satyr play

Noun

satyr play (plural satyr plays)

1. (historical) In ancient Greece, a genre of play featuring comedic dialogue and situations involving a chorus of satyrs, and performed following a trilogy of tragedies.
   • Aeschylus had also made the whole performance much longer and more impressive: he composed three continuous tragedies forming a single whole and followed by the strange performance called a Satyr-play.1913, Gilbert Murray, “III.”, in Euripides and His Age, page 67
   • By the turn of the century, both satyrs and human dancers were appearing together on vases with female companions in Dionysian contexts and, with the invention of the satyr play, the vases began explicitly to depict humans costumed as satyrs, rather than the mythical beasts themselves.2007, Hugh Denard, “Lost theatre and performance traditions in Greece and Italy”, in Marianne McDonald, J. Michael Walton, editors, The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Theatre, Cambridge...

   Synonyms:

   satyric play