decided to call it goat song I guess it looked like a bunch of goats standing around singing I don't know some scholars say that since the altar was draped with a goat skin which is known to be the case they decided to call it goat song and others have a theory that because a goat was sacrificed at the end of each one of these festivals as killed as a sacrifice of the gods they chose to call it goat song my theory is that it was obviously the goat who considered it a tragedy now there were four of these Dionysian festivals held each year four of them so they chose to you know go out for a week at a time four times a year and really throw a big week-long party to honor the God wine and fertility they were called Dionysian festivals but it was only one of them that pertain to what we discuss in this course the festival that was held in March is the festival that that saw the world of tragedy theatrical tragedy developed as a matter of fact the festival that they held every March was called city Dionysia CIT y di ony si a city Dionysia city Dionysia this festival held every March evolved into a festival of tragedies so that the competition was still in place but we were no longer competing as choral groups they were kind of competing in an early sentence as theatrical groups they were now competing with the tragedies rather than with the songs that albeit early on almost all of the tragedies were some that were written in song or written in chant they didn't look much like what we would consider to be a play today but this is how it got its beginnings so city Dionysia held every March became a Content a festival of nothing but contests between playwrights who wrote these tragedies and at the end of each week are in you know in March at the end of the week during city Dionysia a coveted prize was awarded to the playwright they called him dramatist back there back then who produced the best series of plays so these playwrights would spend an entire year getting ready for the competition they would they would write and they would write and they would write and they'd finish the play because they wanted they wanted a wins matter of fact I told you in earlier videos that we get a lot of what we do in modern everyday time not just in the theatre of in our normal lives from anxious theatrical activity and you could argue the very beginnings of what we now know to be the Oscars or the Tonys or the Emmys came from city Dionysia so the festival took place in Athens every March it was both a national ceremony as well as a religious ceremony so everybody was expected to take part matter of fact business was suspended for an entire week in Athens and in all the villages around Athens because everyone was expected to be a participant it was a national ceremony it was something that you were supposed it's kind of like the 4th of July here but it went on day and night for an entire week crowds would gather from all the surrounding villages surrounding the big theaters and in Athens and if someone couldn't afford a ticket the government would pay for their ticket everybody was supposed to attend so no one was denied admission including those who couldn't afford to pay that's how important they saw this festivity to be and I kind of think it must have really been nice I'm kind of I'm an old man and I kind of think some of that stuff would be good if some of that stuff existed today because it forced everybody to come together exchange ideas catch up on events and all of that sort of thing now we'll talk about city Dionysia in one week in March every year it was an anvil festival and it lasted over five days or six days depending on how many playwrights were competing that year some years they would have three playwrights competing and some years they would have two playwrights competing and that's what determine whether the last five or six days because there were other competitions the chorus members still did compete with one another but they were kind of like the warm-up act there would be choral contests and there will be there with me contests between these playwrights and if there was a third playwright then the sixth day was added to city Dionysia the first day always included a procession a parade if you will of you know dignitaries and people are associated with the dignitaries marching into the streets through the streets into downtown Athens carrying a giant image of Dionysus it was a huge statue and they placed it formally in place and that was the kickoff of the festival and there was an entire day of drinking and singing and partying and all of this that took place and then at the end of the night they lifted that big statue again they must look like a bunch of ants carrying a cracker crumb it was a gigantic statue and they would carry that statue into the theater on I don't know if you remember that word from the very beginning of the semester but Theatron that's the Greek word for theater which meant scene play so at the end of that first day they were probably kind of happy probably a little drunk and so forth worn out and they would carry this statue to the theater on to the theater and they would do it by candlelight it was ritualistic and that meant okay when we get up tomorrow let the games begin and that's when all the competition started to take place as I said a few minutes ago the first day or two were devoted to the death rain competitions you know the competition between the choral groups in the final two or three days were devoted to the play contests and here's the format for the for the play contest the people the audience but the people would get up very very early in the morning and they would be in their seats at sunrise I can't imagine this but this was how they did it and I've said this before if there was very little else to occupy your thought process like all the things we have today none of those were in place back then I guess you could look forward to getting up bright and early and setting on rock on the side of the hill and watching a lengthy a full day of Greek tragedies kind of hard to fathom doing that today but it was a different time so they would assemble early in the morning and they prepare themselves to see long performances a different dramatist or playwright if you will they called him dramatist back then because they did a lot more than just write plays they were you know they directed those things and produced some times they were in them and all of this kind of stuff but a different dramatist was featured each day so if this is the first day of the festival you and I would get up very early in the morning we'd make it to the amphitheaters we'd sit on these seats that were embedded in concrete these rocks on this hill and we would watch for plays because that that playwright that was competing on that day would offer up for plays the first three would be in the form of a trilogy a trilogy a trilogy some of you may know this from like Star Wars trilogy and so forth but a trillion by the way that very concept came from the ancient Greeks but a trilogy is simply put a play or I I said should say a series of plays three of them that surround the same theme in a trilogy you see a lot of the same characters in this play the primary character might be a secondary character in the second play and the third play comes around maybe he's a secondary character and that as well it's kind of joke it's kind of like doing a play about your family you know and you are the lead character in one your brother's the lead character the other your mother is the lead character and the other half all of you are in every storyline so the trilogy's were designed to be three plays around one theme they were all tragedies they were all tragic you had a hero who always took a fall and all of that kind of stuff they were designed to teach us teach us our values to teach us to avoid human weakness like lust or jealousy or anger and stuff like this and that was the serious nature of the trilogy so there are three of those offered up that the playwright was competing with then at the end of the day that place ain't play right would offer up a fourth play so he offered for up per day and the fourth one was comedic it was usually either a satire or a farce and that satire that funny show was written to make fun of the characters that you saw in the trilogy you know just so that at the end of the day it kind of uplifted everybody's spirits and say look you know that was all make-believe hopefully you learn a lesson from it let's make fun of these kings and these gods and all of this stuff now now we're happy we've had a lot of laughs let's go into the night and continue the wine drinking in the merrymaking and the dancing and all of that that that trilogy the true that satire that far is kind of served as a comic relief for the audiences at the end of a long day so the second day another playwright would offer up four shows the third day another playwright would offer up four shows and they were competing with the tragedies the companies weren't up for competition they were they had her right on just to you know uplift everybody's spirits before they went into the night but they were being judged on the three plays that made up the trilogy so these two playwrights or three playwrights on some years would offer up the four place and at the end of the festival at the end of that week a prize was given to two people a prize was given to the winning playwright for having worked so hard and written these wonderful plays and somebody known as a chorus CH o or eg us a chorus was known to be the playwrights financial backer this is the person who provided the the funding for the for the plays whatever money was needed to be able to produce it also provided room and board and paid for the playwright to you know kind of living throughout that year while they were busy writing all the plays so in essence the core igus was kind of like the first producer if you want to use it compare it to modern-day terminology and all of this work all of this stuff that took place during a dining dionysian rites was to win the silliest what by today's standards the silliest of awards it wasn't gold it wasn't a statue it wasn't money it was nothing more than a coveted garland of Ivy they got to where some Ivy around their heads or around their necks and that's what that's what it was all about it had no monetary gain to it it was just in the pride of having won the contest so the contest was about the message and it was about the art and that's how the Greek theater got its beginnings in our next video we'll start to talk a little bit about ancient Greek facilities thank you