Delphi Theater

 

The first place I visited in Ancient Greece was the Delphi theater, a stunning piece of architecture. The theater was crowded with many people from all over the country, men gathered to watch an incredible comedy play performed by masked male actors. In contrast to the males' presence in the theater, there wasn't a female in sight, I came to find out later that female presence was contested at such gatherings. The 35-row theater was filled with five thousand spectators with four main actors performing the play which was quite surprising as there were more than 4 characters involved in the play. The actors had to change costumes and switch their masks accordingly to play the different characters in the play. The audience seemed to really enjoy the play, surprisingly with no speakers in sight, the voice of the actors was heard across the theater because of the way it was structured which made it possible for the sound to travel across the theater. It was really admirable to see the capabilities of ancient Greece's architecture. Aside from the play itself, I couldn't help but appreciate the beauty of the location of this theater. The spectacular location of theater is positioned just above the temple and the beautiful view of the valley beyond. The first part of the play was a very catchy and entertaining section of the play, it was called Parados, a group of performers about 24, entered the stade (stadium) and started singing and performing in very flashy costumes that helped introduce the plot and prepared us for the next events of the play. The next part of the play, Agon was a verbal contest between actors that contained a good amount of fast-changing scenes that helped advance the plot. The final part of the play was Exodus, another part that consisted of many performers that sang and concluded the plot. Overall it was a great experience, I had a lot of fun and I would definitely recommend it for my friends to check out.

Primary Source

Theater of Delphi Sakoulas, Thomas. Delphi Theater, n.d. https://ancient-greece.org/architecture/delphi-theater.html.

Secondary source

Cartwright, Mark. "Ancient Greek Comedy." World History Encyclopedia. Last modified March 25, 2013. https://www.worldhistory.org/Greek_Comedy/.