When sat in auditoriums my mouth is all agape,
I think of how the architect planned all of this for me:
Now let's take a closer look at how they make us see!
Where there'd be a trilogy or a tragedy at least!
The people sitting in the round, getting a great view:
But down the front were seats reserved for the important few!
Euripides and Aeschylus wrote plays for shapes like this.
The audience liked Sophocles but Eury took the piss.
His heroes were all dressed in rags and for this he was mocked.
Putting strong women in his work was always bound to shock.
But go there now and you will hear the theatron's perfect sound.
For scripts so heavy with flash words, it needed to be round.
You could see the chorus dance as they sung their song,
Raised up above the audience who would not sing along.
Oh, I'm just considering the nature of a shape.
When sat in auditoriums my mouth is all agape,
I think of how the architect planned all of this for me:
Now let's take a closer look at how they make us see!
Now let's check the Romans out, and they didn't change much.
It's a bit more fancy now, and has a florid touch.
Mind you, when they started out, the place was made of wood.
A day of watching on those seats was never all that good.
There's a strange story that is told in Apuleius' Golden Ass
Of how they'd put some things on stage that do not display much class.
But that imperial power - I wonder how it felt to watch
Criminals get killed for real in old classical plots.
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