THE UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI

FACULTY OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

History Of Theatre
CLP3102
MUGO LEWIS ISAIAH KARIHE
C301442023
How Greek and Roman Theatre Influenced Asian
Theatre

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By the time the Roman theatre was collapsing in the 15th century, many explorers had already
travelled the world spreading information about the theatrical performances. Especially the
westerners who tried as much as possible to get other nations to try the same. India with the
emergence of Sanskrit theatre which was born as part of the classical Indian literature flourished
from 1500 B.C. to 1100 A.D. This mainly dwelt with supernatural and natural phenomena that
shaped into building a hero in the plot.

In China, theatre had began as early as the 12th-14th century with the Nanxi theatre which was
an opera based performance but its theatrical fame was not well known. That was until 1644
during the Qing Dynasty that the dragon dance started appearing in records gaining fame and
popularity around the world.

Around the 17th Century Japan succumbed to western influence and began their own theatrical
performances like the Kabuki which was a form of opera in which the acts would be
accompanied by traditional musical instruments. This form of theatre mainly dealt with historical
events and moral conflicts. When it began it was acted by both men and women but with time it
was made such that only men would act in such performances. The men took on different roles
i.e.
Onagata- men who specialised as female actors
Arogoto- men who played characters with rough roles
Wagoto- men who played characters with soft roles
The speech of this play was mainly monotonous depending on the role.

Another form of theatre in Japan was the Bunraku which was a puppet theatre. Each puppet was
handcrafted and passed through several experts before it was regarded fit for use in theatres.
They consisted of body parts with levers for different movements and each puppet was
controlled by three people for effective movement. Up to date, puppets made from hundreds of
years ago are still usable due to the quality inspection and keenness to detail.

The Japanese also adopted the Noh theatre which was mainly a performance dwelling on
mythical creatures like ghosts or dwarves etc. The name of the performance was based on the
name of the mythical entity being dealt with preceded by the name of the theatrical performance
itself. There was heavy use of masks for representation.

Later around 1868 the Burmese traditional dance emerged in Myanmar. In the same period,
puppetry was also adopted in theatre. The dances involved ritualistic performances which
became theatrical as they were popular even among foreigners.

The puppetry had a slight contrast to the Bunraku in that the puppets were crafted in such a way
they could be controlled using strings by only one person.

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CONCLUSION - critique

Asian theatre emerged as a from of story telling . Unlike Greek and Roman theatre, Asian theatre
told.the story using indirect methods such as symbolism. Asian theatre also diverged from the
Greek and Roman theatre with regard to the stage design in that their stage would almost
penetrate the audience thus encouraging interaction and involvement in the story. The Greek and
Roman theatre was more of an arena based where the audience was separated from the stage
since interaction would be minimal as stories were direct.

REFERENCES

https://youtu.be/7NmD2TGKnY8?si=db_2ub1sCtwe3Fym

https://youtu.be/67-bgSFJiKc?si=YAiOHd-Eu4nQzen3

https://youtu.be/YVARAMARvk8?si=9SP9SPMIwqqN9xTY

https://www.britannica.com/art

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