1. Primitive Theater
By: Josh Ranes, Meredith Grula, Charnay Locke, and
Caroline Eckard

2. What is Primitive Theater?
Era: Stone Age (6000 BCE - 2000 BCE)
We know of primitive theater thanks to anthropologists,
who have studied artifacts and cave drawings depicting
men who re-enact hunts that they would go on with animal
skins depicting the animals and their usual attire to depict
the humans.

3. How would they perform?
The homosapiens would imitate the hunt of the animal when
asked how it went. Imitation was their form of theatre. It is the
very foundation of all theatre.
Other forms of theatre the cavemen would participate in
included dance. They would dance for the Gods, one person
would be the focus, a tribute to or embodiment of the God(s), or
a sacrifice. The figure is usually in a mask, made from any
organic materials that could be mustered up.

4. Costumes
In the Primitive ages of theater they used
animal skin as their costumes. They used the
animal skin to reenact the hunt scene, with the
men wearing the skin as the animals and the
men wearing less animal skin as the hunters.

5. Eventually primitive tribes began to act out the hunt before they started
hunting. They did this so often that it became a ritual.
A ritual is something performed repeatedly in exactly the same way, and they
believed that if they did this it would create magic that would bring them
success.
These rituals became so popular and common that they elected one person
from the tribe to oversee the rituals. This man was called a Shaman.
Rituals

6. Religion and Theater
During this time in history, religion and theater
were the same thing. Theatrical performances
were an important part of religious ceremonies.

7. Ancient Egyptian Theatre
Ancient Egypt started in 3500 BC and ended around 350 BC, when Queen
Cleopatra killed herself.
In the sense of Ancient Egyptian theatre there are only four different types of
plays that existed.

8. Osiris Passion Play
Set, the God of evil, becomes jealous of his brother Osiris, and tricks him into a
coffin nailing him inside, still alive. Isis, the wife of Osiris, finds his coffin and
buries him correctly only to have Set dig Osiris up and dismember him, later
scattering the body parts all over Earth. Isis and her son, Apuat, find all the
pieces and buries them once again. Osiris is then resurrected and becomes the
King of the Dead, ruling over the mortals that ascend to heaven.

9. The Medical Plays
All evolved around the idea of magical healing,
usually with a simple plot. In one, Isis, whose
child is bitten by a scorpion, heals her son using
artificial respiration and a magic cure.

10. The Heb Sed Play
The Heb Sed Play, also called the Coronation Jubilee, is a
celebration of the Pharaoh’s thirty years on the throne, the
people enact all things that have happened over those thirty
years and the events of his region.

11. The Ra Play
Ra is the sun god, his play follows his struggle
with Apophis, the snake god of the underworld.

12. The Passion Play
The most famous of all passion plays was the
Osiris Passion play, but that wasn’t the only
one. In fact for 2000 years they had one
passion play annually, each performance lasted
several days and included battle scenes with
actual killings.

13. The Hunt Scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY39CBD
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