Greek theatre

[Rob_Bob]

In what way, if any, is Greek theatre relevant to the 21st century??

[football]

They had drama & stage plays, we've got drama & stage plays.

[Rob_Bob]

thanks, anyone know any others?

[Brugel]

A serious answer to this question would go something as follows. Many of the Ancient Greeks believed that the best poetry and drama reveals to us universal truths. These are truths about the human situation: about how human beings will react under certain circumstances; about how they relate to one another; about the sort of things they face by virtue of the fact that they are human; and so on. And we can learn these from a study of the classics. So, for example, it is a "truth" seen in many Greek works that human beings are subject to forces beyond their control (which, in Greek theatre, was often represented by the Gods who would toy with humans as they saw fit). These forces predetermine what will happen to us and, no matter how hard we try to avoid it, we will eventually meet this predetermined fate. A more detailed answer than this would require a greater knowledge of the classics than I possess (unfortunately- the side effect of a deprived education in a typical British comprehensive school).

[Brugel]

A less serious answer would refer to the many references to the Greek classics that we find in modern culture. For example, an episode of the Simpsons I saw recently had a re-telling of the story of the Trojan horse (and it also contained the only dirty joke I've ever noticed in a children's TV programme. Ned Flanders looks at the wooden horse and says: "Wow, whenever I see wood in future, I'll think Trojan").

[dafyd]

Aristotle (an ancient Greek) created *the* rules for pretty much all drama written from his time (well B.C.) to the middle of the 20th Century, when Bertholt Brecht decided he wanted to do something completely different. So, The theatre of Ancient Greece with its two schools of comedy and tragedy (history was added by Shakespearean scholars much later) is the foundation for every drama we see today.