We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
ON THEATRE AND CINEMA— UNIVERSAL
Our age of atomic energy faces — and this is, perhaps, its unique advantage over previous epochs of violent technical 'progress' — a fundamentally simple alternative: self-destruction or the re-discovery of a unified world in which spiritual norms and the technical stage of civilisation are once more brought together.
For dramatic art, the false autonomy of economism led to the destruction of the universal theatre of the Elizabethan epoch; what remained was a distinctive class theatre.
On the other hand, the autonomous economism set the 'working class' free, and it was Karl Marx who gave it a new mission and belief: to achieve the 'realm of the Free and Equal'.
However much in Marx genuine theory may be out-of-date now, one thing is certain. A new universal belief, integrating all classes and their aspirations, guiding 'the people', must be formulated. Such a belief, if it can establish itself, may perhaps be accompanied by the re-emergence of a new popular theatre and cinema.
After this digression let us now see to what extent the Roman theatre was influenced by its Greek predecessor. The early Roman theatres were built of wood — surely a proof that costly spectacles and gladiatorial 'shows appeared late in Roman life, which originally was simple and austere.
The first stone theatre was built by Pompeius in 55 B.C. It was constructed on the model of the Greek theatre at Mytilene and was able to hold 40,000 spectators. Two more stone theatres were erected later: the theatre of Marcellus and the theatre of L. Cornelius Balbus. But the influence of the Hellenistic theatre had already begun since the end of the second Punic War.
The extreme externalisation of the late Hellenistic theatre with its much stronger visual effects — so reminiscent of our contemporary cinema — was vulgar and extremely licentious. It is noteworthy, perhaps, that the female parts in the Roman theatre were acted by women. We also know from Juvenal that many Roman ladies 'of quality' fell in love with the actors in the same way as our fashionable lionesses to-day become 'movie fans' and never miss a cinema premiere.
Apart from the Roman theatre, there was the attraction of the Roman circus. The Circus Maximus which, for a long time, was the only circus, was the model for the Circus Flaminius (217 B.C.) and all other later circuses. The many imperial instructions with regard to the seating arrangements give a clear indication that all Roman citizens took a passionate interest in such performances.
34