What we can know about the origins of theater, which is always less than we would like, and yet not grounds for despair

It just took one step and a shift in pronouns for drama to be invented. Or so legend would have us believe. Thespis, the world’s first actor, stepped forth from the Greek Chorus, addressed himself as “I” instead of “he,” and tragedy was born. Or, as Aristotle more prosaically tells us:

After originating in the improvisations of the leaders of the dithyrambs, as comedy did in those days, tragedy gradually grew to maturity, as people developed the capacities they kept discovering in it, and after many changes it stopped altering since it had attained full growth. ¹