Bude U3A Meeting 17 July 2008 Parkhouse Centre
Chairman Sylvia Henry welcomed everybody and explained that the seating had been arranged in a more user friendly way. This met with approval from all. Sylvia said that the possibility of having the refreshments served at the start of the meeting instead of at the end is being considered.
With a show of hands it was discovered that approximately 60% of people present had access to the internet. Sylvia asked if people would leave their Email address with the membership secretary if they had no objection.
Sylvia then welcomed the speaker, our own Iwan Davies who needed no introduction and kept us intrigued with his talk entitled “Drama and how it all began”
Iwan took us back to around 500 B.C. Greece from when we have written tragedies from Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Around this time religious festivals were held over a period of five days and plays (tragedies) were performed by various tribes. The word tragedy comes from the Greek tragodia which Iwan explained meant “goat song” and a goat was often the prize for the best play. Iwan said that words in common use today had a different meaning then. For example skene (scene) was a wooden stage where the actors performed and the orchestra was a semicircular area in front of the stage where the chorus danced. The open air theatres, some of which are still to be seen to this day held up to 10,000 people seated on stone seats with the semicircular design contributing to excellent acoustics. All rather different than the comfortable afternoons spent at the Theatre Royal in our padded seats.
The plays, sometimes trilogies were introduced by a speaker who would explain what was about to take place, much like our own programmes. The five day festival was a male only event for both actors and audience with the actors, who were conscripted, wearing masks to portray the various characters. Sacrifices to the Gods were made and a magistrate chose the winners based upon audience applause.
Hilary Workman gave the vote of thanks and we were then able to look at Iwan’s collection of books and photographs of some of the theatres that are still in existence.
The August meeting sounds most interesting with Jacky Derham who’s talk is entitled “Write your life story”
Vera Roper
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