Te 8 ruscha indd

LESSON 1 Ancient theatres
a theatre in Athens
The first people who created plays were the ancient Greeks in 
700 BC. The ancient Greeks invented two types of plays. Tra­
gedies always had a sad ending, while comedies always had 
a happy ending. Both kinds of plays are still used today. The 
chorus sang and danced as part of a play. Only men played 
in the theatre. They wore masks. The masks were different for 
each type of play. The best known ancient Greek playwrights 
were Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Some of their plays 
are still performed today. Sophocles wrote 123 plays! These 
plays were performed outdoors in large open air theatres, so that up to 
15,000 people could see them. There were contests among the playwrights 
and the winner got a prize. The audience was men, women and children.
2 W o rk in p a irs . R ead a n d s a y h o w o ld
th e a n c ie n t G re e k th e a tr e is.
Since we all live in AD or CE (Common Era) 
years now, there is no need to say “AD” , it 
is understood. So, it is 2020 AD, but all that 
you say is 2020. If you have a date in BC or 
BCE (Before Common Era) and you want to 
find out how long ago it was, you just add it to 
the current year. So, if we want to know how 
long ago 1000 BC was, it was 3020 years ago 
(2020 + 1000 = 3020).
3 a W o rk in p a irs. Listen and re p e a t th e new 
w o rd s , and sho w the m in th e p ic tu re s . 
puppeteer, glove puppet, marionette, string
3 b W o rk in p a irs . A n sw e r th e q u e s tio n s .
1) What countries are these puppeteers from?
2) How many people operate one doll?
3) What clothes are the dolls wearing?
4) Arejthese puppet shows modern or old?
^W ork in p a irs. Listen and c o m ­
p le te th e ta b le a b ou t Uzbekistan.
Listen one m ore tim e and c o m ­
p le te th e ta b le a b o u t Jap an .
4 c W o rk in p a irs. Say th e d iffe re n c e s betw een 
the Uzbek puppet show and Japanese Bunraku. 
e .g . Uzbek puppet show is older than Japanese Bunraku. But 
both Uzbek and Japanese dolls wear national costumes.
Late 19th century 
street puppet show_
R e m e m b e r:
The rich, the poor