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The History Of European Theatre
The Development of Roman Theatre: A Reprised Conversation with Dr Elodie Palliard
Episode 154
As you know form last week’s episode I’m running a short series of guest episodes before we get back to continuing the journey through the Shakespeare and Jonson cannon. Today’s episode is a repeat of episode 30 of the podcast, first released in late 2020. At the time I was discussing the early theatre of Rome and with the Ancient Greek theatre already under my belt I had started to reach out to academics and authors who could add depth and colour to the research that I had been able to do. This episode with Dr Elodie Palliard was, I thought, particularly helpful in describing the likely developments in theatre in the murky period between the end of recorded Athenian theatre and early Roman theatre. It is, I think, worthy of another listen if you heard it at the time, or a first listen if you have only joined us for the later theatrical periods.
Dr Elodie Paillard is currently an Honorary Associate in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Sydney, and a Partner Investigator in the Australian Research Council discovery project 'Theatre and Autocracy in Ancient Greece'. She is also a Project Leader at the University of Basel, financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation. After completing a PhD thesis on the staging of socio-political groups in Sophocles, and a postdoc on Greek theatre in Early Imperial Rome and Campania, Elodie is now working on Greek theatre in Republican Italy (500-27BC). She is also a member of the editorial board of the journal Mediterranean Archaeology.
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1. Prologue and Pre History
25:26||Season 1, Ep. 1Episode 1An Introduction to the podcast and your host.Pre-history and how the urge to mimic and present might have been the start of theatre.Religious ritual and Shamanism.The Abydos Passion play and the Egyptian Book of the Dead.The beginning of Greek Theatre.A note on dates and the nature of translations.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
1. Trailer
03:52||Ep. 1An introduction to The History Of European Theatre PodcastThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
2. Dionysus and the beginning of Greek Theatre
26:53||Season 1, Ep. 2Episode 2An overview of the history of Greece to the 5th Century BCE including Minoan and Mycenaean periods, the Greek dark age and the rise of the city state.The development of the religious festivals and their main featuresAn overview of the main playwrights and their plays:AeschylusSophoclesEuripidesAristophanesMenanderThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
3. The Place Of Seeing
31:49||Season 1, Ep. 3Episode 3The vocabulary of the theatre we inherit from the GreeksThe layout of the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens and it's main featuresDevelopments in the theatre over timeThe ChorusStage MachineryMasks and costumeThe judging and prizesThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
4. Aeschylus: The First Tragedies
27:38||Season 1, Ep. 4Episode 4The situation of Athens at the time of the first extant tragedies.The very earliest dramatists and the little we know of themThe life of Aeschylus including his service in the Persian WarsHis earliest surviving play 'The Persians'This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
5. The Oresteia part 1
28:21||Season 1, Ep. 5Episode 5A detailed review of Agamemnon, the first part of The Oresteia trilogy by AeschylusThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
6. The Oresteia part 2
21:55||Season 1, Ep. 6Episode 6A detailed review of The Libation Bearers and Eumenides, the second and third part of The Oresteia trilogy by AeschylusThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
7. Sophocles: That Charming Man
30:44||Season 1, Ep. 7Episode 7The life of Sophocles almost spanned the 5th Century BCE and included events from the defeat of the Persian invasion to the relentless grind of the Peloponnesian wars. We look at his life and times and get an overview of the surviving plays and theatrical innovations the he created.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
8. Antigone: Nomos Vs Physis
27:47||Season 1, Ep. 8Episode 8A detailed look at the first of the Theban plays by Sophocles. Greek drama gets personal as the end of a great family drama is acted out, but it's also a political debate as Sophocles questions what happens when man made law bumps up against natural law.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy