Wine, Weddings, and Wakes: An Exploration of Ritual and Performance in Ancient Greece and

Contemporary Societies

Caleb Beidelman
THTR 425: Development of Theatre I: Beginnings to Renaissance
October 29, 2018
 1

Imagine, for a second, someone seated in the third row of the August Wilson Theatre on

West 52nd street in New York City. They have waited their entire life to see a performance on

Broadway and have specifically chosen, The Mean Girls as their introduction to the “Hollywood

of Theatre”. While it is possible the show’s sentimental value or casting constitutes the reason

for choosing this production, it is equally discernible from their decision that they crave the

entertainment this production can provide rather than the catharsis a production of a tragedy

provides. This person is not unique in their decision, especially in today’s society. For the last

two thousand years, the human species has evolved from a group of hunter-gatherer civilizations

into an industrial and technologically advanced race that no longer adheres to beliefs or rituals

practiced by previous generations. This philosophical and social evolution is equally present in

Theatre. The drama and performance that exists today is vastly different from the performance

that occurred within Ancient Greece and the eras before it. Through the evolution of ideas and

the rise of secularism, the industrial world no longer engages in sacred ritual, yet ritual remains

in existence within the theatre and it unites the audience with the art form.

One of the most accepted theories of origin for Theatre is that Theatre rose out of

primitive religious rituals. As with other ideas and developments from antiquity, what serves as

proof for this theory comes from what was written at the time. Aristotle, the ancient Greek

philosopher is one of the first to speak on the origins of Theatre and in Poetics he states: “Be that

as it may, Tragedy-- as also Comedy was at first mere improvisation. The one originated with the

leaders of the Dithyramb, the other with those of the phallic songs, which are still in use in many

of our cities.”1 The dithyramb that Aristotle mentions within the above quote was a hymnal

praise of Dionysus; performed by a chorus of men dressed as satyrs. It was the public

dramatization of this event, that elevated it from a private act of devotion into a performative
1
Aristotle. Poetics. London: MacMillan and Co. Limited, 1902: IV. 12.
 2

event that others could enjoy and engage in. The purpose of the dramatization was to invoke

favor and good will from Dionysus for those present at the ritual. It is when a member of this

chorus stepped out, perhaps impersonating a god or supernatural being, that Theatre as a form of

art came into creation.

Sacred rituals evolved to include plots which serve as explanation to the purpose or

meaning behind the rituals. Richard Seaford, professor emeritus at the University of Exeter

refutes Aristotle’s theory of origin for Theatre in one of his novels: “The Dionysiac procession is

in general an occasion for the impersonation of satyrs, even sometimes of himself. The

dithyramb was originally a processional hymn to Dionysus, sung by (among others) and able to

assume a more literary character when sung at the destination of the procession, around the

altar.”2 Theatre began as an art form steeped within religious ritual to honor the gods and this

same type of ritual exists today within churches as well as other ritualistic practice including the

funerary practices of today. With the death of a loved one, people flock to pay their respects,

honoring that person and hoping that they may carry on the legacy of that person in their own

life.

The message or vision one discovers from the death of a virtuous individual, one who

contributes to the betterment of the world in their life, will allow one to also live a better life.

The discovery of a theme or vision was what playwrights of Ancient Greece hoped to cause

through their plays for the audience. The ancient Greek playwrights, Most notably, Aeschylus,

Sophocles, and Euripides in the genre of Tragedy as well as Aristophanes and Menander in

Comedy aided in making the rituals more accessible to audiences through their additions to the

art form. Aeschylus expanded the amount of characters in the theater from one to two, and for

2
Richard Seaford. Reciprocity and Ritual: Homer and Tragedy in the Developing City-State. Oxford-
Oxford University Press, 1994: 10.
 3

the first time, conflict existed among the characters, an element that would not have been present

in pure ritual.

Conflict is what drives the plot of the play along3 and it causes the situation that the

character finds him/herself in to be more complex than the everyday lives of the average person.

Aristotle describes the perfect tragedy and the importance of a complex plot, one in which will

keep the audience engaged throughout its entirety, in the Poetics: “A perfect tragedy should, as

we have seen be arranged not on the simple but on the complex plan. It should, moreover, imitate

actions which excite pity and fear, this being the distinctive mark of tragic imitation.”4 As

Aristotle states, tragedy should excite pity and fear. One of the best examples of a tragedy that

does this is Euripides’s tragedy, The Bacchae. In The Bacchae, the audience witnesses the

wrathful and vengeful god, Dionysus, whose actions cause Pentheus, the ruler of Thebes, to die a

gruesome death at the hands of his own mother, Agave. The scene of his death is described by a

messenger, as violence was not allowed on stage in ancient Greek theater: “One was carrying an

arm, another a foot, still in its hunting boot. The ribs were laid bare by the tearing apart. All the

women, with blood- spattered hands, were playing ball with Pentheus’ flesh”5 The effect that this

speech has on the reader is terror and fear, as well as pity for Pentheus. Without a doubt, the

audience would have experienced similar emotions and would have given careful consideration

as to whether Dionysus was a god worth celebrating through festival.

It was evident in the construction of his plot that Euripides was attempting to cast doubt

on ritual and worship towards Dionysus. In a similar fashion, Sophocles advanced theatre further

from pure ritual by adding a third actor, by so doing he diminished the chorus’ role in the

3
Martin Cropp. "Lost Tragedies: A Survey" in A Companion to Greek Tragedy. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell
Publishing: 272–74.
4
Aristotle. Poetics. 45.
5
Euripides. The Bacchae. Translated by Steven Esposito. Bemidji, MN; Focus Publishing: 25.
 4

performance. Despite these significant changes ritual is still present within his plays. In an article

from the British Museum Quarterley author, A.R Higgins discusses the importance and ritual

surrounding burial in Ancient Greece:

The funeral in the Classical period was an entirely domestic affair. The burial of the
parents, especially the father, and the preparation for interment by the proper hands of
the immediate family was the responsibility of the son, an obligation often trespassed to
the hands of a woman in tragedy. It was so important, that Athenians without a male heir
often adopted a child to ensure that their funeral would receive proper attention.6

This ritualistic practice is displayed within Sophocles’ Electra. In Electra, the title character is

mourning the death of Agamemnon her father and is tending to the grave of him when she

relents to the chorus her plight in life: “But what about me? What hope can I have? My life

drains away; my strength is gone. I am some childless woman with no man to depend on. I am

no better than a foreign servant, a worthless woman, brought to tend my father’s room, dressed

in these rags, laying food on a table that has no place for me.”7 With these words, Sophocles

means to evoke pity for Electra in the audience, who would have been aware of the large burden

placed on her to ensure the ritualistic customs were completed. Electra is left to mourn the death

of her father and to make sure he is properly buried, a task that would usually be handed off to

the son of the deceased as we are told by Higgins above. While Orestes is sent off from a young

age to a land far from Mycenae, Electra is forced to step in to ensure the task of burial and

mourning is done. In contemporary times, secularism has aided in evolving the attitudes towards

ritualistic events including burial. Though often done by the son of the deceased, anyone may

take the lead on the burial of a loved one.

6
A.R. Higgins. “An Ancient Marble Mask” The British Museum Quarterly. Vol 16, No. 4 (Jan.
1952): 103-104
7
Sophocles. Electra. Translated by Michael Lloyd. London-Duckworth Publishing: 6.
 5

Ritual in the pure sense had to be adapted to allow for it understood by the audiences in

Ancient Greece and so too is the case with contemporary audiences. This often occurred as

protest within theatre. Like tragedy, comedy uses familiar concepts in life to cause audiences to

observe their actions and beliefs in a universal perspective. In ancient Greece, this task was

carried out in the work of Aristophanes. Aristophanes’ plays satirized everyday life in Athens as

well as important leaders within the polis. In Lysistrata, Aristophanes satirizes the male-

dominated society present in Ancient Greece at the time he wrote the play, 411 BCE, and how

women have the power to prevent ritualistic activity from occurring; sexual relations

specifically. The importance of sex and its ritualistic elements in Ancient Greece is described by

Antigori Katsouri in her doctoral thesis for the University of Exeter:

The gamos was the publicly accepted sexual relationship to establish the family units
through legitimate heirs, especially male heirs, and guarantee their inheritance and their
exercise of citizenship. This was the vital system to ensure the stability of the household
and its unity, enhanced by the wife’s duties to perform the rituals, especially the funerary
ones… the absence of ritual risked the continuity of the polis8

Citizens were encouraged to engage in sexual relations to provide continuity to the polis, and the

only legally accepted form of a sexual relationship was marriage or gamos. By preventing sex

from occurring, Lysistrata and the other women of Greece were putting the continuity of the

polis at risk, but for political reasons. They withhold sex to convince the men to stop the

Peloponnesian War and succeed in doing so. In this way, Aristophanes used political themes to

cast doubt on ritual as well as common beliefs held within society. After attending productions of

shows like Lysistrata, audiences come away with a change of perspective and are prone to begin

to question those in power around them, if they have not done so previously.

8
Antigoni Katsouri. Performing Rituals in Ancient Greek Tragedy Today. Doctoral Thesis for University of
Exeter. Exeter- University of Exeter Press, 2014: 79.
 6

Though Ancient Greek theatre was initially performed thousands of years ago, its themes

have remained important for the society of today. In the 1960s and 70s, Jerzy Grotowski

instilled ritual within all his works. For Grotowski, the art of acting should be elevated to a level

of religion in that the actor must be willing to disregard everyday life and focus inwardly to

authentically present the character they are portraying. Grotowski describes this process in his

book, Towards a Poor Theatre:

“If the actor, by setting himself a challenge publicly challenges others, and through
excess, profanation and outrageous sacrilege reveals himself by casting off his
everyday mask, he makes it possible for the spectator to undertake a similar process of
self-penetration. If he does not exhibit his body, but annihilates it, burns it, frees it from
every resistance to any psychic impulse, then he does not sell his body but sacrifices it9.

In this quote, Grotowski points out an important quality in ritual, the role of the spectator. Ritual

was a significant part of the daily life in Ancient Greece, and what made it so powerful was the

amount of people who were engaged in it. One need only to view the Bacchae within a

production of The Bacchae to see just how powerful a group of individuals can be when engaged

in ritual. Grotowski was attempting to replicate this same effect by aiding his actors in presenting

their authentic selves in performance. Likewise, he hoped that the ritual within performance

would be so strong that the audience would engage in a similar self-sacrifice and begin the act of

self-penetration following a performance. Grotowski’s work was revolutionary and his influence

can still be seen in contemporary theatre.

While Grotowski is most certainly an extreme example of how ritual has persisted in its

presence within the theatre of modern times, there are further examples of its implementation by

other artists within today’s theatre. The primary focus of comedy in ancient Greece was on the

everyday lives of citizens within Greece, and the same can be said for a play often produced in

9
Jerzy Grotowski. Towards a Poor Theatre. Edited by Eugenio Barba. New York-Routledge Publishing,
1968: 35.
 7

contemporary times, Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. Our Town explores the everyday lives of

those living in the fictional town of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire. The play follows various

events within the lives of George Gibbs and Emily Webb focusing on the events that still exhibit

ritualistic importance in modern times: marriage and death. These two events remind us that our

time here on earth is limited and elevate the importance of ritual within our lives. The stage

manager attempts to explain why we engage in ritual: “People just wild with grief have brought

their relatives up to this hill. We all know how it is ... and then time . . . and sunny days . . . and

rainy days . . . 'n snow . . . We're all glad they're in a beautiful place and we're coming up here

ourselves when our fit's over.”10 Ritual unites and binds humanity in times of grief and in times

of celebration. When humanity engages in ritual it is done for a purpose whether it be to

celebrate the union of two individuals or to remember a loved one and their achievements in life.

No matter how much the human race evolves, it will always have cause to celebrate and cause

for grieving for “we all know how it is.”

As humanity continues to evolve, secularism has risen to a level of prominence that is

much higher than it was a century ago. According to a recent survey, 0% of Icelanders believe

God created the Earth, whereas 20 years ago, 90% of Icelanders claimed to be religious, today

less than 50% claim to be.11 In the United States, somewhere between 23% and 28% of

American adults have no religious affiliation, and these so-called “nones” are not only growing

in number, but they are becoming increasingly secular in their behaviors and beliefs. 12 Though

10
Thornton Wilder. Our Town. New York, Evanston, and London-Harper & Row Publishers, 1938: 81.
11
Rick Noack. “In this Country, Literally No Young Christians Believe That God Created The Earth” The
Washington Post. January 23, 2016.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/01/23/in-this-country-literally-no-young-
christians-believe-that-god-created-the-
earth/?noredirect=on&postshare=1351453744623618&utm_term=.2498868544ea
12
Tom Gjelten. “Poll Finds Americans, Especially Millennials, Moving Away From Religion” NPR:Morning
Edition. November 3, 2015.
 8

these facts are alarming, they do no necessarily correlate to the importance of ritual within

today’s society. They are certainly worth mentioning as it is becoming a certainty that many are

turning away from religion just as humanity did during the dark ages. According to the same

surveys and polls it is estimated the growth of secularity will most likely level off within a few

decades, while Islam will continue to grow, becoming the world’s largest religion by 2050.13

Despite the grim outlook regarding religion, ritual will always remain a part of life for

humanity as well as in the theatre. Antigoni Katsouri describes this as well in her doctoral thesis:

What spectators always appreciate and they are always fascinated by is the magical
ability of the theatre to transport them to other times, other places, other customs, alien
rituals and other lives. I contend that Schechner’s second reason is more viable: a
performance is successful if it is unified, true to itself, the actors transport themselves
into the stage world and this transfer is so persuasive that the audience is also drawn into
the flow of it.14

In Katsouri’s opinion, theatergoers will consistently expect the unexpected in performance. This

is also refuted by the occurrence of contemporary productions of classic greek tragedies and

comedies. Humanity has not tired of seeing ritual on stage and it continues to study and view the

works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Menander in high esteem and with

enthusiasm.

While it is true the vast majority of humanity no longer engages in bacchic processions to

honor the god of wine and fertility, ritual continues to play a significant role in the lives of

humans. Whether it be the communal act of celebrating the life of a love one or celebrating the

union of two individuals, ritual has stood the test of time and continues to be a significant

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/11/03/454063182/poll-finds-americans-especially-
millennials-moving-away-from-
religion?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social?utm_campaign=story
share&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social
13
“The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050” Pew Research Center
Online. April 2, 2015.
http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/
14
Katsouri. Performing Rituals in Ancient Greek Tragedy Today, 378.
 9

thematic element presented on stage. As the world continues towards total secularization the

theatre will continue to illustrate for its audiences with the societies and individuals present in

the past. Acting as a visual time machine, theatre will remind its audience of the importance of

ritual in everyday life and how it aided early civilizations in becoming the best version of

themselves.

Bibliography

Aristotle. Poetics. London: MacMillan and Co. Limited, 1902: IV. 12.

Cropp, Martin. "Lost Tragedies: A Survey" in A Companion to Greek Tragedy. Hoboken, NJ:
Wiley Blackwell
Publishing: 272–74.

Euripides. The Bacchae. Translated by Steven Esposito. Bemidji, MN; Focus Publishing: 25.

Gjelten, Tom. “Poll Finds Americans, Especially Millennials, Moving Away From Religion” NPR:Morning
Edition. November 3, 2015.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/11/03/454063182/poll-finds-americans-especially-
millennials-moving-away-from-
religion?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social?utm_campaign=story
share&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social

Grotowski, Jerzy. Towards a Poor Theatre. Edited by Eugenio Barba. New York-Routledge Publishing,
1968: 35.

Higgins, A.R. “An Ancient Marble Mask” The British Museum Quarterly. Vol 16, No. 4 (Jan.
1952): 103-104
 10

Katsouri, Antigoni. Performing Rituals in Ancient Greek Tragedy Today. Doctoral Thesis for University of
Exeter. Exeter- University of Exeter Press, 2014: 79.

Noack, Rick. “In this Country, Literally No Young Christians Believe That God Created The Earth” The
Washington Post. January 23, 2016.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/01/23/in-this-country-literally-no-young-
christians-believe-that-god-created-the-
earth/?noredirect=on&postshare=1351453744623618&utm_term=.2498868544ea

Seaford, Richard. Reciprocity and Ritual: Homer and Tragedy in the Developing City-State.
Oxford-Oxford University Press, 1994: 10.

Sophocles. Electra. Translated by Michael Lloyd. London-Duckworth Publishing: 6.

“The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050” Pew Research Center
Online. April 2, 2015.
http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/

Wilder, Thornton. Our Town. New York, Evanston, and London-Harper & Row Publishers,
1938: 81.