Theatre Final Exam
Anagnorisis
Element of Greek Tragedy, the tragic hero's self examination leading to realization of true identity. Follows PERIPETEIA
Character Flaw
An inner flaw that hampers a character's good judgement and leads the character to make unfortunate choices
Catharsis
An intense two-fold feeling of pity and fear that is the goal of Greek Tragedy
Operetta
("light opera") - differs from "grand opera" because it has a frivolous, comic theme, some spoken dialogue, a melodramatic story, and usually a little dancing.
Friedrich Nietzsche
(1844-1900) German philosopher, proclaimed "God is dead." Fatalist absurdism suggests we are trapped in an irrational universe where even basic communication is impossible.
Samuel Beckett
(1906-1989) the most famous of the absurdist playwrights, wrote Waiting for Godot (1953) about two clown-like tramps who meet each day on a barren plain, a dreamlike vacuum some critics say is the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust, and wait for Godot. The play is about our inability to take control of our existence and the absurdity of wasting our lives hoping to know the unknowable. Hilarious absurdism highlights the insanity of life in a comical way.
Eugene Ionesco
(1912-1994) one of the best known hilarious absurdist playwrights, wrote The Bald Soprano (1949), a parody of the middle class, and Rhinoceros (1959) in which the characters are slowly transformed into horned, thick-skinned mammals.
Albert Camus
(1913-1960) French journalist, essayist, philosopher, novelist, and playwright, described the human condition as "absurd."
Harold Pinter
(1930-2009) winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize for literature, writes "comedies of menace," which both frighten and entertain. Pinter is famous for his dialogue, which captures the incoherence, broken language and pause of modern speech, but also has a Kafkaesque quality, meaning that it is marked by surreal distortion and impending danger. Existentialist absurdism holds that human beings are naturally alone, without purpose or mission, in a universe that has no God.
Stasimon
A choral interlude between episodes
Comedy of Ideas (SATIRE)
A form of high comedy comprising cerebral, socially relevant plats that force the audience to reassess their culture, community, and values.
Shadow Theatre
A form of theatre created by lighting two-dimensional figures and casting their shadow on a screen. Probably originated in China around 100 BCE
Noh
A form of traditional Japanese drama combining poetry, acting, singing, and dancing that was developed during the 1300s
Hamartia
A personal weakness that leads to the character's downfall
Kabuki
A popular, robust, and spectacular version of the Japanese Noh theatre. The name comes from the characters for "song", "dance" and "skill"
Peripeteia
A radical reversal of fortune experienced by the hero
Prologue
A short introductory speech or scene
Poetic Realism
A style of realism that is expressed through lyrical language
Peking Opera
A synthesis of music, dance, acting, and acrobatics first performed in the 1700s in China by strolling down markets, temples, courtyards, and the streets. Known as "the opera of the capital" or CHING-HSI
Verbal Scene Painting
A technique used by English and Spanish playwrights to set the mood or place of a scene. Because the words paint pictures, the audience "dresses" the stage in their imagination
Hubris
A type of HAMARTIA; the term used for overbearing pride or arrogance
Domestic Comedy
A type of play characterized by stories about common everyday people rather than ones of noble birth
Absurdism
An avant-garde "ism" that was a result of the two world wars. It has three types: fatalist, existentialist and hilarious.
Epic
An epic is a story, play, or poem that covers a long period, and includes a large number of sometimes-unrelated incidents, allowing for wider, sweeping plots, with frequent shifts in location and large casts.
Tragicomedy
Blend of tragedy and comedy
Comedy: Satire
Comedy of ideas -more intellectual and moral content -employs wit, sarcasm, irony, and exaggeration -intended to attack and expose evil and foolishness -can attack one person or can criticize society in general -forces audiences to reassess their culture, community, and values
Arthur Miller
Death of a Salesman (1949) combines realism and expressionism. The realistic parts of the play cover the last twenty-four hours of Willy's life and his blind desire to attain the American dream. The expressionistic parts of the play show several sequences solely from Willy's point of view; these express his rosy visions of the past, including the great hope he has for his two sons.
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) ****
Epic theatre developed in Germany during the 1920s in the wake of expressionism. It is associated above all with Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), poet, director, and playwright, who shared the expressionists' desire to transform society. He embraced Marxism and its belief that values are determined by the prevailing economic mode of production. He was convinced that if audiences were able to recognize the need to alter the economic system, they would work to bring about appropriate changes. He was also convinced that these goals could not be attained in the kind of theatre then dominant - i.e., realism that seeks to provoke an empathetic response so overwhelming that the spectators suspended their critical judgment. ***** Action = Reaction Stimulus = Response Thesis = Antithesis Brecht attempted to eliminate the vicarious experience and catharsis that had been standard in the theatre for thousands of years. (Note: If you've ever become so involved in a play or a movie that you forget time is passing, then you know what Brecht was rebelling against!) Brecht wanted the audience to be aware that the play is only an illusion and to be conscious enough to consider and judge the political, social, and economic implications of the story. Brecht did not see the theatre as a place to escape one's problems but rather as a place to recognize problems that are then to be solved outside the theatre.
Problem Plays
Expresses a social problem so that it can be remedied
Modernism
For the first time in history, multiple artistic movements existed simultaneously and challenged each other for supremacy. Some of these movements flourished for a time and then faded, but all left residues that have since been assimilated into the theatre's mainstream. Together they gained acceptance of the view that there is no single correct approach to theatrical production and that each artist is free to offer his or her own vision of the truth and human experience no matter how eccentric.
Jean-Paul Sartre
French philosopher and notable existentialist playwright, wrote No Exit (1944), the story of a man and two women who find themselves in Hell. Sartre said, "Man is nothing else but what he proposes, he exists only in so far as he realizes himself, he is therefore nothing else but the sum of his actions, nothing else but what his life is." All of the absurdist playwrights believed that human beings face a cold, hostile universe and that most plays fail to reflect the ridiculousness, anxiety, and chaos of the world. These plays feature characters trapped in garbage cans, caught in coffins or buried to their necks in sand and who spend their time engaged in philosophical arguments, notable small talk, detailed analyses of unimportant things, and action-filled moments that go nowhere.
Comedy: Farce
Governed by fast-paced, external situations (i.e. "sitcom") -excessive plot complications -prevailing mood that one of the world gone made, turned topsy-turvy -disguises and mistaken identities -incredible coincidences -strong physical humor (horseplay) -NO INTELLECTUAL PRETENSION vs satire -relies less on verbal wit -aims at entertainment and provoking laughter
Mie Pose
In Kabuki theatre, a sudden, striking pose (with eyes crossed, chin sharply turned, and the big toe pointed towards the sky) at a particularly intense or profound moment. Accompanied by several beats of wooden clappers, KI.
Ki
In Kabuki theatre, wooden clappers whose beats accompany a "mie" pose at a particularly intense or profound moment
Chorus
In ancient Greek plays, an all-male group of singers and dancers who commented on and participated in the action.
Tragedies of the Common Man
In modern plays, the hero/ine's very averageness speaks to us of human kinship in adversity
Precolonial African Theatre
Indigenous African theatre that grew out of ritual and predates contact with Europeans. A combination of ritual, ceremony, and drama, it incorporates acting, music, storytelling, poetry and dance; the actors often wear masks and audience participation is common
Hip Hop Theatre
Influenced by hip hop music, art, and culture
Bunraku
Japanese puppet theatre with large wooden puppets with many movable parts, onstage puppeteers dressed in black and a narrator who chants the script
Ballad
Love Song
Kafkaesque
Marked by surreal distortion and senseless danger; term comes from the way that Czech writer Franz Kafka depicted the world
Jukebox Musical
Musical that features a particular band's music
Dance Musical
Musicals that feature the work of a director-choreographer
Operatic Musical
Musicals that have mainly singing and have less spoken dialogue.
Book Musical
Musicals with a well-developed story and characters
Straight Plays
No music
Fourth Wall
Non-existent wall between audience and actors
Sanskrit Drama
One of the earliest forms of theatre in India, performed by professional touring companies on special occasions in temples, palaces, or temporary theatres
Episode
One scene in an ancient Greek plays, alternates with STASIMONS
Mixing "Isms"
Plays seldom fall into a single ism. Often playwrights, directors and designers mix isms to form a unique evening of theatre. For example, a designer might create an expressionistic set for a play staged with realistic acting; a director might call for realistic acting with a play written using romantic language; or a performance might blend comedy and tragedy to form TRAGICOMEDY.
Iambic Pentameter
Poetic lines of a play that describe the accent and length of each line; there are ten syllables per line and the stress goes on the second syllable
Comedy Number
Provides comic relief
Comic Opera
including operetta, developed out of intermezzi, or comic interludes performed during the intermissions of operas. Composers: Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836-1911) Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (1842-1900)
Musical
THE UNITED STATES' FIRST MODERN MUSICAL The Black Crook (1866) - a melodrama about a crook-backed practitioner of black magic in a production described as an "extravaganza" that included demons and sprites and "bare-armed" women. A massive success, it turned over $1 million in profits on a $25,000 investment. Such early musical plays lacked strong plot and believable characters, but both were deemed unnecessary because entertainment was the primary purposes, not drama. AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSICALS The success of The Black Crook also opened the door for the first full-length musical comedies conceived, written, produced, and performed by African Americans in New York: A Trip to Coontown (1898) - a spoof of A Trip to Chinatown, a popular musical comedy The Origin of the Cakewalk (1898) - the first all-black show to play at a top Broadway theatre By the 1920s there were a host of black musical and revues with black casts and many with black writers, but blacks and whites acting together on stage was still considered improper, at least by whites. Not until 1959 did a straight play by a black playwright make it to Broadway: A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. THE RAILROAD, THE WAR, and ALL THAT JAZZ 1869 - the completion of the first transcontinental railroad across the United States 1900 - spawned nearly 300 touring companies Most of the plays were melodramas, but there were also plenty of musicals, which were fast becoming America's favorite form of entertainment.
Tennessee Williams
The Glass Menagerie (1945) mixes realistic acting with dialogue that has a poetic quality or POETIC REALISM. The play tells the story of Tom, his disabled sister Laura, and their controlling mother Amanda, who is desperate to make a match between Laura and a gentleman caller. The play also changes the rules (i.e., conventions) depending on where Tom is. When he is in the living room of the house the play is realistic (representational), but when he steps on to the fire escape he breaks the fourth wall and talks directly to the audience (presentational).
Parodos
The entrance of the chorus into the playing area in ancient Greek theatre
Parody
The exaggerated imitations that are done for comic effect (farce) and/or political criticism (satire). (The Complete Works of Shakespeare: Abridged)
Book
The spoken lines of the dialogue as well as plot written by the LIBRETTIST
Exodos
The summation by the chorus on the theme and wisdom of the play
Lyrics
The sung words written by the LYRICIST
Overture
Traditional musical begins with this; a medley of the show's songs played as a preview. During the show, different types of songs are used for different dramatic (to advance the storyline) & theatrical (to produce a torrent of laughter and/or applause) purposes.
Sentimental Comedy
Type of comedy that features middle-class characters finding happiness and true love
Happening
Unstructed improvised theatrical events
Performance Art
Used to describe performances that mix theatre, visual arts, music, dance, gesture and ritual
Librettist
Writes the spoken lines of dialouge
Lyricist
Writes the words to make the music
Showstopper
a big production number Songs are placed strategically within the story, usually at points where dialogue is not sufficient, so the characters must break into song to fully express what they are feeling and cause the audience to experience an emotional response.
Melodrama ******
a blend of melody and drama refers to the background music once played during performances; the popular-culture manifestation of Romanticism.
Opera
a drama that is set entirely to music; all the lines are sung, usually to grand, classical music.
Burlesque
a form of musical entertainment featuring bawdy songs, dancing women, and sometimes striptease; began in the 1840s as a parody of the pretentiousness of opera;- around 1840 in America burlesque was "all the rage;" featured songs, skits and plenty of racy dancing girls in a "leg-show." Note: The original purpose of burlesque was to lampoon high society's operatic tradition by turning it into a kind of sexy caricature.
Vaudeville
a popular form of stage entertainment from the 1880s to the 1940s. Note: Vaudeville in turn descends from... - by 1890 vaudeville had replaced burlesque as the dominant form of American musical entertainment; designed to be more respectable, wholesome, and family-oriented. Most vaudeville companies were small and traveled the rails from town to town putting on one-night shows in local theatres. Big-time vaudeville featured a series of lavish musical reviews on Broadway, featuring popular stars, epitomized by the Ziegfeld Follies (1907-1931). TV Examples: Variety shows between the 1950s and 1970s (the Ed Sullivan Show, the Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, the Carol Burnett Show) were all descendents of vaudeville. Reality-TV Format: America's Got Talent, Dancing with the Stars, American Idol
Revue
a program of satirical sketches, singing, and dancing on a particular theme.
Variety Show
a program of unrelated singing, dancing, and comedy numbers Note: Both revues and variety shows descend from...
Dark Comedy
allows the audience to laugh at bleaker and more absurd aspects of life
Post Modernism
another term for "mixing isms" refers to the contemporary trend toward collapsing clear-cut differentiation of modernist categories. Individual playwrights, actors, directors, and designers have their own unique style but often they express themselves with the help of various isms. Each ism is an interpretation of life. For example, Realism and Naturalism see life through the five sense and Romanticism experiences life from the heart, whereas expressionism projects the characters' emotions onto the canvas of life. In his famous introduction to The Story of Art, E.H. Gombrich says, "There is no such thing as art. There are only artists." This is certainly true in the theatre—how each designer, director, actor, or playwright sees life affects the style of the plays they create. Some find truth and reality in slapstick comedy and others in life-affirming melodrama, whereas still others in absurdist tragedies. It could be argued that life is in fact all of these things rolled into one, and it is only the point of view of the individual that highlights one more than another. Whichever ism a theatre artist uses, it is important to know that there are many truths in the theatre and many ways to experience life.
Symbolism
argued that truth is independent of time and place and can only be suggested through universal symbols that evoke feelings and states of mind corresponding imprecisely to our intuitions.
Epic Theatre
attempted to make audiences actively contemplate and evaluate socioeconomic themes and the political implications of what they saw in the theatre by alienating them from the unities of time and space.
Musical Comedy
characterized by a light-hearted, fast-moving comic story, whose dialogue is interspersed with popular music.
Low Comedy
depends on gags, clowning, puns, and slapstick (Romans more interested in this)
Alienation Effect
distancing the audience from stage events so it can view them critically. Alienation techniques include having the actors often sing and address the audience out of character, exposing the lights, removing the proscenium arch and curtains, and having the actors perform on bare platforms or simple sets that are sometimes punctuated with political slogans. He used captions, maps, or other images projected onto screens to emphasize breaks in the action and eliminate suspense.
Romantic Comedy
examines the funny side of falling in love
Tragic Hero
extraordinary person of stature thus symbolizing a entire culture or society
Romanticism
feels that cold realistic logic is not adequate to describe the full range of human experience, and plays stress instinct, intuition, and emotions. They want to go beyond reason to a transcendent realm of sensation where experience cannot be rationally explained.
High Comedy
includes any play that depends on sophisticated humor, wit, political satire, or social commentary
Naturalism
naturalism - a late nineteenth-century form of extreme realism; "slices of life" that demonstrated the effects of heredity and environment; first artistic movement to treat working-class characters with the same seriousness accorded to the upper classes by earlier movements.
BURLESQUE / PARODY
relies on knockabout, physical humor as well as gross exaggeration and often vulgarity Note: Two different definitions! In the 20th century, a type of variety show in the US, featuring low comedy skits and attractive, scantily-clad women Historically, a ludicrous imitation of other forms of drama or of an individual play (Mel Brooks' films: Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, The Producers)
Surrealism
represented an attempt to reach back to a pre-conscious dream-like state, thus providing a pathway between the inner and outer worlds of human consciousness, believing significant truths are those deeply buried in the psyche, suppressed by the conscious mind.
Comedy of Manners
set during the age of aristocrats and kings and poke fun at the bedroom escapades, marital infidelities, and hypocrisies of the upper classes
Reprise
some songs are followed later by repetition, sometimes with new lyrics, sometimes with the same lyrics but with new meaning or subtext in order to make a dramatic point.
Dadaism
sought to replace logic, reason, and unity with chance and illogic. Like the futurists, Dadaists used simultaneity and multiple focuses.
Expressionism
started in Germany around 1910 as a reaction to a new kind of painting called Impressionism. (Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, and others were interested in how reality appears to the eye at a particular moment: a subjective account of an objective perception.) With expressionism an artist imposes his/her own internal state of mind onto the outside world. Expressionism, therefore, is a subjective account of a subjective experience.
Sentimental, domestic comedies
take an entertaining look at the problems and complications of everyday people
Realism
the attempt to present on stage people and events corresponding to those observable in everyday life; emerged in the 1850s; grounded in the scientific outlook and the belief that human behavior can best be explained in terms of heredity and environmental influences.
Ballad Opera
the earliest American musicals, brought from England and popular during the colonial period. Mixed popular songs of the day with spoken dialogue.
Music
the orchestrated melodies written by the COMPOSER
Avant-garde
this term can describe any work of art that is experimental, innovative or unconventional. Thus more isms...
Futurism
thought veneration of the past stood in the way of progress and so sought to replace old art forms with a number of new ones, among them collage, kinetic sculpture, and "noise music." Futurists even advocated the destruction of libraries and art museums.
Minstrel Show
unique to the United States, these musical shows came to prominence in the 1830s and lasted well into the twentieth century. Included comic scenes, dance interludes, and sentimental ballads, all based on white stereotypes of black life in the South. Flourished because black music was very popular, but it was considered improper for whites to go to a theatre to hear black musicians play, so white performers put on blackface - and minstrel shows provided Northern white audiences with an idea of what the lives of the slaves were like. Disclaimer re: Minstrel Shows: The early minstrel shows were nothing but entertainment and they never challenged white audiences to think about the atrocities of slavery. In fact, the skits in the minstrel shows often contained illiterate and foolish exchanges that made fun of blacks. However, during the Civil War years (1860s) some black performers also painted their faces black and formed their own minstrel troupes. The most famous minstrel performers in the late 1800s and early 1900s were black. When Hollywood got into the act, the faces under the black makeup were once again white. The first "talkie" movie, The Jazz Singer (1927) featured white actor Al Jolson in blackface performing in a minstrel show. Not until the 1950s and 1960s brought the civil rights movement did minstrel shows fall into total disrepute.
Rock Musical
uses rock music from the rock and roll of the 50s to contemporary pop.
Composer
writes and orchestrates music
