Tragedy Will Never Be The Same - 3193 Words

Cory A. Urlacher Dr. Fruhauff English 224 11 May 2015 Tragedy Will Never Be the Same â€Å"Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything† (Shaw). Change is inevitable. Times change and ideas progress. One thing we think to be unacceptable now may very well be acceptable in the future. Look at the use of marijuana and even the homosexual agenda. Society is slowly progressing with its postmodern thinking and statistically speaking, those people are thinking it is more and more acceptable. We might not think that what I just said has anything to do with Theatre, but we need to put in perspective why we now have the theatre we do now. Ancient Greek theatre was not as open to civil human rights†¦show more content†¦First, structure and stage have grown more advanced for understandable reasons. During the Ancient Greek era, plays were usually only performed once a year at the festival of Dionysus. This festival was treated as a competition in which a few different Playwrights faced off for the honor of being the best. At this festival three tribes would compete in many events, one including acting. The plays were held in an open structure that was shaped as a half-moon of sorts. These ancient plays only hosted three actors and the only resources available were masks and different costumes. They would change in something called a â€Å"skene† which was really just a tent that hosted their costumes. As you can tell this made it impossible to host any special visual effects, especially with the lack of characters allowed in the play. The one special quality ancient plays did utilize was the chorus. This chorus would sing melodies throughout the play to set the mood and would act as a supporting cast to those acting. Men played all of the parts in the play. Many would think that this means that female parts did not play a large roles in these plays. Although the women didn’t actually perform, the men would play women. A lot of times this meant dressing up like a woman and at times meant speaking like a woman. What is so interesting about this is that the men would actually get tips from the women and were told, â€Å"When you talk, see to it that you speak preciously and persuasively, like a