The theatre born in Greece in the 6th century (BCE), continued its evolution with the flourishing of comedy, which developed towards the middle of the 5th century (BCE).

This had a highly meticulous structure, emanating from ancient fertility cults. The fusion of satirical attacks on public figures of the day, daring scatological jokes, and seemingly sacrilegious parodies of the gods formed the basis of its comedy.

By the 4th century BC, comedy had supplanted tragedy as the dominant form. The oldest surviving plays are those written by Aristophanes.

As a result of Alexander III the Great’s conquests, Greek culture spread, and a local type of comedy, known as “new” comedy, emerged around this time, as literary comedies and philosophical tragedies became less suitable. The great author of new comedies was Menander, whose only complete work is The Misanthrope.

In that century, permanent Greek theater venues made of stone were built, some of which survive to this day. Theatrical performances were held outdoors in open-air theaters.

The building, at the center and below, consisted of a raised, circular platform for singing and dancing called the orchestra, with the thymele (circular platform) located in the center, where the choir sat; and behind it was the proskenion or stage, a long, low platform on which performances took place. The audience sat in semicircular, stepped galleries, divided into sections and called kóilon or théatron. These spaces had a total capacity of between fifteen thousand and twenty thousand attendees.

Behind the proskenion was the skene, a large rectangular building, which almost always represented the façade of a palace. Behind the skene were the rooms or dressing rooms for the actors’ use.

Puppets also had their place in this nation, where humble, small-time actors brought laughter to a small group of wealthy, select families. The puppets were known as neuropastas, and were operated by stuffed animal intestines, acting as strings. They were domestic entertainment only for a select few. It is known that the famous puppeteer, Photino, traveled throughout the country giving performances. Puppets were generally marionettes.

In ancient Rome, theater did not have its origins in religious festivals as it did in Greece, although early performances were linked to religious festivals. It soon transformed into entertainment, due to the increase in festivals; comedy was the most popular form. Very short plays, known as farces, were performed. These were comic or slapstick plays, without written text, that mocked the vices and customs of the time. They included songs, dialogues, and dances; they lacked artistic value and were intended for entertainment.

Among the types of farces that existed, we find the Atellan farce, in which the actors wore masks with fixed expressions. Mime, originating in Greece, featured two main characters who wore masks, one dressed in white and the other in rags. This variant was very popular; women were allowed to perform; expressiveness was achieved through the hands, face, and body. With it, words were dispensed with, giving rise to pantomime.

Comedies began to become fashionable around the second century, specifically in the year 300 (CE), becoming more successful than in Greece. It was then that comic authors emerged, among whom Plautus and Terence stood out. Their works were adaptations of Greek New Comedy and were based on a local plot. It became common to take two different plots from Greek comedies and merge them into a single one, a process known as contaminatio.

Tragedies, on the other hand, were based on Greek models, without the use of choruses. There were Roman and Greek plays; Roman comedy was intended more for reading in certain patrician circles.

Roman theaters were built of wood for festivals and then demolished, as was sometimes the case with stone and marble theaters. Theatrical performances also took place in open-air theaters. These included modifications to the stage, such as reducing the space for the orchestra to sing and dance, transforming it into a semicircle. The stage elements were three doors located at the back, intended to give the impression that the play was taking place on a Roman street, and the decor was minimal and evocative.

In the late 2nd century, some spectacles, such as gladiatorial fights, became more prominent than theater, although for the Romans, they were a form of theater. The fighters reenacted famous battles from history, with a superficial plot, costumes, and sets.

By the first century, public interest in tragedy had waned, so plays were written to be recited or read, not performed. Among these, those of Seneca are well-known, based on Greek myths, although they tended to emphasize the supernatural aspects, bloody violence, and obsessive passion more characteristic of melodrama.

Around this time, permanent theaters began to be built, the best known being the Pompeian Theatre, founded in 55 AD. In the city of Rome, only three theaters existed, and unlike the Greek ones, they were built on flat ground. In Roman spaces, the area designated for the chorus, whose function had become insignificant, was reduced to a small semicircle. Performances were not held in the orchestra, but served as seating for senators and other important figures. Freestanding buildings were constructed, made possible by the use of the arch as an architectural element.

Puppets were a popular street entertainment, and puppeteers were often imprisoned or exiled if their performances made any allusion to politics. Called pupae, pupae, or sigilla, Roman puppets were made of clay, wood, or ivory. They reproduced the masked characters from the Atelane farces.

Theatrical performances in Europe died out with the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 AD. Only popular artists, known as minstrels and troubadours in the medieval world, survived and provided a link of continuity.

Theatrical activity resurfaced in Europe 500 years later, within the Roman Catholic Church, in the form of liturgical drama. Church-organized festivals with a distinctly pagan and popular character were frequently held, many of which included theatrical elements, with the aim of expanding its influence.

Between 400 and 1500 AD, church authorities used theater to spread Bible stories and Christian values ​​to the people. Priests created religious dramas called sacramental plays or mysteries.

Antiphonal ornaments, known as tropes, were incorporated into the complex musical elements of the Mass in the 9th century. Gradually, the ceremony evolved into a performance in which priests recited and sang the text and played the roles of Jesus, the Virgin, the angels, and others. The origin of liturgical drama dates back to 925, with a three-line Easter trope featuring a dialogue between the three Marys and the angels at Christ’s tomb.

Liturgical drama developed from various biblical stories, in which altar boys and choirboys performed. Many thematically related biblical stories were performed as a cycle. These plays were known by various names, including Passion Plays, Miracle Plays, and Praise Plays.

In the beginning, the vestments used for the celebration of Mass and the architectural forms of the church were used as scenery. Later, the stage became more formally organized, dividing it into a mansion (a small stage structure that emblematically suggested a specific location) and a stall (an area in front of the mansion used by the actors to perform the scene). The mansions were built around the central nave of the church.

Medieval drama did not always feature tension and conflict; its intention was to dramatize the salvation of humanity. The plays were episodic, and their action took place over periods spanning thousands of years.

In the 10th century, various church rites made dramatic representation possible. The Mass itself was not far from being a drama, and some festivals, such as the Palm Sunday processions, were celebrated with theatrical activities.

The first known Spanish play is called El Auto de los Reyes Magos (The Play of the Magi), of which only 147 verses survive and dates from the 12th century. In the 13th century, it was banned from being performed inside the church because liturgical drama began to incorporate elements of everyday life, removing it from the solemnity of the Mass. It was now performed in the inner courtyard outside the church.

During this period, miracle plays, a new form of sacred theater, emerged. They were based on the lives of saints, most often centered on scenes from the Old and New Testaments; they included realistic and slapstick elements, and their main character was the Devil or Demon. Among their authors are the Frenchman Jean Bodell and the German Rutebeuf.

Miracles were performed during Easter and other dates of special religious significance. Later, although they were sponsored by the Church, they were performed by artisans. They acquired a defined formal structure by the end of this century or the beginning of the 14th century.

The mysteries, also called Corpus Christi plays (because this was the celebration on which they were performed), were based on miracles but depicted the life of Christ; this is the form that best characterizes medieval theater. Like the miracles, they were performed by artisans in the squares on trade fair days. The plot usually begins at the very moment of the creation of the world. The complete mystery sometimes consisted of thirty or forty separate plays, each dealing with a moment in the life of the protagonist. It could be performed on a mobile or static stage.

The Church then again rejected the theater and, in order not to lose its benefits, moved the performances outside the building, so the plays began to be performed in the city market squares or in carts that could be transported from one town to another.

Puy games emerged in the 18th century and were performed by lay associations called puys. One of their most prominent authors was Adam de Halle. This was a comic genre that mocked peasants and merchants.

In the 14th century, theater became independent of liturgical drama, being performed outside churches, especially during the feast of Corpus Christi. It evolved into cycles that could include up to 40 plays. These were produced by an entire community over a period of four or five years.

Performances could last from two days to a month. The performers were amateurs and illiterate, so the plays were written in easy-to-memorize couplets. The plays were full of anachronisms, local references, and clichés; the costumes and props were typical of the period. The realistic events were presented on stage as authentically as possible. They presented religious content, although they were seen as a form of entertainment.

Several basic forms of stagecraft were used. In England and Spain, the most common were carriages, that is, a mobile stage. The actors worked on the carriage and on the stage constructed for this purpose in the street or on an attached platform; this technique was used in Spain with minor differences. In France, the stages were simultaneous; several mansions were built side by side, and a platform was raised.

A later and much more moderate form of medieval sacred theater was the morality play, which emerged between the 14th and 15th centuries. It was based on allegory. Its protagonist was Sin, while other character-ideas included Avarice, Poverty, and Evil. They were performed outside the control of the Church, in the craft guilds, an important institution of the Middle Ages. They constituted the precursor to what would eventually become a dramatic genre in Spain: the sacramental play.