Roman Theatre A Diverse Art Form - 1045 Words

Roman theatre initially began in 240 BC when Greek theatre was discovered and translated to Latin, then being brought to Rome. The first drama was held at Ludi Romani, the Roman Festival or the Roman Games. This occurred just before Rome became an empire in 27BC. There were many types of these festivals during a year for all sorts of reasons according to history. Theatre was, and is a diverse art form. It ranged from festival performances, street theatre, and acrobatics to eloquent tragedies. By 345 AD there were one-hundred and seventy-five festivals a year. Well over half of those were dedicated to and focussed on Roman theatre. The first stone theatre was built in 55 BC in Rome by Julius Caesar. In the fourth century of BC,†¦show more content†¦Mythology and domestic life also had major impacts on the way Roman theatre evolved over years. Each influence had their own special thing about them that when added to Rome s theatre, slowly created a wonderful art that s till remains today. The Etruscans were famous for emphasizing circus-like elephants and things like them. Most Roman theatre was very parodied and exaggerated during the 1st century BC. Slowly the show s got more and more realistic as time went on. The plots of Roman theatre did not differ from Greece s but the character s names and some other minor details did change. A lesser known influence to Roman theatre happened to be the Oscans. The Oscans also brought their own type of theatre and ideas about such to Rome. The Oscans had their own type of comedy called Atellan Farce. It was a kind of improvised comedy played with five main characters for each show. There was the fool, the stupid one, a foolish old man, a wise fool, and a monster with big jaws. Respectively the names to these characters were Maccus, Bucco, Pappus, Dassenus and Mandacus. These stock characters brought life to those of Rome s own stock characters named the same. The reason we still have theatre today i s purely because of Roman and Greek dramas. Even just the term â€Å"play† comes from Latin’s â€Å"ludus† meaning to play. Nowaday we still use this entertainment to distract our people from surrounding issues. Comedy is