The Old Comedy of Greek Drama

The Old Comedy of Greek Drama

·         This was a chorus of 24 members.

·         The music and dance engaged were to create comic effects.

·         The Old Comedy involved more than 3 actors - it had up to 5 actors.

·         The acting in the Old Comedy was an exaggeration of daily behaviours of members of the society.

·         The costume was very tight and too short chiton with a phallus. These created ludicrous humour.

·         It made use of masks, which often were of real people.

·         Though, some masks and costumes were of birds, frogs, cloud, wasps etc.

·         Aristophanes was a principal writer of the Old Comedy.

Attributes of The Old Comedy

·         The Old Comedy revolved around happy and comic ideas.

·         It followed a set pattern: prologue, parados, agon, parabasis, series of episodes and komos.

·         It put more effort on the physical aspect of characterization.

·         The Old Comedy was far removed from tragedy.

·         It was a mixture of fantasy, farce and poetry.