Skene

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section relies largely or entirely upon a single source.
Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations of additional sources.

This article or section is missing citations or needs footnotes.
Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (December 2007)

The stage of the South theatre in Jerash Jordan, the structure at the back is the skene.

For other uses, see Skene (disambiguation).

In classical drama, the skene was the background building which connected the platform stage, in which costumes were stored and to which the periaktoi (painted panels serving as the background) was connected.

The evolution of the actor, who assumed an individual part and answered to the chorus (the word for actor, hypokrites, means answerer), introduced into drama a new form, the alternation of acted scenes, or episodes. With this, there arose the need for a place where the soloist could retire between appearances and change costumes, as needed, and a place for the storing of various properties. The word skene means "tent" or "hut," and it is thought that the original building for this purpose was constructed of perishable material, such as wood, and was a temporary structure. The skene broke the circularity of design in the Greek theater. In the course of time, the skene underwent extensive alterations. At first it was a simple wooden structure; later it became a series of complex stone buildings (permanent) with such areas as the paraskenion, the proskenion, the hyposkenion, the episkenion with its thyromata, and the logeion.

The proskenion was the main playing area. It was the area directly in front of the skene (pro [in front of] + skene). The skene grew larger as the interest in setting and backgrounds grew. Over the course of millennia the skene itself enveloped the playing area and all that was left of the original skene was an arch surrounding the proskenion; this is how modern theater inherited the proscenium arch.