Research

Theater takes place all the time wherever one is; an art simply facilitates persuading one this is the case.

John Cage

Theater by definition is a place in which a play is performed. If you trace the word back to its Greek origin it literally translates to ‘the seeing place’ this can be anywhere and refers to performance or body of literature and other documents that support it. Closet drama isn’t written to be performed but is still theater. In a broad sense, theater is a very abstract term as it can refer to a lot of avenues but a common definition is that the theater requires one actor and one audience member. But what happens if there are no audience members there? Does this mean it is no longer theatre?

The Greek people were the first recorded people in history to use theatre as a form of entertainment some plays still exist today and are performed around the world such as ‘Medea Oedipus Rex’ by Sophocles. This certain play is under the genre of tragedy. Other plays that fall under this genre include ‘Antigone’ by Sophocles who also wrote ‘Electra’ which again falls under tragedy. Another genre that Greeks were famous for was the comedies having such plays like ‘The Clouds’, ‘The Birds’, and ‘The Frog’ which were all written by Aristophanes. The final genre that the greeks loved were satyur play, which always involved a half goat half man and were sometimes thrown in with comedies but with a lot more of a fantasy theme which often closely related to Dionysus the Greek God of Wine.