Theatre of ancient Rome

[1] Theatre during this era is generally separated into genres of tragedy and comedy, which are represented by a particular style of architecture and stage play, and conveyed to an audience purely as a form of entertainment and control.

[2] When it came to the audience, Romans favored entertainment and performance over tragedy and drama, displaying a more modern form of theatre that is still used in contemporary times.

Following the devastation of widespread plague in 364 BC, Roman citizens began including theatrical games as a supplement to the Lectisternium ceremonies already being performed, in a stronger effort to pacify the gods.

In the years following the establishment of these practices, actors began adapting these dances and games into performances by acting out texts set to music and simultaneous movement.

[3] It was as a part of the Ludi Romani in 240 BC that author and playwright Livius Andronicus became the first to produce translations of Greek plays to be performed on the Roman stage.

[7] The early Roman stage was dominated by: Phylakes (a form of tragic parody that arose in Italy during the Roman Republic from 500 to 250 BC), Atellan farces (or a type of comedy that depicted the supposed backwards thinking of the southeastern Oscan town of Atella; a form of ethnic humor that arose around 300 BC), and Fescennine verses (originating in southern Etruria).

[7] Furthermore, Phylakes scholars have discovered vases depicting productions of Old Comedy (e.g. by Aristophanes, a Greek playwright), leading many to ascertain that such Comedic plays were presented at one point to an Italian, if not "Latin-Speaking" audience as early as the 4th century.

By the beginning of the 2nd century BC, drama had become firmly established in Rome and a guild of writers (collegium poetarum) had been formed.

[11] It was a style characterized through paradox, discontinuity, antithesis, and the adoption of declamatory structures and techniques that involved aspects of compression, elaboration, epigram, and of course, hyperbole, as most of his plays seemed to emphasize such exaggerations in order to make points more persuasive.

[11] Seneca wrote tragedies that reflected the soul, through which rhetoric would be used within that process of creating a tragic character and reveal something about the state of one's mind.

In fact, these rumors prompted Terence to use the prologues in several of his plays as an opportunity to plead with audiences, asking that they lend an objective eye and ear to his material, and not be swayed by what they may have heard about his practices.

The slow process of creating a permanent performance space was due to the staunch objection of high-ranking officials: it was the opinion of the members of the senate that citizens were spending too much time at theatrical events, and that condoning this behavior would lead to corruption of the Roman public.

Sometimes theatre building projects could last generations before being completed, and would take a combination of private benefactors, public subscription, and proceeds from the summae honorariae or payments for office positions made by magistrates.

[15] To demonstrate their benefactions, statues or inscriptions (sometimes in sums of money) were erected or inscribed for all to see in front of the tribunalia, in the proscaenium or scaenae frons, parts of the building meant to be in the public eye.

[15] They were often arranged in a semicircle around an orchestra, but both the stage and scene building were joined together with the auditorium and were elevated to the same height, creating an enclosure very similar in structure and appearance to that of a modern theatre.

These structures were erected in several different places, including temples, arenas, and at times, plays were held in Rome’s central square (the forum).

[12][4] Societal divisions within the theatre were made apparent in how the auditorium was divided, typically by broad corridors or praecinctiones, into one of three zones, the ima, media, and summa cavea.

[15] Of these three divisions, the summa cavea or 'the gallery' was where men (without togas or pullati (poor)), women, and sometimes slaves (by admission) were seated.

[15] Theatres were paid for by certain benefactors and were seen as targets for benefaction, mainly out of the need to maintain civil order and as a consequence of the citizens desire for theatrical performance.

Built by Pompey the Great, the main purpose of this structure was actually not for the performance of drama, but rather, to allow current and future rulers a venue with which they could assemble the public and demonstrate their pomp and authority over the masses.

With seating for 20,000 audience members, the grandiose structure held a 300-foot-wide stage and boasted a three-story scaenae frons flanked with elaborate statues.

[17] The spread of dramatic performance throughout Rome occurred with the growth of acting companies that are believed to have eventually begun to travel throughout all of Italy.

The public opinion of actors was very low, placing them within the same social status as criminals and prostitutes, and acting as a profession was considered illegitimate and repulsive.