Roman Theatre

My talk on Roman Theatre

On the 3rd of June, I was invited to give a talk at the St Albans Roman Theatre before an OVO performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor.

For all of us it was a unique experience as the Verulamium Theatre is the only surviving Roman Theatre in Britain.

It is understandable that people can get confused between a Roman amphitheatre and a theatre but they are very different. An amphitheatre is usually oval in shape and was used for gladiatorial contests, wild beast fights, re-enactment of battles and the punishment of criminals (we, of course, think of the Christians, who were sporadically classified as criminals, being thrown to the lions).

Theatres were generally semi-circular in shape and with a stage. They were used for drama, poetry readings and musical and theatrical entertainments. In terms of buildings, Roman theatres were unlike their Greek counterparts in that they were freestanding structures, as at Orange in France and Aspendos in Turkey, whereas the Greeks usually built their theatres into hillsides: for example, the theatres at Epidauris in Greece, and Taormina in Sicily.

Although scholars think there was an important Etruscan influence on Roman culture, especially linked to amphitheatres, the origins of Roman drama lie mainly with the Greeks. 

Though I mentioned that OVO for practical purposes, working in an ancient monument, had reversed the stage so the audience sits with its back to the Roman stage, looking into the seating (the Roman 'cavea'), I did not talk specifically about the other structures of Verulamium’s theatre as a member of The City Guides took parties on a guided tour.

The origin of Roman drama is often equated both to the Phlyax performances, a form of pantomime or burlesque, and Atellan farces, which were linked to religious occasions like the 'ludi Romani' - a religious festival in Rome. Later Roman drama became heavily dependent upon Greek plays. Sadly, very few complete plays have survived. What has been passed down are plays following the classical Greek 'New Comedy' dramas. Here, I am talking about only 25 plays altogether: 20 comedies from Plautius. 6 from Terence (both from 3rd century BCE) and 9 tragedies from Seneca 1st century CE. Seneca was Emperor Nero's tutor, who forced him to commit suicide, and his plays were most likely written to be read rather than acted. They have been classified by one classicist as “dramatised emotion”. 

The Romans did not emulate the 'Old Comedy' of Ancient Greece. The sort of satire found in the plays of Aristophanes would, or, probably, could only be performed in a democracy. The absolute rule of the Roman Emperors would not brook any critical or satirical drama.

The characteristics of the 'New Comedies' reveal a style of drama that is farcical (fabula palliata in their Greek form, or the Roman, fabula togata, the latter have only survived in scraps), with stereotypically stock characters, identified by the masks they wore, like, the idiot, the grumpy grandfather, the unmarried man, the braggart soldier, the comic slave, the crafty cheat, the matron/wife and the mother, and the young virgin.

Actors, like gladiators, were of low status, and often foreigners, like Etruscans and Greeks, who would take on the roles in plays. It used to be thought that both genders were only performed by men but there is some evidence now that there were female actors. Actors were generally disparaged and linked to immoral behaviour in our sources, so they were far from the celebrity status actors can attain today. The most notorious Roman 'actor' was the Emperor Nero, who shocked Roman upper-class society with his performances in the theatre. However, it is fair to say that when our ancient sources wanted to criticise a departed emperor they would accuse them of all sorts of immorality - the fact they made much of Nero's desire to perform does tell us how poor the reputation of actors was in the Roman world.

Returning to our Roman theatre at Verulamium, because we have no documentary evidence of what was performed there, we can only speculate but it does demonstrate what an important and sophisticated city Verulamium was during Roman times that the city should have a theatre.

I think we can just be grateful that OVO are able to put on performances in this great piece of St Albans heritage.

PS. The production of The Merry Wives of Windsor was nothing short of fabulous and there was a very happy audience at the end of the play.