I'm currently reading through "City of God" by St. Augustine. In it he makes repeated references to stage plays put on by the Romans, and uses their lewedness as evidence that the Roman religion is false. I've been able to gather that they were mostly a recounting of the lives and stories of the gods, but Augustine actually said that he doubted the actors would ever be able to rehearse their lines in front of their mothers due to how depraved they are. It's not keeping me from understanding the book, but there's always been that nagging wonder of what is actually being referenced.
He wrote in the late 300s and early 400s. Thanks!
I wouldn't use the term "bad", but Roman theater could definitely be very lewd. Though most of the lewdness was limited to comedies with Roman drama (which was the genre about the lives of the Gods) being much more subdued. And this doesn't mean all Roman comedy was lewd. The Greek plays that heavily influenced Roman theater also had similar spectrum of lewdness. At the lewdest end of the spectrum was the "Satyr Play" where dick jokes and fart jokes were common and the actors would wear wooden phalluses. The analog to the "Satyr Play" in Roman Theater was the "Atellan Farce" which was of Oscan origin and was developed after contact with the Greek speaking peoples in Magna Graecia. The Farces were quite lewd and bawdy and often highly improvised. Eventually the Farces began getting preformed in Latin and were incrediably popular in Ancient Roman Theater. But Roman Comedy as a whole was not purely crude humor. Most of the humor could easily be described as "situational comedy" and was not too dissimilar to Shakespearean comedy.