Back in the Hellenistic period, 500 to 200 B.C., theatre served a completely different purpose than it does today; it solely dealt with honoring their Gods rather than entertaining the crowd and provoking thought. Arguably theatre was the most important part of the Athenian religious and social culture …show more content…
It only happened during the time when people were relaxed and enjoyed their hard work over the entire year. Just about everyone looked forward to the plays that were sang out in front of the plateia (place where everyone hung out as a crowd) which was the top form of entertainment that brought together the people as a whole. It really took place as a mystical ceremony in honor of the God Dionysus, their role models of craziness. The goal of cultural festival or mysteries were used for intoxicants and other trance-inducing techniques (such as dance and music) to remove inhibitions and social constraints, liberating the individual to return to a natural state. It is also important to note that they started out in a panoramic view where the theater was designed to be heard and viewed with the same exact ease from all seats in the theater. The society was different then than it is today; the rich elite of the day would donate money for a social good for example the salary of the actor or the masks or even the rest of the expenses that there might …show more content…
They were called "choregoi” in plural. The choregos of the winning play would have a statue of himself erected in the city for everyone to see how well of a job he did for the people around him.
The ancient Greek drama was a theatrical culture that flourished in ancient Greece from c. 700 B.C. The city-state of Athens, which became a significant cultural, political, and military power during this period, was its center, where it was institutionalized as part of a festival called the Dionysia, which honored the god Dionysus.
Greek dramatists who dominated the field at the time were tragic, comic and critic. First came tragedy that took place in the late 500s B.C., the significant part of this field is the secularization of religion through the ceremonial acting due to the fact of free thought and efficacy of intellectual scrutiny to which the gods and myths became more undermined by the philosophical work of Plato and Aristotle. Whereas Plato and Aristotle were the first to originate “Poetics” which is based on ellegant thinking through problems and reaching intelligent conclusions. Instantly, people while fascinated needed a means of relaxation so naturally comedy emerged at 490