THE ORIGIN OF DRAMA

The most acceptable origin of drama is based on speculation since there is little concrete evidence on which to draw. The most widely accepted origin is championed by anthropologists in the late 19th and 20th Centuries. They saw drama as emerging out of myth and ritual.

Rituals began as ways of pleasing the supernatural forces which were believed to have power to control all happenings. Perceiving a pattern of their action and the desired results it produced, they repeated, refined and formalized those actions into fixed ceremonies, celebrations or rituals. Nevertheless, most participants in these activities do not consider them primarily theatrical, even when spectacle, dialogue and conflict play large roles.

Myths were stories about these rituals. Oftentimes these performers may wear costumes and masks during their celebrations. The masks and costumes were meant to represent the forces that the rites they performed were meant to influence.

As a group of people grew more sophisticated and advanced in their way of life, their conceptions about these supernatural forces and their relationship with them begins change. This caused a change or modification in the rites they performed. But the myths survived as the society’s oral tradition. Oftentimes as these myths were told, they were acted out. Gradually, these actions became divorced from ritualistic and mystical purposes. They became mostly performed for the purpose of aesthetics and entertainment. As this occurredthe first step towards drama as an autonomous art were taken.

As time went on and societies began to enlarge, some societies gave recognition to this form of art more than their counterparts; as is the case of Pisistratus, the leader of the Athenian democracy in the 5^th Century BC. He made drama a part of their greatest national festival – City Dionysus. This made drama flourish and become more organized and recognized in Greece more than in other parts of the world, though other nations, like Rome, had their own form of drama – the Fescennineverse.

It is also said that drama started as simple story telling by a single storyteller. Eventually more story tellers were involved and dance and song were added to the stories. These stories are believed to have developed from fantasy and fiction as a way to escape from or to reshape reality.

But there are several conditions which are important to the development of drama. The two most important of these are people who organized performative elements into drama and the society that acknowledges the value of theatre as its own activity. Drama developed by these conditions was reflective of the values and ideas of that particular society.

These societies – the Aegeans, Minoans and Mycenaeans provided the gods, history and heroes which was to become the basis for Greek literature and drama.

References:

Oscar G. Brockett (1995). History of the Theatre.7th Ed.

Norbert O. Eze (2008). Theatre Workshop.For NOUN, Abuja

Jexsance.Film’s Theatre. http://jexsance.wordpress.com