Theatre & Ethics: Greek Comedy & Tragedy

[Gear300]

Not sure if this is the best way to ask, but the Classical Greeks put theatre and life between comedy and tragedy. Does theatre accommodate other modes of human life?, or are those two the 'essential two'? (This was an essay question I had no answer to.)

 

[Klystron]

Not sure if this is the best way to ask, but the Classical Greeks put theatre and life between comedy and tragedy. Does theatre accommodate other modes of human life?, or are those two the 'essential two'? (This was an essay question I had no answer to.)

Not sure I understand your post. Does 'modes of human life' refer to life stages? Classical theater includes youth, adulthood, old age and afterlife; i.e., ghosts. The peripetia invariably revolves around human mortality. Death may strike at any stage of life but becomes certain in old age.

 

[Gear300]

Not sure I know either. I once had a professor who had it in his every intention to teach Galois theory in our group algebra course. We covered finite group algebras and a bit of polynomial fields, but then he got caught in divorce at the end of the semester and there wasn't much after. Although he did manage to give us an introduction to Évariste Galois' biography, and told us that if he had managed to survive his duel, then his life would have been a comedy thereafter. And that was all we took from him. (Useless algebra )

 

[gleem]

@Gear300, Did you mean ethos rather than ethics? This seems more relevant to theater.

 

[pinball1970]

Not sure if this is the best way to ask, but the Classical Greeks put theatre and life between comedy and tragedy. Does theatre accommodate other modes of human life?, or are those two the 'essential two'? (This was an essay question I had no answer to.)

Theatre accommodates everything today. Plays and musicals are an art form.
Shakespeare did comedy, tragedy and history.
400 years later? Pretty much everything, theatre reflects what is going on in the world and musicals also do that.
For me? Art has to beautiful and entertaining.
If I have to read a book on Kant or Chomsky before I go to the play I am not interested.

 

[StevieTNZ]

(This was an essay question I had no answer to.)

First question that comes to mind is, what course contained this essay question?

 

[harborsparrow]

https://citizendium.org/wiki/Theater_in_the_round#Alienation_effect_vs._Stanislovski_technique