Intro to Theatre Test #4

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Still don't know

Comedy

looks to the continuation of life rather than to its finality. Comedy focuses on the success of generations rather than on the mortality of the individual. The plot of comedy usually begins with an outrageous idea or fantastic scheme that disrupts the normal workings of the community. Comedies frequently end in marriage or engagements. Brilliance of comedy lies in its ability to take on the most serious subjects while evoking the deepest laughter. War, religion, politics, generational conflict, and sexual relationships are common subjects of comedy. Celebrates the continuation of life through love and rebirth. The happy idea. Comedy usually looks at the characters as part of a social group (the figure- obsession blocking). Comic characters tend to reflect human weakness. Often takes place in the realm of the ludicrous. Protected world where there is no pain ("twist"). Ends with reconciliation or happy resolution. Makes us laugh, but the underlying subjects are often serious. Performance of comedy depends on broad physicality, timing, and rapport between actor and audience.

Resolution

the answer or solution to something. Yamauchi has 3 parts to her resolution. First is the defeat or loss for emiko. Second is the drawing together of the Murata family, and the drama finishes with a silent little epilogue.

Identity

the characters struggle with identity (who am i)- changing identity, gender identity, manipulating religious imagery.

The Critic

They have been in existence almost as long as there has been theatre. Most critics are passionate about their views and recognize something vital and essential in the theatre, although they have strongly divided opinions about what the essence of good theatre is. Sometimes critic's ideas are formulated slowly and represent a cumulative process of evaluation. Enthusiastic for theatre, belief in the importance of the arts in the life of the community. Wide knowledge of dramatic literature and theatre history, understanding the contributions of playwrights, directors, actors, and designers, strong writing skills, ability to communicate the experience of theatre performance through lively accessible language, understand symbolic and metaphoric constructs, interpret meaning of play in relation to philosophical cultural or political concerns of the community, and ability to generate interest and excitement about the theatre for readers.

Music

: when Aristotle included music as one of the basic elements of the drama, he was referring to the musical accompaniment for the choruses and to the chorus members themselves, who chanted part of their text in the Greek tragedies. Almost all forms of theatre use music in one way or another. In opera all of the text is sung, as it is in most forms of the Asian theatre. The modern musical theatre alternates between spoken and sung text. In Asian theatre, musicians almost always appear onstage and are visible throughout the entire performance. Chinese theatre Bertolt Brecht saw songs as a fundamental way of commenting on the character's situations and choices. Finding one's song is a major metaphor throughout the play.

The Oresteia (Aeschylus)

Agamemnon, the Greek king and general who leads the Greek army against Troy in the ten-year Trojan War, is killed by his wife Clytaemnestra on his return from war. Then she is killed by her son Orestes as revenge for his father's death. Orestes is tried for murder in a trial by jury and acquitted.

The poetics

Aristotle's analysis consisting of a series of lectures

Hamlet (Shakespeare)

Hamlet's father, King Hamlet, is murdered by his uncle Claudius. Claudius marries Hamlet's mother Gertrude and takes the throne of Denmark. Hamlet thinks Claudius killed his father but he doesn't have enough evidence. In Hamlet's try to prove his uncle is a murderer and avenge his father's death. Violence claims 8 lives including those of hamlet, Claudius and Gertrude.

Aristotle's elements of drama

He began a dialogue about the nature of the drama, particularly tragedy. The five elements are character, plot, language, music and spectacle. They are all interrelated.

Ming Cho Lee

He did set design of Dog Lady. Known for his work with the New York Shakespeare Festival, New York opera, metropolitan opera, and Martha Graham Dance Company. Sanchez-Scott and Lee are complementary and will make for a productive creative partnership. He will work in the INTAR theatre "brownstone, railroad flat of a theatre" because of its long narrow space. 21ft wide, 59ft deep, 99 seats.

Chekov

He seems to be most gentle with his characters and yet the most unforgiving. Realistic plays.

Rosalinda Luna

Main character of Dog Lady, she is trying to meet la Pope. She's an athlete, she gets turned into a dog. She's the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Answers v. Questions

Meaning plays that give the audience answers to questions, versus plays that leave the audience with questions

Oedipus Rex (Sophocles)

Oedipus is a young man, told by an oracle that he is fated to kill his father and marry his mother and have children with her. He leaves home. He is adopted. He travels to the city of his actual parents and kills his father king Laius and marries his mother Queen Jocasta.

Tartuffe

Play about a dick dad, and the pious "Tartuffe" that the dick dad wants his daughter, LeMire - the point is that it's a comedy, and the old ways are at the foreground of the play, but then are moved so that the new ways can be seen

Milcha Sanchez-Scott

Scott's social concerns about the restrictions placed on young Latina women in particular and young American women in general by traditional social expectations of: family, religion, Latino community, and larger American society. Her story telling began in Colombia, wrote 4 coming of age plays: Latina, Dog Lady, The Cuban Swimmer, and Roosters.

Beckett and Absurd Plays

Waiting for Godot is an example of tragi-comedy; the two friends at the end who are trapped waiting for Godot, yet still have each other (gay)

The Dramaturg

Was responsible for helping the director, actors, and other members of the production understand the playwright's meaning and intent when working on the play

Origins in Greek Drama

all plays dealt with lofty and serious subjects called tragedies. Tragedy derived from Greek work that means "goat song"- a song that was sung in honor of Dionysus (patron saint of theatre). Comedies were performed as companion pieces to tragedies to complete the picture of human endeavor. Contemporary playwrights frequently mix comic and tragic elements in the same play because that approach seems to most effectively reflect their understanding of life's rhythms in today's world.

Common themes of tragedy

a struggle over succession- succession isn't the primary focus of tragedy but it is the integral to many of the works of the past that we can categorize as tragedy. A rupturing of family and societal bonds- classical tragedies test the moral foundations of human civilization; the family is almost always at the center of tragedy and it is a royal family that represents both the larger society and the essential relationships between family members; all major tragedies consist of royal characters who kill members of their families.

Conflict

can occur between individual characters, between groups of characters, or between characters and institutions such as govt. or religion. Conflict may be internal, within the character. Most plays have at least several layers of conflicts

Spectacle

comes at the end of Aristotle's discussion of dramatic structure, and he all but dismisses it as the least important and least artistic element of the drama. Spectacle encompasses everything from acting style and the blocking or movement of the actors to the most breathtaking scenic and special effects. The interpretation of a play through spectacle is the hands of the director, the actors, the designers and the technicians. The 20th century theatre philosopher Antonin Artaud wrote in his visionary book "the theatre and its double" that the theatre is a three dimensional space, which must be filled with a concrete poetry of its own.

Farce

concerned with the humorous possibilities of the moment. Attacks pretentiousness of all kinds and uses the social situation as a launching pad for the ridiculous. About anarchy and breaking all the rules. Almost always highlights actors rather than playwrights.

INTAR

founded in 1966 by the artistic director Max Ferra to promote Spanish language theatre for the Spanish speaking peoples of New York City providing low-income access to the theatre.

Character

essential agents of the extraordinary in the drama. Characters are our point of entry into the world of the play. Must take us with them. They must capture our attention and imagination. The frequently begin their preparation for a role by seeking out the characters' motivations, that is, the characters' objectives or intentions. They are defined by their actions, motives, histories, selection of words, and reactions and responses to other characters.

Climax

final climatic scenes are explosive like when Loomis pulls out the knife. May be diffused or the pattern of the characters' interaction or the plot incidents may not move in a linear progression of increasing tension but may use repetition or a layering of images to create a cumulative awareness of the dramatic situation.

Tragedy

frequently ends in disaster. Violence and death are central to most tragedies, it is the awareness of our mortality that seems most relevant to the tragic understanding of life. Tragedy explores the notion that no matter how great our human achievement, life is finite. The Greek poet Pindar suggests that human beings are god like in their aspirations. But the Gods, however we interpret them or the forces they represent, are constant. They don't die but humans do. Deals with serious subjects and characters who are confronted with their own mortality. Many tragic plots revolve around a crisis over a throne, representing a rupture in the bonds that tie families and society together. Murder and death occur frequently in tragedy and usually as a result of the transgression of sacred principles. Tragic characters come from aristocratic or royal families and usually exhibit admirable behavior. Tragic characters act alone and take responsibility for their choices and actions. The audience empathizes with tragic characters, identifies with their suffering and often experiences catharsis. In tragedy we feel the pain and suffering of the characters intensely. The audience emphasizes with the tragic characters and shares in their inner journeys. The identification with the suffering in tragedy brings about an emotional release or cleansing of the spirit that is referred to as a catharsis. A catharsis is one of the most discussed and debated concepts in the study of drama.

Tragedy and Comedy

genre begins with tragedy and comedy, the most basic- though not necessarily opposite- pars of the dramatic experience. Tragedy and comedy are 2 different ways of understanding the fundamental rhythms of the human life cycle.

Melodrama

has its origins in very simple conflicts of good and evil. Externalizes the cause of our problems; there is little internal conflict or probing of moral issues. In early melodrama, a helpless young woman would be held hostage in some gruesome way by an obvious villain- only to be rescued at the last possible moment by a courageous and virtuous young man. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas based most of their films on this formula. Different versions of melodramatic stories involving the good guy who takes on the forces of evil. Pure melodrama is most easily identified in action movies and popular drama from the 19th century.

Tragic Comedy

is a form of drama that has particular resonance today. The plays that fall into this classification are not merely plays that combine serious and comic elements. Tragicomic plays are concerned with human awareness rather than a program of social change. They tend to explore an existential philosophical position. Plays that communicate existential tragicomic perspective embodied by six characters range from the realistic plays of Anton Chekhov to the absurd plays of Samuel Beckett. Offers least affirmation of any of the theatrical genres. Characters are cut off from a fixed value system and at the same time are cut off from one another.

Plot

is the spine of the play and is made up of all the essential actions or incidents. Significant events, sequence and pace of character entrances, confrontations between characters, changes of situation, and outcome of the various actions contribute to plot. Plot structure can be very simple. It is through what happens in the drama that playwrights shape their ideas and their worldviews.

Language

language is not present in all forms of drama and many modern theatre practitioners have modified the centrality of words in the theatre. Language is one of the greatest sources of vitality in theatre. Language defines the characters and gives them authenticity and credibility. Speech rhythms and vocab of characters in in the soul shall dance and Joe turner's come and gone are critical to the audience's perception of time, place, and character history. In Angels in America, vitality is made by the gutsy language of the individual characters that makes them resonate as human beings, not as puppets of the playwright delivering prepared speeches. Dramatic language must somehow appeal to the audience's imagination and contribute to the sensory appeal of the play. August Wilson also brings unique dialogue that reflects his many years of writing poetry before becoming a playwright.

Magical Realism

lyricism and philosophical perspective of her South American background, which associates her with an artistic movement called magical realism. Extravagant lyricism, imagery, metaphor, elements of fantasy or surrealism exist, audience member may be surprised by the extraordinary occurrences but the characters in the play or story are not. The language Milcha uses places her in the tradition of magical realism.

Genre

refers to a specific division or classification of drama. Most frequently used classifications of drama are tragedy, comedy, melodrama, tragicomedy, and farce. Genres frequently merge or overlap rather than stay within neat and tidy boundaries. What makes the study of drama worthwhile is the insight that each particular for of drama contributes to our understanding of the relationship between human beings and the world or the universe.

Rising tension

series of escalating confrontations that heighten the conflict and raise the stakes. Characters discover new information that changes or reverses their expectations and therefore also intensifies the urgency of their needs or motivations. Results in some kind of climatic action is frequently the basis of dramatic plotting.

Organization of the drama in space and time

some playwrights believe that a credible theatre event depends on not stretching events across too much time or too much space. Great importance to the shaping of the drama is the actual time or duration of the theatre event. In Western society, going to the theatre is usually considered an afternoon or evening event. Many one act plays can range from a few minutes to one hour. Very long performances such as the combined parts of angels in America lasts about 7 hours. Long productions allow the audience to experience a shift in consciousness. It is not uncommon in Asia for the audience to spend all day or all night at the theatre, or even several days at a time.

Aristotle on tragedy and comedy

summarized the distinction between tragedy and comedy as "Comedy aims at representing men as worse, tragedy as better than in actual life." Tragic characters, by their royal birth, are distinguished from ordinary citizens. Aristotle's "better" refers more significantly to character, behavior, and choices. In tragic characters, nobility of conduct corresponds to nobility of positon. Comedy's "imitation of characters of a lower type" suggests conduct that may make audience members feel superior- or that may make them recognize themselves at their worst. Ludicrous implies the contradictions in life that make our efforts ridiculous, has to do with the loss of control, with the incongruous, with the undermining of whatever we take too seriously.

Staging and Acting

upstage- to create the sense of distance or the vanishing point. If actors move upstage and stand next to smaller objects, the illusion is destroyed. The actors move upstage deliberately to challenge or break the illusion of the perspective and they appear to become huge. They become taller because the stage is steeply "raked". When the actors are downstage, the houses appear to be normal size. Most action takes place downstage. Less of an environment than a background for the action. The movement of the actors is obviously stylized.

Vocal Style

vocal delivery of the actors is exaggerated

Pirandello

was very influential in the theatre of the absurd, supports the audience "not to be be relentless in trying to find the truth about one another," and that compassion maybe better; also wrote Six Characters in Search of an Author

The internal rhythm

within the plot structures of all dramas, no matter what form they may take, there is an internal rhythm, a relationship between the parts that involves the audience progressively in the theatre experience. Usually has to do with conflict and rising tension or suspense. Character's needs are set against each other in such a way that a physical or psychological battle is inevitable. The internal rhythm of the drama has to do with the building or layering of image upon image or the accumulation of sensory experiences.