ROMAN COMEDY
Origins of Roman Theater
5th c. Athenian Tragedy (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides)
"Old" Comedy (Aristophanes)
4th c. "New" Comedy (Menander etc.)
4th/3rd c. Revivals in Magna Graecia
-
240 Livius Andronicus (< Tarentum)
c. 220 Gnaeus Naevius
190s Quintus Ennius
190s Plautus (d. 184): 20 plays survive
c. 160 Terence: 6 plays survive
Dramatic Genres
|
Greek Setting |
Roman Setting |
| Serious |
Tragedy |
Fabula Praetexta |
| Comic |
Fabula Palliata
(Plautus, Terence) |
Fabula Togata |
Festivals
-
Regular festivals (e.g. Megalensia in April)
-
Votive (vowed by general etc.)
-
Dedicatory (e.g. new temple)
-
Funerals of statesmen etc.
Conventions of the Comic Stage
Staging
-
Temporary set (no stone theaters till 1st c. BC)
-
Exits stage left and right
-
Two onstage doors
< - to Harbor [House] | [House] to City - >
Poetry & Music
-
Double pipe, perhaps percussion
-
Dialogue/recitative/full arias (cantica)
Masks
-
Permits doubling roles
-
Allow men to play women
Stock Characters
-
Young lovers (girl normally courtesan)
-
Clever slave
-
Parasite (sponges off wealthy char.)
-
Pimp (owner of girl)
-
Miles Gloriosus (boastful soldier)
-
Overbearing father
Comedy & Society
C.L. Barber Shakespeare's Festive Comedy
(Princeton, 1959)
Artificial "Elsewhere"
-
Shakespeare's Forest of Arden etc.
-
Elizabethan Italy
-
... Plautus's Greece
Saturnalian Reversals
-
"The world turn'd upside down"
-
Old vs. Young, Fathers vs. Sons
-
Free/Bourgeois vs. Slave/Proletariat
-
Men vs. Women
-
Work vs. Play
Does comedy subvert societal norms or reinforce them?
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