Latin is the theater in Latin literature, all parts of the theatrical genre produced in Latin of the time of ancient Rome.

A Roman theater means a building intended to ancient theater during the same period.

Heir to the ancient Greek theater , where he was linked to the cult of Dionysus , the Latin theater it differs in many respects. If it is originally associated with religious ceremonies, it quickly evolves into forms of representation profane , in which the writing, the acting and staging are clearly codified.

Mosaics of Roman Sousse ( Tunisia ) : actors and masks of the theater Latin (Sousse Museum)

The theatrical genre

The principal authors of Latin theater

Latin excelled in comedy mainly Plautus and Terence. All parts were copied from the graph (new Greek comedy ), especially Menander , by the process of literary contaminatio and they themselves have often inspired by classical authors such as Molire said that the Aulularia Plautus in The Miser.

• Plautus : Plautus Titus Maccius (v.254 Ave. J.-C.-184 BC.) Latin comic poet popular in ancient Rome. His comedies (of which twenty have survived, and it is impossible to date) show very little verve Roman people: Amphitryon, Private Hector, The Menaechmi, The Aulularia (The Comedy of Marmite). Molire also resumed Amphitryon.

• Terence : Publius Terentius Afer (V.191 BC. - 159 BC.) comic Latin poet, born in Carthage. His comedies are described compete characters with great psychological insight and lively good feelings: The Adrienne, The man who punishes himself, The Hcyre, The Eunuch, The Adelphi, Phormion (which s' inspired in Molire's Scapin).

The types of plays

The public wanted above all the sensational: the staging became so lavish, extravagant and fantastic. The text is secondary.

The Romans' favorite parts were:

• The Atellanes , a short farce , improvised by actors wearing masks and characters embodying convention as Maccus, Bucco, Dossenus and monstrous beings as Manducus (the ogre ) and Lamia (the ogre), etc.. Borrowed from everyday life, the themes were very simple. Genre essentially a caricature, the Atellanes seduced by its familiarity and does not shrink the obscenity. Atellanes often used to conclude the scenic games. The Atellanes is the ancestor of the commedia dell'arte.

• The mime , dance show, which features lighter subjects, even coarse and is the only show in which actresses play, often associated with prostitutes. Do not confuse the mime in the ancient world with the mime in the modern sense, which means a show where the roles are only gestures, without words and with musical accompaniment. In Rome, the mime was a kind of representation rather dramatic in which actors played barefoot and without masks or romantic scenes daily, said in prose. Much depended on gestures, dance, everything that was addressed to the senses rather than intellect.

• Pantomime, show typical Roman ballet about mythology , often tragic. She succeeded where a mime actor-dancer (as the pantomimus) mimed a story in a performance without words. He played alone all the characters and was accompanied by a chorus of dancers and a small orchestra. The actor wore a beautiful silk dress and a colorful mask. Elongated masks reflected tragic emotion and violence. The comic masks faithfully reproduced the features of human face and are intended primarily to entertain.

• The fabula (in Latin , means "fictional account", "play") is a theatrical genre divided into several categories:

• crepidater the fabula, a Greek tragedy about Latin
• the fabula palliata, the adaptation of a Greek comedy or "item in Greek costumes (actors wore the pallium and not the toga )
• praetexta the fabula, a serious piece on a Roman historical subject. So called because the heroes were magistrates Roman, wearing their praetexta toga , toga bordered with a purple band. The topic was inspired by the national history, such as taking a city. The heroes of the tragedy pretext were considered demigods, as in the Greek Theatre
• togata the fabula, or "piece Roman costumes. It was a Latin themed comedy native on the bottom of the social ladder in Rome.

Actors

The actors were all men or slaves or free men but were not citizens. A citizen who is the actor is degraded by the censors (who establish social rank in Roman society) and excluded from its ranks. However, exceptionally, senators or judges could get on stage: Nero himself took part in several performances. As in Greece, female roles are played by young transvestites. In Rome, the scene is forbidden to women.

The actors mime and pantomime are real stars. Their salary is increased by the huge bonuses they receive. Rich and famous, they are socially accepted, they become the favorites of young and lead a riotous life. Pantomime, popularized in August , allows and encourages this phenomenon of stardom since the new dramatic genre is entirely organized around the actor, who plays all the characters, whose solos are highlighted by the singers, taking them over in response.

Actors and musicians gathered in troops headed by a chief (the dominus Gregis). Like the costumes and makeup, the actor's performance is strictly codified. The numerous treatises written on this subject, either by actors (as Roscius), or by theorists (such as Pliny the Elder ), we are partially preserved by the fact that in quotes Quintilian (especially in Volume XI of the Institution oratory). The actor must work three elements in his game:

• voice;
• gestures;
• posture;

Costumes

The symbolic forms and colors of the costumes allows immediate recognition of the most representative of comedy or tragedy, as the peasant and cunning thief or an idiot, and boastful braggart soldier, etc..

The actors wear long flowing robes and high boots (cothurni) if they are tragedies, tunics and flat shoes (socus), they are comedies.

For parts about Greek (fabula palliata), the costumes are Greek: pallium, robe and cloak cloak, cloak, tunic for women. For parts of Roman subject (fabula praetexta; togata fabula), Roman costumes are black gown for free men, slaves to coat, coat for travelers, tunic, dress or coat for women, yellow scarf of the courtesan.

In the tragedies, the actors embody the gods and heroes wear costumes and lavish, rich in proportion to the quality of the characters they represent. Wigs (blonde for young people, white for old men, red for slaves), makeup and masks, tragic or comic, symbolize the age, background and character of the character. The masks were also used as a voice through their mouths flared: the audience could follow perfectly the scene even if they were away.

The actors also wore shoes with heels 20 to 30 inches: The buskin (buskin), high-soled, which were shod and tragic actors, for actors comedy, crepida (sandals of Greek origin) or soccer.

The decor and music

The decor varies slightly from one room to another, because the main stage is set: this is the stage wall. Its decoration always heavier serves two purposes: to show the generosity of the donee of the show and produce the illusion, according to a very specific code.

The Romans take up and develop the techniques developed by engineers invent Greek and cranes and hatches, to bring down the gods of heaven (hence the Latin phrase: deus ex machina ) or picking up ghosts from the dead. The Roman public loves these fairy achievements.

The role of music is essential in the Latin scene. As an opera today, a stage performance is unimaginable without music: a professional musician composes opening interludes and accompaniment on the poet's verses. The music is played by Tibicina (flute players) for two flutes (tibiae), one of your major (Dexter) and one of its acute (sinistra) or double flutes, bass and treble. The tone is selected based on role, the bass and treble emphasized the dialogue between father and son in the comedy.

The music is increasing in importance in the theater. Under the Empire, we see the appearance of new instruments in the pantomime, forming real bands: syrinx , lyre , zither , trumpet , organ.

History and architecture of Roman theaters

History of performance venues

In the early days of ancient Rome , the public performances were given to appease the anger of the gods. It appears that there was great religious processions, in which dancers and mimes (some original Etruscan ) had a kind of sacred entertainment, designed to please the gods that we walked majestically statues in these festive days. This link between theater and religion gradually disappears with the construction of theaters in stone.

Originally, Roman theaters were indeed built in wood and only the audience could sit in the front rows. The use of wood was justified by the temporary nature of the building: the Roman Senate , believing that the performances of his people turned their religious duty, indeed opposed to stone buildings.

After 55 av. AD , when the Theatre of Pompey stone was erected, temporary buildings gave way to permanent theaters. A number of theaters are then built throughout the Roman world, mainly in large cities of Italy , from Gaul , of Africa , from Hispania , from Germany and the Middle East. Some of them are remarkably well preserved, like Leptis Magna in Libya , of Orange (Vaucluse) in France or Aspendos in Turkey (see theaters in the Roman world ).

There were two types of performance venues:

• The theater itself, designed for comic and dramatic performances and pantomimes.
• The Odeon , smaller and designed for opera and poetry reading with musical accompaniment by the Greek tradition.

The structure of the theaters

Roman theater of Aspendos (Asia Minor)

The Roman theater is a vast chamber ^Performances

Latin drama is neither a theater of mimesis as that advocated by Aristotle or a theater performance as the classical theater. It is a theater play (ludus) representation is a religious period during which the policy stops and nothing should come and disturb, especially not on stage allusions to real life. In this it is comparable (but not equivalent) to the Greek theater , but which took place in very different musical competitions.

The Theatre in Society

In the theater

Everyone could go to the theater, men, women, children, slaves. Citizens were obliged to wear the gown.

In Rome and in Roman cities, the theater occupies a social role: they went there to discuss, meet, get to see or look for love affairs, as reported by Ovid in the Art of Love. The theater also serves as a forum for dialogue between the prince and people, and important people wanted to be present at shows to show closer to the people. But the distribution of public cavea reproduced in the social hierarchy.

• Instead of the audience: People of different social classes were divided: the emetics were organized so that they do not mix. In addition, each person has a place in the stands as his rank. Initially, the spectators were standing, which avoided a distinction then they could sit. Cavea was divided into three "rings": the first ring, the ima cavea, was reserved for senators and knights, which left them fourteen ranks, the people were sitting in the crown of the medium, the media cavea and slaves and foreigners were standing in the third ring, the summa cavea, who was in last place.
• Both public and preferences: The spectators were divided into two categories:
  • the general public who preferred the big show with staged stunning, rare animals, focusing on small stories accessible to all,
  • the public of scholars who favored a more literary scene for the elite.

Funding for the show

The show is free and open to everyone, but its development is, for those who finance, dator ludi, a considerable investment. The cost of the show is often supported by a magistrate who takes this opportunity to increase his popularity and his chances of being elected to higher office. This occasioned so rivalry between donees who always wanted to do better than others. Whenever anything is more sumptuous and more amazing than the last.

The legacy of Latin theater

We only have a few fragments of the theatrical life: some monuments more or less well-preserved pieces (in small number in view of the extraordinary dramatic activity of the Latin authors), some theoretical writings (as Vitruvius , which in the Book V of De Architectura trafficking locations suitable for the construction of theaters, their architecture and their sound).

As evidenced by the programming current theater season, and especially the ancient Greek repertoire has never stopped being played, sometimes in an antique frame. And the Renaissance to the ^twentieth century , the authors have never ceased to adapt, copy, transform the Greek Theatre. In the classical French theater, the twelve tragedies of Racine , only four are not inspired by ancient Greek and Latin. In the contemporary theater, Giraudoux (Amphitryon 38, The Trojan War will not take place, Electra), Anouilh (Antigone), Sartre (The Flies) and other repeat many themes of classical antiquity. With a hint though: Rome are mentioned as subjects (Britannicus, Berenice, etc..), And the sources are not playwrights, but historians.

The evolution of the theater will result in many changes in the way of writing plays and staging them: women play female roles, writing and directing are not as codified as during Antiquity, costumes and masks are free no longer serve as reversals of antiques.

References

See also

• Architecture of the Roman theater
• Ancient Greek Drama
• Theatre History
• Naumachia
• Plautus
• Terence
• Genest
• Amphitheater
• Parts List Latin theater

Bibliography

• JC Dumont and M.-H. Francois-Garelli Theatre in Rome, Paris, Le Livre de Poche, 1998. Contains general chapters on the Roman theater, as well as detailed summaries of parts of Plautus and Terence.
• F. Dupont, actor-king or the theater in ancient Rome, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1985.
• F. Dupont Theatre Latin, Paris, Armand Colin. ( ISBN 2-200-25120-3 ).

External Links

• Ancient Rome portal
• Gateway Theatre

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