City Dionysia Informative Speech

Imagine that you are in Athens during the fifth century. Today is the festival called City Dionysia, and you are currently seeing a dithyramb, which is a choral song dedicated to Dionysus, the god of fertility and wine. It is sung by 50 men dressed up in goat skins as satyrs. However, you have seen the same ritual a number of times and start to lose interest in the festival. Then, you hear about a fellow Athenian named Thespis, who has a different way to present this ritual. Ladies and gentlemen, you are about to embark on a journey to visit the beginnings of Greek theater. As I have mentioned before, the origins lie in the goat song known as tragoidia. In 534 BC, Thespis was the first actor, added narration, and acted out dramatic episodes.

As a result, he won the City Dionysia. This genre of plays became to be known as tragedies, which were mainly about scenes from Greek mythology. Due to his accomplishments, honorary actors are called thespians today.

All tragedies were performed by men only. Just like City Dionysia, there was another annual competition for comedies called Lenaea, which happens in Athens also. Since 425 BC, a regular winner was Aristophanes, who was a comedy playwright. His plays include mocking prominent members of Athenian society and Greek mythology and having obscene details such as phalluses. Eleven out of his forty plays still survive, and one of his famous plays is called The Birds, which is about a person who is disgusted about Athens’s bureaucracy that he persuades the birds to make a city in between earth and heaven. In Aristophanes’ time period, his comedy was considered Old Comedy. During the second half of the fourth century, another comedian playwright named Menander did some changes to the style of comedies. Rather than focusing on famous Athenians, gods, or government, Menander only focused on the ordinary lives of Athenians. His actors were dressed in lifelike costumes instead of the lewd details found in Aristophanes’ plays. Many of his plays present characters such as stern fathers, greedy demimondaines, young lovers, and many

others. Despite writing 100 plays, he won only eight times at the Lenaea. On the contrary, there have been successful playwrights this Greek theater has seen. The first one is Aeschylus, who won his first play in 484 BC and known as the father of tragedy. When he created his plays, Aeschylus was innovative, added a second actor and more dialogue, and made sequels. Aeschylus dubbed his work as ‘morsels from the feast of Homer’.

Sophocles came to prominence after he defeated Aeschylus in 468 BC. Sophocles improved upon his predecessor’s ideas by adding a third actor, used painted sceneries, and made his plots connect to the ordinary citizens. The third famous playwright was Euripides. His plays contained realism and clever dialogue. In addition, he posed questions to the audience, which is still seen today in some plays. Going offstage, the audience would show their appreciation by stomping their feet. Moreover, the government would also pay the lower classes to attend these plays. The first actors’ union was started in the fourth century. After the decline of Greece, Rome took over the role of creating plays and made a new genre called pantomime. Pantomimes were inspired Greek tragedies, but as the years went on, the Romans citizens turned to games instead of plays because they weren’t educated enough to understand. Despite the deterioration of Greek plays, they have still lived on. From later playwrights like Shakespeare to recent directors like James Cameron, the concept is still the same. Ladies and gentlemen, our theatrical journey has

ended. I kindly ask you all to do the same: never let go of your love for theater whether it would be in IMAX or even the same Theater of Dionysus.