Greek Theatre (Los Angeles)
This article relies on references to primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject,
rather than references from independent authors and third-party publications.
Please add citations from reliable sources.
|
The Greek Theatre
is a 5,700-seat amphitheater,
located at Griffith Park, in
Los Angeles,
California. It was built in 1929, opening on September 29 of that
year. The Greek Theatre is owned by the city of Los Angeles, and is managed,
operated and promoted by the Nederlander Organization.
|
Contents
 |
History
The Greek Theatre is in Griffith Park. It was paid for with
a donation from Griffith J.
Griffith, who also donated the land for the park.
The Greek Theatre won the Best Small Outdoor Venue award
seven times in the past eight years, which was awarded by Pollstar Magazine,
the industry's leading trade publication.
The Greek Theatre had a limited concert
season during its first two decades. During World War II,
the amphitheater was used as a barracks. In
1947, however, the theatre was used for the Broadway show Anything Goes for
two weeks. During the 1950s, under the management of James Doolittle, a concert
promoter, the amphitheatre underwent a series of renovations that allowed the
theater to compete with rival 1950s’ theaters; Doolittle in fact drew up plans
for those renovations.
In 1983, the Greek Theatre's seating capacity was
expanded to 6,187, but recent renovations have brought the Greek Theatre's
capacity down to 6,162 in 1995 and to 5,700 in 2004. In 2009 the Los Angeles Fire
Marshal permitted the addition of two more rows in the pit, bringing full
capacity at the Greek to 5,870 seated / 5,900 general admission.
The Greek Theatre is used for concerts, stage shows, and
graduation ceremonies for Thomas Starr King Middle School and John Marshall High School,
among other events.
Notable events
Ancient Greek theaters were very large, open-air structures
that took advantage of sloping hillsides for their terraced seating. Because of
drama's close connection with religion, theaters were often located in or near
sanctuaries. The theater
pictured here, for example, is set on the slopes of Mt. Parnassus
above the famous temple of Apollo at
Delphi (home of the Delphic oracle that figures so prominently in the myth of
Oedipus). Similarly, the Theater of Dionysus in Athens was situated in the
sacred precinct of Dionysus at the foot of the Acropolis. See also the theater
on Apollo's sacred island of Delos.
The theater in Epidaurus, discussed below, was near the sanctuary of Asklepios,
god of healing. Many of these theaters were built in relatively open areas with
lovely vistas, and the view from the Delphi theater is truly breathtaking.
The core of any Greek theater is the orchestra, the “dancing place” of the
chorus and the chief performance space. Almost nothing remains from the
fifth-century structure of the Theater of Dionysus in Athens, but later
theaters suggest that the original orchestras were full circles; see, for
example, this aerial view of
the theater at Epidaurus. This is the best-preserved of all extant Greek
theaters; the ancient plays are still being performed here, and this computer animation
will help you to recreate the experience. Although this theater was built at
the end of the fourth century BCE and rebuilt and enlarged in the second
century, it does enable us to visualize what the ancient theaters must have
been like. The orchestra is approximately 66 feet in diameter; this photo
shows the orchestra at Epidaurus with a modern set for a production of
Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound. An
altar of Dionysus was usually located in the center of the orchestra.
The audience sat in the theatron, the “seeing place,” on semi-circular terraced rows of
benches (in the earliest theaters these were wooden; they were later built of
stone). The Greeks often built these in a natural hollow (a koilon), though the sides were
increasingly reinforced with stone, as can be seen in this overhead view of Epidaurus.
Scholars often use the Latin word for hollow, cavea, to designate the seating in an ancient theater. Stairs
mounting to the highest levels divide the sections of seats into wedges; at
Epidaurus there are 55 semi-circular rows, providing an estimated seating
capacity of 12,000-14,000. Although the name theatron suggests an emphasis on sight, in reality actors and
chorus would look rather small even from seats only part-way up,
and from the top rows one would see mostly colors and patterns of movement
rather any details of costuming or masks. The acoustics in this theater,
however, are magnificent, and words spoken very softly in the orchestra can be
heard in the top rows (as long as your neighbors are quiet). 
On the far side of the orchestra was the stage building, or
skene (meaning “tent”). This was
a covered structure, originally a temporary wooden building, where the actors
stored their masks and costumes and performed quick changes out of the sight of
the audience. We know very little about the skene in the fifth century;
however, there seems to have been some type of stage building by the time
Aeschylus’ Oresteia was first
produced (458 BCE), since these plays require central doors and an upper
platform (the “roof” on which the watchman appears). The wooden stage buildings
of the fifth century were replaced by more permanent stone structures in the
fourth century; stone foundations
reveal the outline of the stage building at the theater of Epidaurus. It is
thought that the original stage buildings were relatively low, rectangular
structures with large central doors, possibly two other doors flanking the
central one, a flat roof on which actors could appear, and possibly a higher
platform above this “roof.” There may have been projecting wings on either side
of the stage building (the paraskenia,
“beside the skene”), and
between these two wings there may have been a low platform or stage, connected
to the orchestra by only a few steps (the proskenion, “in front of the skene”). This reconstruction drawing of the Theater of
Dionysus as remodeled in 330 BCE shows a stage building with three doors and
two levels, paraskenia, but no proskenion.
On either side of the stage building were long ramps,
called eisodoi or parodoi, that led into or away from
the orchestra. These were used for the entrances and exits of the chorus, and
the word parodos was also used
to designate the choral entrance song. It was conventional for the chorus to
remain in the orchestra for the duration of the play. Actors, however, might
have several entrances and exits, and these could involve either the central
doors or these ramps. The actors’ performance space was usually in front of the
stage building (whether or not there was a very low platform there), but in
either case they could and frequently did move outward into the orchestra and
interact with the chorus.
The extant remains of
the Theater of Dionysus at the foot of the Acropolis
date from the reign of the Roman emperor Hadrian, second century CE, and give
little idea of the structure of the theater in the fifth century BCE. However,
one can see from this theater the preferential seating
given to the priest, magistrates, other dignitaries, and—front row center—to
the high priest of Dionysus Eleuthereos, including elaborate carving and a
clearly marked inscription.
There was also a special block of seats reserved for
members of the boulê, the
500-member Executive Council of the Assembly. Ordinary citizens might have been
assigned seats on the basis of the ten Attic tribes; theater tickets
were often stamped with a Greek letter that apparently referred to a specific
wedge of seats. The price of theater attendance was apparently two obols,
equal to the wages an unskilled man might earn for a day's work. Athens had
established a special fund, the Theoric Fund, to which any male citizen
enrolled in a deme might apply to obtain the money for a theater ticket—a clear
indication that attendance at the theatrical performances in the City Dionysia
was considered a civic duty. Simon Goldhill describes how the seating in the
Theater of Dionysus reflected the nature of Athenian society:
In
democratic Athens, there was a marked tension between on the one hand
collective endeavour, the ideology of citizen equality, and the pre-eminence of
the state over the individual, and, on the other, the desire for individual
honour, conspicuous personal display and familial pride. The spatial dynamics
of the audience — with blocks of citizens, and certain authoritative or
representative groups or individuals distinguished by honorific seats —
dramatises the central dynamic of Athenian social life. (“The Audience of
Athenian Tragedy.” The Cambridge
Companion to Greek Tragedy. Ed. P. E. Easterling. Cambridge University
Press, 1997. 60)
Goldhill argues that audience at the City Dionysia—both the
intended and the actual audience—were primarily adult male citizens of Athens,
with perhaps a sprinkling of resident foreigners (metics); he expresses strong doubts that women were present,
though it is impossible to prove either way. Another thought-provoking article,
however, takes a less pessimistic view of this question: Jeffrey Henderson.
“Women and the Athenian Dramatic Festivals.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 121
(1991): 133-47.
No comments:
Post a Comment