The Roman Theater

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the Roman theater differs in many ways from the Greek theater. It explains that while Greek comedy is political and tries to tackle large issues, Roman comedy is of a more circumstantial, of everyday nature and may be versed with a lot of ethical ideas but it does not blatantly criticize the government or the Republic; nevertheless, the ethical valor of Roman comedy should not be overlooked. The author points out that Terence's "The Brothers", first performed at the funeral games for Lucius Aemilius Paulus in 160 B.C., is the only documented instance of dramatic performances at games outside the regular calendar of public festivals although theater historians believe that there may well have been others. The paper relates that Terence introduced the mixed-metre recitative for some passages instead of the single-metre as in Menander and Plautus; Terence's spoken scenes are all in iambic senarii, which is a six-foot line similar to the English blank verse but with an extra foot and is closer to ordinary speech.

From the Paper:

"The facade in Roman comedy invariably consisted of three doors, which were the doors to three neighboring houses. In front of them, where the stage action took place, was a road. The stage also had one door on each side. These side entrances had a fixed conventional significance. The right hand entrance (from the audience's point of view) led to the city center and the left hand entrance led to the country. When characters entered through these entrances, they were announced by characters on stage prior to their actual entry. If two characters entered together, they usually did so in mid-conversation. When a single character entered, he/she usually uttered a monologue before being accosted by the people on stage. In both cases, the bystanders on stage made asides, commenting on the newcomers' conversation or monologue, before letting the newcomers be aware of their presence. "

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