Roman Theater

The Roman theater includes a) native / indigenous theatrical events, b) events that were created under the influence of Etruscan civilization (Etruria = Tyrrinia, a region in central Italy which developed culture from ^the 8th century. BC), c) popular entertainment and d) artistic forms of theater.

A) native theatrical events

1. Feskennina mockery (versus fescenini: either from the town Fescennium of Etruria, or the fascium, the phallus which the people of the town kept at their parades, and could be compared with the Greek satirical and phallic songs): Mocking improvisational types of songs whose lyrics were obscene dialogues accompanied with theatrical gestures and they scoffed strongly acts of aristocrats. They were presented by liberal, young Romans, not professionals, so-called istrios (histriones, from Etruscan hister meant dancer) who came to mean a hypocrite - actror, who danced and sang to the accompaniment of flute. 
   
2. Satura (= variety, patchwork): improvisational (initially) interactive songs accompanied by music and dancing and portrayed with dance moves, a combination of feskenninon scoff and Etruscan sign dance. From the satura came later satire. It was developed in the late 4 ^th century. BC for about a hundred years. Its issues of concern were death, love, human weaknesses and faults, the prose descriptions of everyday life. The actors were called planipedes (= gymnopodes, barefoot) either because they did not wear shoes or because they were playing at a flat orchestra. They were playing without mask, and they were painting their faces with chalk and psimythio, an innovative action at that time when no hypocrite does not appeared in the Greek theater without mask.
   
3. Atellani comedy or farce (fabula atellana, the city Atella in Southern Italy): improvisational (initially) mockery in daring and vulgar sung lyrics, which were mutually exchanged between the residents of the province during rural festivals. Later, when they began to acquire some more structured plot, they were played in honor of the dead.

It is the first theatrical spectacle brought to Rome towards the end of the 4th century BC. In atellani comedy actors were ordinary citizens rather than professionals who came out shamelessly and wore half masks in the upper half of the face. In time firm types were crystallized such as Pantalon (maccus), the old man (pappus), the eater (bucco), the hunchback scholar (dossenus). The characters that atellani theater created remained for many centuries as "theater types" in makeshift outdoor theater and passing through the wooden scenes of medieval fairgrounds, these types will be the backbone of the characters of the Renaissance comedia dell 'arte. The themes of atellani comedies revolved mainly around the mores of farmers of Campania, and around the popular professions such as' the barber of the village, the "fishermen" and the mockery of the manners and customs of other people. The mockingly vulgar expressions of atellani dramas began to be played as epilogues at the end of the performances of tragedies so that the the public went lightly on emotions (the same role is played by the satirical drama at the end of the Greek tragic events).

B) Etrouskini effect: Theatrical events related to rural life, everyday life, family and social relations. The performances were played in open air and were based on mimetic art, mostly dancing (dance). They were also accompanied by flute without narrative plot, without verse or prose, because the language of Etruscans would be incomprehensible to the Romans, and they aimed to the propitiation of divine forces.

C) Popular entertainment

1. Mime (the word means a) small plays and b) the actors who pretend): popular entertainment ( of the Hellenistic period of the 3 ^rd century. BC, which later enters the daily entertainment of the Romans and soon displace previously atellani popular farce and around 173 B.C. was established as a permanent feature of celebrations of spring Floralia) includes short episodes of comic improvisational type with caustic content on social funny facts of the time. The themes of mime had yet to do with everyday life, with spicy and bold descriptions of urban and rural morals and with mythological themes. Three were the characteristics of mime who stand it out from other theatrical events: a) the actors were always professional, b) do not wear masks and therefore the facial expression was particularly important  and c) in the mime the participation of women was allowed which women at the end of the show were offered as a dessert, in the form of 'leaving', to the audience naked. All mimes were too much libertarians and were performed with incredible profanity and vulgarity, with the sole purpose of entertainment of the crowd. The mime did not have any scene equipment. They were playing with a naked face, with heavy make - up, with bare feet (they were «planipedes»), without the commanding presence of cothurnus and the stripped scene was just a simple cloth curtain hung from one end of the scene to another and there, in front of it, the actors played.
   
   
2. Pantomime = imitate/mime everything (the word characterizes the type and the performer). The pantomimist was characterized “the legacy of the tragedy” (opposed to the mime which was an evolving form of comedy). He mangled the tragedy keeping only the vocal that could give with the mimic. An actor imitated silent, with rhythmic movements and gestures only, all the episodes of a play creating the images with accompanying dance, telling in a naturalistic way the story along with the background music. The songs of a pantomimist were a complicated song accompanied by a full orchestra. The dancer ie the pantomimist wore costumes (no fillings and cothurnus) of the tragic theater and masks called 'masks of silence ", firmly on the face with closed mouths, as the pantomimists were dumb. The themes of pantomime derived from Greek mythology and, therefore tragedies subjects. Pantomime came to the edge in the first 3 centuries a. D. (imperial period). From then onwards second hypocrite was often used. From ^the 4th century. a. D. also women impersonated, as their male colleagues, all male and female roles.

D) artistic forms of theater. The scholar theater in Latin literature includes initially original translations of Greek tragedies and comedies. A first contact of the inhabitants of the Italian peninsula to the Greek theater had already started from ^the 5th century BC through the colonies of southern Italy and Sicily. Introducer of the drama in Rome was Livius Andronicus. He translated Greek tragedies and comedies into Latin. In 204 BC the first works of Livius Andronicus were played in a makeshift tent (as there were not the subsequent majestic theater buildings of Roman civilization).

The scholar tradition of the artistic Roman drama (tragedy and comedy) has the following characteristics:

1. There are common standards for all Latin dramatists, the works of Greek drama, tragedies and comedies of the classical and Hellenistic periods.
2. Predominantly Greek mythology is used for the tragedies of the Roman drama, whose stories is a medley to create a more striking effect (contaminatio).
3. In comedy there is greater freedom and thematic issues are drawn from both the Greek myth and Roman daily life.
4. To overcome the difficulties of translating the rich vocabulary and expressions of the Greek language new words and concepts in Latin are invented, and several times Greek words are romanized.
5. The adjustment in the Latin language was not a simple literal translation of the Greek model, but adapted to religious beliefs, traditions, customs, habits, preferences of the Roman public.
6. The Roman tragedy and comedy was a mixed theater with alternating pieces of prose, the diverbia, with recitation or singing songs to the accompaniment of flute, the cantica. These latter unknown in Greek works were either monologues or dialogues with an area of at least half of the project up to two thirds.

The artistic Roman theater includes a) tragedies 1) tragedy and 2) tragedy praetexta) and b) comedies 1) comedy palliata and 2) comedy togata):

A) 1) Tragedy: the Roman tragedy was depicted as an alternation of dramatic episodes or scenes, sometimes performed by a single actor and sometimes by several persons or dancers. The performers of the great tragic monologues, the forerunners of the later operas had a highly processed way of articulation of speech and shocked the audience. The tragic characters over the years have become established roles, in which certain modes of performance have been crystallized.        

2) Tragedy praetexta: the tragedy of this kind flourished in the democratic period of the Roman era ^(4th - ^1st century BC) and draws her subjects either from myths associated with the foundation and the beginnings of Rome, or the oldest Roman history or even contemporary events of the era (opposed to the tragedies that made use of the Greek myths) aiming to portray in a vivid manner the glorious path of the Roman army against hostile nations. The actors, as the ancestors of the noble Romans, wore the official Roman dress, white robe with purple bars on the lapels (toga praetexta). The main objective of the tragedy praetexta was to honor the nobility through public spectacles in which the Roman people took place as a spectator. The spectacle was serious, rigorous, disciplined and aimed at stimulation of the patriotic feelings of the audience praising the accomplishments of great men, seeking to laud the nation of the Romans and to teach history to younger people in a funny way. The works were written in order and in contrast to the classical and Hellenistic Greece, where the theater was critical to political action and social situations, but in case of praetexta the power imposes its ideas and serves its interests. Unique whole project of this kind is Octavia attributed to Seneca.

B) 1) Comedy palliata: hybrid species resulting from the transfer of items of New Comedy in Latin. The Romans actors appear on stage wearing the pallium (= Greek tunic) and not the Roman toga. They didn’ t wear masks and expressed themselves with the grimaces of the face (a technique unknown to the Greeks actors The works of comedy palliata had plenty of music and dance. This was achieved with a mixed technique of sung parts and recited parts. The sung parts (cantica), unknown to Greek comedy, were either great monologues or dialogues which were performed together with dance and song. A peculiarity also of comedy palliata was the performance of a role from two people, of which one was the actor who imitated and the other the  singer (candor). The mimetic of the actor should be fully coordinated with the song accompanying the singer, so that truly its content was given. Representative of this type of comedy is Plautus.

2) Comedy togata: a new kind of comedy where the actors wear only the Roman robe (toga). It is presented in the last century of the democratic period ^(1st cent. BC) and draws her subjects from the Italian daily life opposed to palliata comedy that draws its themes from the New Comedy. The tragic faces in comedy togata are less, its duration was shorter and its content more modest than this of the comedy palliata. For the dialogues colloquial vocabulary was usually used. In comedy togata two types were formed: a) the comedia tabernaria, which was played in the taverns for amusement of the low-class and b) comedia trabeata, which took its name from trabea, the typical attire of the riders, and dramatized episodes from the lives of riders.

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