Drama is a form of worship of Dionysus.
Theatre = temple of Dionysus: amphitheatre; orchestra - choral stage; thymele - altar in the middle of the orchestra; scene - background.
Front seat reserved for the priest of Dionysus.
Actors wore masks; cothurnoi - buskins: platform shoes. All-male cast.

Structure of Attic drama: Chorus & protagonist.
~ RITUAL ORIGIN:
     Tragedy - purification; placation of the dead.
     Comedy - fertility rites.

Thetrical performance = Agon: dramatic conflict .
    Tragic agon - conflict of principles.
    Comic agon - conflict of political opponents or the father & son (old & young).

             Old Comedy  - Old Man/ Father triumphs.
             New Comedy - Young Man  triumphs over the Old; the Son gets his way.
             (Later - myme: women actresses could perform.)

Also, agon = competition of playwrites within the dramatic festival: tragedy (3 at a day and 1 Satyr play) and comedy separately.

 
    Great Attic Dramatists (at one time - all contemporaties! From the birth of Aeschylus to the death of Aristophanes, ~ 140 years.)
            Names and works to remember:

        TRAGEDY:
Aeschylus (525-456 BC):
    Persae             - Demolition of Persian fleet at Salamis; demise of huge Persian army.
    Prometheus     - Conflict of world powers: Titan Prometheus opposes tyranny of the Olympian Zeus; suffers for mankind.
    Oresteia          - Family feud culminating in matricide.
 
 Sophocles (496-406 BC):
      Oedipus Rex     - Paradigm of human fate?  Running from an oracle, he fulfills the oracle, pursuing the quest: Who am I?
      Antigone           - Civil disobedience for higher principles.

 Euripides (480-405 BC):
     Medea            - The wife's revenge.
     Hippolytus     - Fatal attraction of stepmother to the chaste stepson.
     Bacchae         - The irony of inner self? Pentheus resists Dionysus and imitates Dionysus in death.
 

        OLD COMEDY:
 Aristophanes (fl.427-388 BC):
     Lysistrata     - Women of Greece conspire to force men to stop the war.
     Clouds         - Parody of the sophists and Socrates.
     Frogs           - Post-mortem competition of the dead poets - Aeschylus and Euripides.

    NEW COMEDY:
Menander (341-292 BC):
 Dyscolos
 (> New Comedy: Seduced girl; birth of a child; family separations & reunions; wondrous recognitions; twins-motif; miles gloriosus; noble hetaera.
 > Rome: Plautus; Terence; > European comedy.)

    MYME:
 Herondas (~270 BC): - everyday life scetches.