MB UNIUD

The origins of drama lie in classical Greece: in fact the Greeks were the first in Europe to stage theatrical performances. In ancient Greece, drama was a collective and rithual phenomenon; the word "theatre" comes from the Greek verb theàomai, "to watch", and it reffered to the group of spectators for the religious ceremonies abd rites connected to Dyonisus and a belief in the continuity between life and death. There are four features that compones the drama:
- A playwright: the addresser
- A written text: the message
- Actors, director, designers,musicians: the performance
- Audience: the addressee
Drama is a moment of communication between author and audience; it implies a story directly performed through the words and the gestures of the actors who speak and act in front of an audience. A play consists of a number of acts divieded into scenes. All Shakesperian plays, for example, are made up of five acts:
-act 1- introduction
-act 2- development
-act 3- crisis or turning point
-act 4- complications
-act 5- denounment, that is the resolving of all difficulties.

Elizabethan tragedies are generally introduced by a prologue spoken by the chorus; the prologue provides information about the main character or the subject of the play.