Theater

Theater, term used to refer to drama as an art form, as well as to the building in which it is performed. According to Aristotle, the drama of ancient Greece, the ancestor of modern European drama, grew out of the dithyramb (choral song). The form of tragedy credited to Thespis was refined successively by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in Periclean Athens. Comedy developed separately. The plays of Aristophanes are the only remains of Greek Old Comedy (5th century B.C.), a form that was extremely licentious and close to its ritual origins. Middle and New comedy (4th and 3rd centuries B.C., respectively) became increasingly sentimental. Greek drama was performed at religious festivals in amphitheaters built into hillsides; that at Epidaurus is still used each summer.

The Roman plays of Plautus, Terence, and Seneca were influenced by Greek theater. However, mime and pantomime were the popular theatrical forms in the Roman Empire. After the fall of the Empire, theater was banned by the Church until the 9th century. Medieval drama evolved from musical elaborations of the church service. Eventually these developed into mystery plays and were moved outdoors onto play wagons. Miracle plays, based on the lives of the saints and on scripture, also developed; cycles of plays were performed at religious festivals. Morality plays (such as Everyman) and interludes (comic plays) appeared in the 15th century.

During the Renaissance the rediscovery of Greek and Roman dramatic texts led directly to the growth of secular drama. Buildings for the performance of plays were erected in Elizabethan times. One of the most famous was the Globe Theatre (associated with Shakespeare), a multistory roofed building inside which the audience ranged around an open stage.

The modern form of the stage, with painted scenery and a proscenium arch across which a curtain falls between acts, was established by the 17th century. However, in the 20th century attempts have been made to eliminate the distancing of audience from the dramatic action, using such new theatrical designs as theater in the round.