Theatre History Overview -Part 2 - Roman Theatre

Roman theatre borrowed from Greek theatre. Some people say that the Romans may have improved on Greek theatre. What is certain is that just like Greek theatre, Roman theatre started as something that was held during a festival to the gods, even to appease their gods.

Romans had both tragedies and comedies. There were stock characters in Roman comedies. This may have influenced commedia dell' arte (which also has stock characters). Roman theatre also had pantomime and mime. In mime, violence and sex were depicted literally.

The most important work we have today from Roman theatre is probably Horace's Ars Poetica. Seneca was also one of the playwrights. He wrote a Roman version of Oedipus Rex which varies from the Greek version in some gory details as Romans liked to have "bloody spectacle."

Being that the Romans like to have such bloody spectacle where violence was seen literally, it led to the viewing of animals being slaughtered and the gladiator games. People would actually watch others get killed in these games. This eventually led to theatre being banned because of the violence.

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