The theater was formed when the first spectator appeared, who was interested in watching the mummers' performance around the fire. This art has evolved over the centuries along with its audience. This process is unchanged to this day. Moreover, what happens on stage can often outstrip the thought and intellect of the viewer, providing him with themes for reflection, expressed in an unusual form. In other words, the theater develops only when its creators do not descend to the level of the spectator, but raise it to themselves.
Instructions
Step 1
"Theater" is a show and a place for a show. In any case, the Greek word "theatron" means just that. The ancient Greeks, even before they created the theater proper, gave the world such a name, which stuck. It was approved by those gods whom they then worshiped and in honor of whom they organized the first performances-games: Demeter, Kore, and Dionysus. After all, it was the latter, in addition to protecting the culture of winemaking, who assumed the functions of patronage over all creative manifestations, including poetry and theater.
Step 2
Ancient Greek theater gave the world an understanding of the importance of the theater's mission. The practice of this art was an important state affair, and the poets and actors involved in it professionally were considered state people. The Greeks took the theater very seriously, so initially they did not exchange for anything other than tragedies, which translates as "song of the goats" - a tribute to Dionysus, who was often portrayed in a goat's skin. Later, comedies appeared at the only comedy in the whole country - Aristophanes. However, comedy, with the light hand of Aristotle, immediately began to be considered an inferior genre.
Step 3
It is believed that the official opening of the world theater took place during the Great Dionysios in 534 BC, when the poet Thespides, for greater solemnity of the sounding of his poems, attracted an actor to recite them.
Step 4
The Athenian poets liked the idea of attracting reciters so much that, in order to outmaneuver their rivals, one after another began to use their services. Playwright Aeschylus added two reciting actors to the general chorus, and Sophocles three.
Step 5
Roman citizens, in contrast to the Greeks, considered theater an art base, almost shameful. If at first they borrowed a lot from the Greeks, then over time the art of theater has degraded from them. On the stage for the Romans, it was not the thought laid down by the playwright in the work that was important, but the entertainment. Therefore, gladiatorial fights were very popular with the public. Slightly better examples were the performances of mimes and pantomimes.
Step 6
For the most part, reworking ancient Greek works for the stage, the Roman theater still managed to give the world several immortal works by such playwrights as Seneca, Plautus, Ovid and Apuleius.
Step 7
In the era of the early Middle Ages, during the aggressive offensive of Christianity, the theater was fiercely eradicated by churchmen from the life of society. And, since it lasted for about six centuries, the theater survived almost by a miracle, breaking through the only window possible at that time: church Liturgies and Mysteries.
Step 8
And even later - during the late Middle Ages, in the 12-15 centuries - it was quite dangerous to be an artist, musician or circus performer. For this, one could pay with his life by burning at the stake of the Holy Inquisition. In a completely inexplicable way, theatrical art nevertheless survived in this dark time, which lasted almost a whole millennium. It survived thanks to small itinerant theater companies performing farcical comedies on the topic of the day and reworked mystery dramas.
Step 9
The Renaissance was a cleansing breath of freedom for all arts and theater was no exception. Having returned for a short time - to find the origins - to ancient images and models, the theatrical art began to develop rapidly, making full use of technical progress. Special buildings were erected for performances in cities. Over time, professional theater companies competing with each other appeared, often run by playwrights: Lope de Vega, Calderon, Cervantes. Or the main actor, or the manager ordering exclusive dramas from playwrights such as Marlowe or Shakespeare. Various types and genres of theatrical art developed.
Step 10
Subsequently, almost until the end of the 19th century, the theater developed on the basis of the aesthetic trends prevailing at one time or another: from classicism, enlightenment and romanticism to sentimentalism and symbolism. For a very long time, the main persons in it were the playwright, actor and entrepreneur.
Step 11
Since the beginning of the 20th century, all of the above aesthetics have won, almost absorbing them, realism. And together with him, the era of director's theater came. Gordon Craig, Konstantin Stanislavsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Alexander Tairov, Evgeny Vakhtangov, Berthorld Brecht, Charles Dyullen, Jacques Lecoq - it was they who, having created their own theatrical schools and methods, laid the foundation for that theater, those of its directions, which in many respects exist in the present time.
Step 12
Modern theater is bright and sometimes unpredictable. It also retains the archaic, where unshakable postulates dominate: conflict, event, action, reincarnation, play, artist, director. But thanks to the development of new technologies, the use of cinema and computer technologies, new forms of presentation of any, even the most archaic, material appear, in connection with which much is being rethought and reborn. In modern theater, such directions as: drama and documentary theaters, modern dance and pantomime theater, opera and ballet organically coexist.
