overview assignment
mariammoshi93
5979_1706538_BG5_THEATER-Pt11.ppt*
Theater, Pt. 1
Bishop Ch. 5
A Set
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Big River set
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Thinking about THEATER: Warm-Up Self-Test
Yes or no?
1. In history, women have frequently performed on stage.
2. Historically, theater began simply as popular entertainment to distract people from their everyday lives.
3. Role playing, such as social roles - like lawyers, teachers, students, sister and brother - involve acting.
4. We can learn about the conventions and norms of a society by analyzing its theatrical presentations.
Fill in the blank
5. Today traditional live theater has been transformed into what popular art form ______?
6. _______ is credited with the birth of acting by being the first choral member to step out of the chorus.
7. Ancient home of Western theater was the country _______, made up of several city states. (answers later in ppt)
Bishop: Ch 5.
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One Origin of Theater:
it grows from how we Play!
Involves:
- Pretense
- Conflict
- Play-acting.
Artifice reveals
Historical origins: Religious rituals and politics.
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DRAMA:
1. Helps imagination.
2. Helps make sense of people
3. Encourages empathy
4. Provides “vicarious” experience via narrative senses, vs. simple emotional one
5. Engages us in the dialogue about the
quality of our life and that of others.
serious play, written for performance on stage, television or radio.
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What is Theater?
- An attempt to reveal a vision of human life through
time, sound, and space.
- Not reality, instead an interpretation; acting is symbolic
- Communicates about the “human condition”
through the performance of a play…
- Draws from and illuminates every day life:
Playground - - - - - - - Parade
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What is the “human condition” ?
- the experience of being human
- what humans face in their lives and how they cope with these events
- the feelings that are associated with existence. Questions about:
- Mortality -- meaning of life
=> Theater: part of our quest to understand ourselves and our place in the universe . . .
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PERFORMANCE:
Actions taken for benefit of someone else.
The audience participates with:
Indirect performance: mode whereby the audience watches interactions as though there were no audience at all.
Suspending disbelief:
members of the audience
“believe” the play
Live performances of plays--
Involve: Empathy (Identification)
Rapport (connection)
Dreams and plays.
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Empathy (identification) Rapport (sense of connection between actors and audience)
Audience watching performance by the Vittum Theater, Northwestern University Settlement Project.
www.nush.org/VittumTheater/Assets/Metro_Audience_Small.jpg
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Components of a Play
Vital to drama:
1. Pretense
2. Conflict: outer, inner
Aristotle’s Poetics:
1. plot
2. character
3. thought
4. diction
5. spectacle
6. song
Early Islamic portrayal
of Aristotle teaching
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Poetics: the literary or philosophical study of the basic principles, form and techniques of poetry or of other imaginative writing in general.
Aristotle teaching, from document in the British Library.
From: Seyyed Hossein Nasr (1976). Islamic Science:An Illustrated Study, World of Islam Festival Publishing Ltd.. ISBN 090503502X
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For Aristotle in his Poetics,
Drama should also involve:
Imitation
clarity
change of fortune
Unities What are they?
Catharsis : emotional cleansing, leading to clear-headed calm, should be achieved by the audience in:
- identifying with characters
- having a vicarious experience.
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Look at Aristotle’s Poetics:
1. PLOT
Structural development of play’s actions, their sequence and arrangement.
The mechanics of dramatic storytelling are not just events.
Plot needs logic, suspense.
Operates like a “climatic pyramid” - Exposition
- Complication
crises (decisions)
climax
- Dénouement
(resolution).
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Poetics: the literary or philosophical study of the basic principles, form and techniques of poetry or of other imaginative writing in general.
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How to distinguish the character
from the person portraying it?
Greeks? ______________________________________
Today? _______________________________________
2. CHARACTER Element
Character: An impersonation, a fabrication (flat or round)
Goal: artistic.
An abstract shaped presence, made real by implicit agreement (conventions).
Acting range: stylized --------> realistic.
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Costumes, make-up, dialogue, accent, movement, gesture . . .
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Ivory statuette of a tragic actor, ca. 2nd c. C.E . Probably Roman.
Wears Distorted mask, high headdress, and boots.
Origins and Evolution of Theater and a dramatic character:
- Religious Ritual with priest/priestess and witnesses, and a
- Chorus to praise Gods (7th c. BCE).
- Thespis 1st solo actor (Thespian) -> interchange w chorus (6th c. BCE )
- Protagonist: main character, carries action
- Antagonist: opposes protagonist’s action
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Ivory statuette from the second century A.D. showing a tragic actor. The actor wears a distorted mask, high headdress, and boots (cothurni). There is some doubt as to whether the statuette represents a Greek or a Roman actor; the majority of scholars believe it to be Roman.
www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/DRAMA/theatron9.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/DRAMA/GreekArt.html
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3. THOUGHT Element.
Themes and ideas that the play communicates. Thought is many-layered.
A play Involves the thoughts of:
playwright director actors audience
4. POETRY/DICTION:
dialogue,
also script’s written dialogue,
instructions
Reading a script
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Gorky’s Lower Depths
Visual elements: stage, set, costumes, props, gestures, masks . . .
Lighting!
5. SPECTACLE Element.
MASKS – help
actors create a different “persona”
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Poetics: the literary or philosophical study of the basic principles, form and techniques of poetry or of other imaginative writing in general.
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Costume Designs for Shakespeare’s 12th Night.
Making a costume-how to start http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v57xuSwjzkw
http://community.ovationtv.com/_Costume-Designer-Martin-Pakledi’naz/video/418799/16878.html
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Aural/Sound elements:
music and
sound effects.
Aristotle’s Poetics says, the purpose of tragic drama is: catharsis, emotional cleansing, leading to clear-headed calm.
What would Nietzsche (who presented the Apollo-Dionysus view) say the purpose of tragic drama is?
6. SONG Element.
Range of theater:
Verisimilitude (like it’s real) --->
Theatricality (stylized, declamatory)
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Satyrs playing aulos, with Dionysus? From a vase painting? http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=www.webster.sk.ca/GREENWICH/ANCIENT1.GIF&imgrefur
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Where have plays been performed?
Theater <= Theatron: Greek for “seeing place” for a live (not filmed) performance where actors impersonate characters.
Theater at Epidaurus,
Greece, ca. 350 BCE.
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ORGANIZATION OF A CLASSICAL OUTDOOR THEATER
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Roman urban outdoor theater, Bosra, Syria.
More grandiose than the Greek theater.
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Elizabethan: Globe Playhouse, London, England (courtyard type)
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Arena or In-the-Round Stage
Thrust Stage
Types of Stages
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Arena or theatre in the round: audience sits on all four sides; actors enter down the same aisles the audience use
This stage works well with an intimate feel, a smaller cast, and a limited number of set pieces.
Scene changes for this set are usually limited because, unless you can move scenery by flying or through a trap,
it is difficult to shift.
Thrust stage
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“aesthetic distance”
“empathy.”
Types of Stages, cont.
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Proscenium stage
Myron L. Walter Theatre, St. Norbert College, Wisconsin.
is like a picture frame a curtain may be used for scene shifts audience sits on one side actors use stage right (SR)
stage left (SL) and upstage areas (UL, UC, UR) for entrances occasionally this stage has a small apron.
This stage works well with both multiple sets and unit sets.
Multiple sets are easier to shift or fly on this stage
the stage can handle a larger cast.
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Theater by Degree
- Broadway (NY)
- West End (London)
- Off-Broadway
- Regional Theater
- Alternative Theater
- Improvisational Theater
- Repertory
Broadway,
by Mark Tobey, 1936
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The Set
Set Designer
Ground Plan
Flats
Wings
Box Set
Scrim
Fly Gallery
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Theatrical Forms:
Types of Tragedy
Types of Comedy
Other Forms
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Tragedy is life seen close at hand;
comedy is life seen from a distance."
Aristotle’s
philosophy of tragedy and comedy.
Tragedy and Comedy
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Types: High and Low
farce * satire * character
1. COMEDY
- Playful, witty, slapstick, satirical.
- Also about serious human conflicts
- Stereotypes
- Exposes follies
- Happy ending. Send them home happy . . . .
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COMEDY Types
- Farce (commedia dell’arte)
Pantomime, comic fools + villains
Moliere’s The Would-Be Gentleman,
*The Misanthrope (high comedy)
Weycherley’s The Country Wife
- Satire
Aristophanes' Lysistrata (women go on strike)
Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest
- The Comedy of Character
Shakespeare’s character of Falstaff
*The Odd Couple (Oscar and Felix)
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Moliere’s The Misanthrope
www.wanselius.com/pictures/theater/performance_pict/17_07.jpg
commedia dell’arte: Commedia dell'Arte (Italian: "play of professional artists") is a form of improvisational theatre that began in Italy in the 16th century and held its popularity through the 18th century, although it is still performed today.[1] Performances were unscripted, held outside, and used few props. They were free to watch, funded by donations. A troupe consisted of ten people: eight men and two women. Outside Italy the form was also known as "Italian Comedy".Commedia dell'Arte performances followed a repertory of conventional plot lines written on themes of adultery, jealousy, old age, and love. Many of the basic plot elements can be traced back to the Roman comedies of Plautus and Terence, some of which were themselves translations of lost Greek comedies of the fourth century BC. Performers made use of well-rehearsed jokes and stock physical gags, known as Lazzi and Concetti, as well as, of course, on-the-spot improvised and interpolated episodes and routines, called burle (singular burla, Italian for joke), usually involving a practical joke. Since the productions were improvised, dialogue and action could easily be changed to satirize local scandals, current events, or regional tastes, while still using old jokes and punch lines. Characters were identified by costumes, masks, and even props, such as a type of baton known as a slapstick. These characters included the forebears of the modern clown, namely Harlequin (English for arlecchino) and Zanni.The classic, traditional plot is that the innamorati are in love and wish to be married, but one elder (vecchio) or several elders (vecchi) are stopping this from happening, leading the lovers to ask one or more zanni (eccentric servants) for help. Typically the story ends happily, with the marriage of the innamorati and forgiveness for any wrongdoings. There are countless variations on this story, as well as many that diverge wholly from the structure, such as a well-known story about Arlecchino becoming mysteriously pregnant, or the Punch and Judy scenario. Wikipedia
Bard company: John Ahlin stars as Sir John Falstaff in a new slapstick comedy about Shakespeare's character presented by The Shakespeare Project.
Arguably the most famous comic character William Shakespeare ever created, Sir John Falstaff, womanizer and wastrel, appears in "Henry IV," Parts 1 and 2, and "Henry V," where his death is given some attention. But it is in "The Merry Wives of Windsor" that Falstaff really comes into his own. Shakespeare most often puts Falstaff in the Boar's Head Tavern, where he holds forth among his cronies, Pistol, Randolph et. al. Carol Rosegg . www.go-brooklyn.com/html/issues/_vol25/25_30/30falstaff.jpg
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2. TRAGEDY
Serious, topic of universal concern.
Involves:
protagonist (hero) (rise, decline + insight)
antagonist: opposition, causes conflict, battle
catharsis: identification,
cleansing emotions
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Program cover? for Antigone.
http://grenier2clio.free.fr/grec/pic/antigone.jpg
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Ancient Tragedy:
Euripides’ play:
Medea
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TRAGEDY. Examples
- Classical Tragedy
Sophocles' Oedipus Rex; Antigone; Euripides's Medea
- Shakespearean Tragedy
Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello
“Can a play show the very truth and nature of love?”
- Neoclassical Tragedy
Racine’s Phaedra
- Modern Tragedy
Miller’s Death of a Salesman, A View from the Bridge
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CONVENTIONS
of the Theater.
Conventions: Implicit rules governing a production or style of theater.
Five periods of Drama in the West, each with their own conventions.
1. Classical
2. Elizabethan
3. Neoclassical
4. Victorian
5. Modern: Early + Contemporary
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- No
- No
- Yes
- Yes
- Movies
- Thespis
- Greece
- Catharsis
- Nietzsche’s view . . . (See ABH Ch2)
Key: Warm-Up Self-Test
