Greek Theater

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How were the Greek skene and the Roman scanae frons similar and different?

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The Greek skene and Roman scanae frons were similar as both served as the backdrop for theatrical performances and evolved from simple structures. The Greek skene began as a wooden changing area, eventually becoming a two-story stone structure with columns and doors. The Roman scanae frons, influenced by the skene, was more elaborate, three stories tall, and designed for aesthetic and functional enhancements like audience protection from the sun. Romans maintained the Greek hillside seating but added arches for audience movement.

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As with most things Greek and Roman, there isn't a huge difference. To truly get an idea of how slight the difference is ,let's look at at the two separately.

The Greek skene, meaning "scene building," was originally a small wooden building that the actors used to change their masks and costumes behind the stage. Eventually the small off-stage changing room would become the background for the play itself, around 465 BC. The skene faced a circle of spectators that sat on wooden seats called ikria. The ikria were built directly into a hillside with the rectangular orcestra, "place of dancing," at the bottom. This simple arrangement would evolve into a two-story edifice with columns and three doors used for the entering and exiting of characters as well as the appearance of otherworldly figures, such as ghosts and gods. The stage was flanked by paraskena , or...

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wings. The early Greek theaters, ortheatron, "places of seeing," remained wooden until the end of the fifth century, when the Greeks started constructing them out of stone.

When the Romans conquered the Greek city-states around 240 BCE, they did not change much in regard to the skene. Oddly enough, the Romans would continue to make their theaters out of wood for another couple centuries, preferring to make them for specific festivals and then take them down once the festival was over. They did this until 55 BCE, when they built the theater of Pompey the Great, the theater that would become the model for all other open-air theaters. The Romans built their seating into hillsides, like the Greeks, but instead of the wooden seats, they built terraces and employed arched substructures that allowed movement by the audience under the seating. The Roman scanae frons was a more elaborately decorated background that was three stories tall, equaling the heights of the spectator terraces. The Romans used the equal height of the scanae frons and the seating to drape cloth over the theater, closing it off from the outside world and protecting the audience from the sun's rays. They also raised the stage and ran a covered colonnade around the upper level.

All in all, the Romans did not change too much about the Greek skene. In true Roman style, they saw something that they liked and tweaked it ever so sightly to reflect their culture and needs.

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