Re-Entry.mp3
The Satyr Play
The Original TragiComedy
Date Started: Exact Date is unknown. Sometime before 501 BC
Today: No longer done in the same sense.
Description of the Satyrs and their Plays
Satyr's are mythical and somewhat magic creatures being half man half goat with flat noses, large pointed ears, long curly hair, and beards sometimes having wreaths of ivy circling their balding heads. Many mature Satyrs also have horns growing from their forheads. Satyrs were very immoral and wreckless/silly with cowardly personalities. Their movement was very large and consisted of a fantastic kind of skipping/hopping. Satyric drama was the third addition of major drama during the time of ancient Greece next to tragedy and comedy. During this time peroid each playwright would enter four plays into the Dionysian competition, one of them being a satyr play to perform either at the end of begining of his play roster. Satyr plays were short and would generally make fun of the tragedies the playwright entered. In short, they were the comedic relief for the audience.
Satyr Play Origins
It isnt clear exactly where the Satyr plays made their first appearance, but the characters and ideas behind the Satyr play can be traced back to the ancient celebrations that were held in honor of the god Dionysus. These plays reflected the qualities of Dionysus immensly as they were life giving and entertainingly mischievious, but to the extent of self destruction. It is know/believed that during these dramatic celebrations each playwright that submitted their three part tragedies in the play competition must also include a Satyr play. Some scholars argue that the Satyr play actually came before Tragedies and Comedies and that both of those major dramatic forms actually were derived from the Satyr play itself. Another more supported theory is that the plays are a survival from the primitive periods of Bacchic Worship. The earliest record we have of a Satyr play being a part of the playwrights winning line up was in 431 BC when Aeschylus won first prize with Prometheus. Later on Euripides was allowed to present a replacement of the traditional Satyr play with a comedy one act in 415 BC.
Interesting enough, Satyr plays were also considered ancient Greeces way of breaking free from the standards and norms of the time period as the Satyr plays would usually be centered around amorality, excessive drinking and the destruction of barriers and values.
The Content Within a Satyr Play
Each Satyr play would get its material from a traditional epic mythology or tragedy and the action of the play would almost always take place in a forest or an open sky. The same general story of the tragedy would remain, but its solemnity and weight was diminished as the characters for the most part would be stripped of dignity. The action of the play was not nearly as important as were the relation of the chorus to the action. The action would be connected to the immorality and silliness of the Satyr characters. It is unknown today how large the average cast of a Satyr play was but many scholars believe the number was around twelve or fifteen. The costumes normally used by those people playing the Satyrs would be made up of goat/deer/panther skins thrown over the actors naked body along with a hideous mask with bristling hair.
Why so much is unknown
So little is known about Satyr plays in detail because the only known Satyr play to survive in its fullness is Euripides: Cyclops ( a large one eyed humanoid creature). This play is based on Odysseus' interaction with the cyclops named Polyphemus. No other Satyr play survived the ages in its entirety. We have many fragments of Satyr plays by Aeschylus and Sophocles. We have even smaller fragments of other less known playwrights as the genre is believed to have lived on as late as the second century AD. We even have some fragments of music which were used during the Satyr plays. As we will see when we travel to the age of Roman theatres in our DeLorean time machine, the Romans kept the idea of having a tragicomedy for after-pieces to their plays and although the Romans copied much of what the Greeks did in the theatre, the Satyrs themselves never made it that far.
