Existing comment:
Theater:
Greek plays were dedicated to Dionysos, the god of theater, and were originally written for dramatic competitions held as part of harvest festivals. Greek drama originally grew out of religious worship and rituals, including 6th-century performances by dancers in animal masks. By the early 5th century, there were individual actors as well as choruses. The two principle types of plays were tragedies, which general retold myths, and comedies, which often ridiculed and parodies the themes of tragedy.
Some plays so seized the imagination of artists that they depicted scenes from them on vases; other vases are decorated with other generic theatrical scenes. Theatrical motifs such as actors' masks (like other imagery associated with Dionysus) appear in a variety of settings, both dramatic and funerary. |