Performing Stories

Where performing stories “starts”

How do we define what a story is? What characteristics does it have? Where does a Western understanding of performing stories come from?

This page covers some of the material that we will be looking at in our second class. If you missed class or you want to learn more or review, you can work through the following material. If you would rather move on, scroll to the bottom of the page to continue the module.

Telling Stories the Ancient Greek Way

Storytelling and acting are not necessarily the same, but there are similarities. The plays we have from the classical Greek theatre are another source of the traditional stories that we have. Here myths become literary – they become the interpretation of one particular writer.

Depiction on pottery of a woman, surrounded by two snakes, to her left is a naked man, to her right a small naked male child on a plinth and a woman with a knife holding him by the head — Medea in Corinth, Apulian red figured volute krater, attributed to The Underworld Painter, circa 330 – 310 BC Late Classical/Early Hellenistic; Deiadameian, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

In the following videos, you will learn about shifts in how stories get performed with the birth of the Greek theatre.

In the second video, you will meet Aristotle (or re-meet him; you may know him from his philosophical works on ethics and rhetoric – logos, ethos, and pathos – that’s him!). Aristotle defines much of what we know about stories: what makes them work, what elements are needed for stories, and what the purpose of a story (at least tragedy) is. We don’t know what he had to say about comedy, but there were probably similarities.