wodneswynn:

Man, I wish we could all squash the idea that everything that happened in the past was all dour and grim and serious all the time.

We had a unit on Sophocles in one of my English classes in high school, and we got taught that Greek theater was this fancypants white-glove affair with a chorus gloomily chanting in the background.  But listen:  The chorus is supposed to sing and dance.  And at the big state-sponsored festivals, plays might be performed back-to-back for like nine or ten hours.  The shit was so extra that a chorus was traditionally made up of teenage boys on the cusp of manhood as a way of demonstrating that they were ready to go to war because that much drama is just not natural.

To say nothing of the fact that the audience (and probably the cast) is getting progressively more and more drunk with each performance.