Early Theatre.

Caveman Theatre.

Theatre originated from ancient pre-civilisation people around the world but not in the way we know it. 

Driven by a desire to survive and a lack of speech, early man invented communication through gestures and intonation in the animalistic noises they could produce. This communication was key to early man‘s survival as a wide range of dangers needed to be communicated, from things like dangerous predators to which foods were poisonous. As well as this, early man could communicate things like where to find food and how to hunt to their offspring.These ideas were communicated through stories, passed on by gestures between early humans.

To explore this idea of early theatre, we formed groups and composed a short devised peice following the idea that one caveman had to communicate the location of a herd of prey to the others without language. I played the caveman trying to communicate this and I did so by telling a story through gestues and pointing in the direction of prey. I also used intonation when I grunted to help convey feelings of excitement, happiness and finally conspiracy.

As early man developed, so too did their story telling ability and as humans stopped spending all their time fighting to survive, they began to question the world around them. As they couldn‘t explain much of the world around them they attempted to explain it through myths and religion.

Myth and Religion in Theatre.

In order to understand the world they lived in, humans were quick to develop myths - stories invented to explain a natural phenomena, often with a basis of truth. Some of those myths and what they explain are as follows:

The story of Hades and Persephone - The 4 seasons.
The story of Arachne - Why spiders weave webs.
The story echo and Narcissus - What echos are.
The three fates - Why man is mortal.

Many of these myths involve gods and so as they were told in early theatre, the first ideas of religion were introduced.