Greek Theatre Modernized
The transformation of an ancient Greek play onto modern television screens is unquestionably a drastic change. The action is no longer live and performed in front of an audience. Instead, it is acted out multiple times and edited before it is presented to the public. Because it is not presented in front of a live audience, it allows for more things to be substituted while recording and can be added in later in order to save time. Despite the many transitions from ancient Greek theatre to contemporary entertainment, ancient Greece is influential on Western television shows and still plays a significant role in the modern world of entertainment in other ways.
chorus
In ancient Greece, plays always involved a chorus. Depending on the context of the play, the chorus would be made up of different social groups. In Euripides’ Bacchae, the chorus is made up of a group of bacchae who have followed Dionysus from Asia. The chorus in a Greek play has no physical impact on the play, as they never physically partake in the action. Nonetheless, the chorus is still important as “morals are drawn (usually by the Chorus) in the course of tragedies, but whether these views are authoritative readings of the tragedy is another matter” (MacKinnon 23). Therefore, the role of the chorus is to express what the playwright intends for the audience to feel at different points of the play. In addition, the chorus will often deliver a back-story to the audience to help them further understand the plot. On television shows in modernity, the chorus is often substituted with flashbacks so that the audience is given a clear understanding of the events leading up to a specific moment. Furthermore, the method of having a narration or a voice-over in a television show also aids in provoking certain emotions in the audience. An alternative to this that some television shows use is adding in pre-recorded laughter and applause tracks into the show.
stock messenger
Another important part of Greek plays is the messenger. With a role similar to the chorus, “the stock Messenger, whose function is generally to report in an objective manner an actual or threatened catastrophe which has occurred offstage” (MacKinnon 26). In modernity, the role of the stock messenger has evolved into a simple jump cut. There is no need for a messenger to summarize an event that happened offstage. The director's intent in using a jump cut is to present the audience with the necessary knowledge in order to understand the events that are happening on-screen. The scene does not necessarily have to be a flashback as it can be something happening simultaneously with the main plot action.
masks
Greek Theatre Mask
Masks were a vital part of theatre in ancient Greece. When the mask is on, one is transformed from a normal citizen to a specific character on stage. “Greeks took their masks at face value and never expected the actor to be unveiled at the end, which allows the actor to feel free in the knowledge that he is only what he creates and thus liberated from his persona” (“Dionysus”). Its purpose is to eliminate the illusion of an actor and ensure that the character and the play appear as real as possible. There was once a three-actor limitation on stage, “[meaning] that no more than three characters could ever appear together … each actor could take a number of roles in the same play,” and this would be done with the use of masks, as changing a mask would take little to no time at all (Arnott 45). During this era, not everyone had the luxury of learning to read. As a result, the group of people who could read as well as act would have been a small one. Nowadays, the magic of television allows for a different change in scenery in just a split second. As well, shows often have multiple important characters in one episode, with other minor or supporting characters and cameo appearances. There is no longer a limit to how many people can appear in one scene at a time and there is rarely a need for masks to conceal the actor’s identity.