hello and welcome to module 3 of the 1000. uh this module is going to cover a lot of time a lot a lot of years we're going to start with the ancient roman civilization and how they did theater and then we're going to move about a thousand years forward and discuss the middle ages and the medieval period and how theater evolved throughout all that time so there's a lot of time to cover although interestingly we're not the these discussions are not going to be very lengthy as we don't actually have too many different kinds of theater or different details to discuss so we're going to start with ancient roman theater and yes you are looking at a roman theater and you are correct it should look very similar to what we saw with the greek amphitheaters um a brief history lesson remember the ancient roman republican empire came directly following the greek civilization and in fact they conquered greek civilization in about the first or second century bc but they had very similar cultures um their religious beliefs their they had very similar gods um and in fact the romans just changed the names of the gods to to roman names rather than greek so for instance dionysus becomes bacchus zeus becomes jupiter and uh hira becomes juno etc so a lot of the planet names that we know today are the latin names for the gods that were originally greek gods hermes became mercury uh aphrodite became venus etc and um similar with art and culture and um the sculpture and artistic trends uh and literature and we're going to see with theater just how things were adapted from greek culture so let's get started first we're going to talk about styles of theater so please note that when it came to drama the we remember the greeks were very good about tragedy and uh the romans knew that they were they were perfectly happy to adapt that style from the greeks um and specifically the the only roman tragedian that we really think of is seneca who was alive from 5 bc to 65 a.d and he wrote many tragedies but they were not meant for performance and we're going to talk about why in just a second but he wrote some tragedies that the texts have survived or did survive at least until shakespeare's time um that in fact became very important in later years in elizabethan england and shakespeare used a lot of these for reference however they were never meant to be performed and a lot of that is because ancient rome they really valued their comedy more than their tragedy they did not want to go to the theater to see tragedy unlike the greeks and part of the reason for that is that unlike the greeks ancient roman theater was meant to entertain again highlight that star that make that part of your notes that's probably going to be on a quiz somewhere um ancient rome the purpose of theater was to entertain whereas in ancient greece the purpose of theater was to educate or teach moral behavior so romans really got into their comedy and specifically we have two important roman playwrights plautus who lived from 254 to 184 bc and terence who lived from 195 to 159 bc so we're in the roman republic era this is before the empire and they became very popular um playwrights very successful writing comedies and we're going to talk about some of the style of these comedies in just a second in addition to these scripted or or recorded performances they weren't recorded on video recording obviously but these these texts they're also developed remember the purpose of theater in rome was entertainment so they developed this style of what's called low or popular theater that might have gone on outside of the theater buildings or in between performances inside of the theaters and those consisted of singing and juggling acts maybe mime or or animal animal acts trained dogs horses etc um trick shows chariot racing gladiator combat um short funny sexual plays maybe some some funny sex jokes but again we're talking two minutes long or three minutes long that would get the audience laughing all of this should resemble in your minds what we now think of as circus or or clowning around and in fact um circus ending in us is a latin word um that that came from this theater tradition so we have the the major comedies being written but also simultaneously this this outside theater or this secondary theater tradition um that resembles circus acts or uh smaller smaller entertainment acts carnival carnivalesque acts and we'll see that that is very important um because we actually maintain we keep that tradition alive for the next 2000 years the actual theater event um also started in religious festivals called ludi which actually translates to games in latin and these were government sponsored and they were free to the public and this is uh um important for us to think about because in ancient greek culture remember a wealthy citizen was chosen each year to sponsor the city dionysia and it was a great honor of you know this year i'm going to put my money into something um in the same way that today we have uh wealthy corporations will will sponsor or put their name on a stadium or a certain festival you know sponsored by continental airlines etc um and and in ancient rome the government decided to fund these theater games and that was very important in order in terms of building morale remember if the emperor or the the consul at the time of the republic if the consul can claim that he has sponsored these wonderful festivals for the people and the people enjoy going to them because they're entertaining it makes the people feel very good about their government and about how how much their council cares for them and their leaders care for them it's a um it's a propaganda tool uh so to speak but a look at how good things are my my wonderful subjects my wonderful people we are promoting and sponsoring these games or these festivals for you to enjoy so um there was definitely theater was being used as a propaganda tool even back then um the roman council pompey built the first permanent theater in 55 bc and uh you'll see this is obviously a picture of the coliseum in rome which was a theater but what rome roman um the roman culture was so significant for was that they invented the arch and this was an architectural feat that allowed rome to build freestanding round structures such as the coliseum so recall that in ancient greece those amphitheaters had to be built into the sides of mountains because the greeks could not figure out how to build an arch they could not build a freestanding round structure the romans figured that out and that is why you have these roman theaters that did not have to be built far out into the mountains but could instead exist right there within the major cities and that's that's important especially as we move forward in the history of theater we want the theater to take place in the major city where everyone is otherwise who's going to go right and that's what's going to lead to the the invention of professional companies so the invention of the arch is a very significant milestone not only in the history of architecture but also in the history of theater the actual theater inside of those spaces again resembled very closely the amphitheater that we saw in ancient greeks in ancient greece with a semi-circle orchestra which is the dancing space or the musical space and then tiered seating in the theotron that comes around and obviously these these names had roman names as well and at the back of the playing space was the sky night franz which you should notice sky9 looks very similar to the greek word scheme and it was it was a very similar structure it was a big old wall with some columns on it several doors or entrances and this was used as the backdrop or the scenery for the action of the comedies um a lot of the comedies had entrances and exits through those doors and maybe a character is trying to find another character a husband trying to find a wife or vice versa and every time one comes on through a door the other one leaves and so we have some farcical chasing of each other through doors and the audience keeps saying go that way go that way etc um and maybe some balconies and again just like the skeen you could store costumes props etc in the sky knife france uh one of plautus's most famous comedies that is still performed today is called the maniac me uh or the monica me brothers the monicamis twins and this is a very funny play about a set of twins who are separated by accident at birth and then later one goes to find the other one and he lands in the town where the other one lives and of course all the people of the town keep mistaking the one twin for the other not knowing that he has a twin because they are identical and uh all sorts of hijinks ensue including even the man's wife thinking that it's her husband and it's not and the man's never seen her before so we get all sorts of funny hijinks that happen um but in this comedy this is a great example of roman comedy because it sets some standards uh for comedy that are very appropriate for the history of theater and in fact that we still follow in some sitcoms today um the characters in roman comedy they're no longer the nobles the the wealth the wealthy and noble characters from ancient greek tragedy those those tragic heroes we're now dealing with middle to upper middle class characters who are maybe more relatable to the audiences that are coming to see these shows um and again think about sitcoms that you watch in suburban you know or even in cities but they're they tend not to be about um sitcoms comedies tend not to be about very wealthy or very poor people they're sort of people that are normal average in economic stature and the comic devices we get mistaken identities people thinking you're someone else deception where we are purposely trying to fool or lie to a character and then having to uphold that line keep it going and all of the silliness that in it gets involved with that and misunderstood motive sometimes we think someone's doing it for one reason and in fact they're trying to uh pull one over on on you or or get one on the sly um or maybe there's a conversation where two people are talking and one thinks they're talking about getting married and the other one thinks they're talking about selling a cow that's the famous example from the current the contemporary musical fiddler on the roof um these comic devices these these traits of comedy uh really developed during ancient rome and we also get some archetypes for characters uh and these are important because we still see a lot of these today the clever slave or the clever servant who might not be book smart like his or her master is but who certainly is street smart and actually is the one who saves the day the courtesan or the sexy female character courtesan please do not confuse that with a prostitute courtesans were actually very powerful women back then they were educated they knew how to read write and recite poetry they usually played music maybe on the harp or the loot and could paint or do art and they owned houses or they lived in these houses where men could go and spend money to spend quality time with a female um not necessarily involving sex so a courtesan is is more than a prostitute and in fact was a very um powerful and educated woman at the time and this goes all the way up to the renaissance time when women had very few options back then if they weren't going to get married um in terms of what to do with their lives uh and lastly the sponge friend or the parasite the one who's always trying to hey can i borrow a dollar or oh thank you so much for inviting me for dinner even though you've never invited them for dinner and of course never pay you back we we probably know some friends like that but they often provide very fun and funny instances of comedy again even in contemporary comedies today and in fact ploutus's manic me has been adapted several times which is why it's so popular shakespeare used this as the basis for his comedy of errors where not only did he have the set of twins but then he made a set of um their slaves their servants were also identical twins and so we have two sets of um twins that are split up in all of the comedy that ensues from there and in turn shakespeare's comedy of errors was adopted by richard rodgers and lorenz hart into a an american jazz musical boys from syracuse uh in the 30s so we have a a long history with platysmanic me it is very funny i've seen productions of it that are still today uh very very humorous so that is our i told you it was going to be nice short and sweet our tale about roman theater remember the romans wanted theater to entertain rather than the greeks who wanted to educate and i should add that when we got to roman theater we lost the chorus you no longer needed a chorus all of the actors on the stage were playing parts rather than um 12 or 30 people reciting together as we did with greek theater so that's an interesting change that we get with the roman comedies all right next up we'll have medieval theater in the next video