History of Theatre Timeline

Greek

700 BCE

Brief Overview: Most commonly performed in amphitheaters, actors wore masks, often had a small cast.

Playwrights: Euripides, Sophocles, Thespis
Conventions: tragedy or comedy, used masks, cast consisted of a chorus and 3 actors

Commedia Dell’arte

1545

Brief Overview: Often used improvised dialogue, colourful stock characters, emerged in Northern Italy then spread through Europe.
Playwrights: Andrea Calmo, Angelo Beolco

Conventions: Half masks, stock characters, lazzi

Shakespeare/Elizabethan

1560

Brief Overview: This was a time of artistic explosion, theatre, literature and poetry appreciation and national expansion
Playwrights: William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson.
Conventions: Old language, soliloquies, asides, gender swapping roles, eavesdropping.

Melodrama

1790

Overview: originated in France in the 18th century. Playwrights: Douglas William Jerrold, Wilson Barrett
Conventions: stock characters, good winning over the evil characters, sensationalized plots.

Realism

1840

Overview: Plots were detailed and realistic and found more enjoyable by the audience
Playwrights: Henry Ibsen, Charles Dickens, William Dean Howells
Conventions: recognisable settings, colloquial language, contemporary work

Expressionism

1906

Overview: used so playwriters can express their own views on societies flaws.
Playwrights: Augusto Boal, Dario Fo and Bertolo Brecht
Conventions: vermfremdungs effect (strobe lighting, random music breaks, mechanic voices), placards, humor.