Theatre 100 Exam 1
A performs B for C
A = actors B = Play/script/something to be performed C = audience
Absurdism
A loose description of European plays post WWII The world no longer makes sense - theater should reflect the world, so plays should make no sense
Rising Action
A series of escalating conflicts or obstacles "In the 1st act get your principal character up a tree; in the 2nd act, throw stones at him; in the 3rd, get him down gracefully." -Anonymous playwriting advice In a 'realistic' play, things get more emotionally difficult or complicated for our characters. In a video game, the enemies get harder
ABC's of theater
A(ctor) performs B(play?) for C(audience?) Do something with intent of people watching
Acting in the Natyashastra
Acting! Types of make-up, types of costume (and how to make them), types of gestures (108 of them, including 4 ways to stand, 32 movements of the hips and feet, 9 movements for the neck, 7 for the eyebrows, 36 types of gaze, 24 .... So many different movements in different parts of the body- very specific
Video: she used to be mine
Adding a song to a play and not needing it
Greek Chorus
All singing, all dancing Represent the community 3 performances in a row - then they did a physically demanding comedy
Text is important, but it's a lie
All we have He is dead There are endless possibilities because text is yours
Center of the stage
Alter to the god dionysus
Willing suspension of disbelief
An agreement from the audience/reader/player to accept the constructed reality of the narrative, as long as that reality remains internally consistent. Examples: GRAND THEFT AUTO FIVE Step on granny Kill the stripper Suspend disbelief that these psychos walk around the street with WMD's There is not only fire but FLAMES Police are gullible in the game
How does an audience understand a play?
Artist - who is performing? What does that mean? How does that mean? What is style/tone/aesthetics of the piece? Artistic heritage- what is like what they are doing? What is the context of the performance?
Tim Klein
Artist, Vancouver BC Combines jigsaw puzzles - Makes weird pics like rabbit and dinosaur mixed
How does an audience understand the world of the play?
As long as she has a way in she is okay; doesn't care what is actually playing; looks for humor, connection to characters, intrigue in story "My elderly aunt comes to everything I direct, and I direct some pretty wild stuff man. I always think of her - as long as she has some fingerhold on the play, it can be avant garde or symbolic or heavy or postmodern - as long as my aunt has some fingerhold" - valerie curtis newton If she can make sense out of it everything will be okay
JoJo Rabbit
Based on the book but not completely Coming from theater and literature Won an oscar
Video: American theater wing
Benefit - when working on adaptation, audience already has expectations Drawback - they feel ownership over these characters
Eurovision
Big singing competition between europe countries Tone: big wild crazy ass number Graham Norton - "bitchy dude"
Exposition
Both plot, characters, place and theme, but also tone "One Night in Bangkok" speaks to theme, introduces the main antagonist, and creates place - BUT it also creates the tone of the show - this show is modern! This show is rock! (by a very 1980s musical theater definition of 'rock') In chess, "Merano" creates a lyrical exploration of theme, but doesn't speak to ideas of tone - in fact, it creates the exact opposite of the desired effect
Natyashastra
By bharata muni (like homer- may not have been one person) 500 BCE and 200 CE- some point in 700 years Aristotle's poetics is about the societal benefits of theater and playwriting. So's the Natyashastra, but it's also about... Set construction- 3 shapes and 3 sizes- pros and cons for each How to mix paint How to sell tickets 10 types of plays 7 chapters on women performers The religious significance of performance About 20x longer than Aristotle's poetics- more thorough The rasas and bhavas- emotions, state of minds, or tastes audience should feel
Hrosvitha of Gandersheim
Canoness at bad Gandersheim - allowing an educated, wealthy women to maintain property and agency Writes on theology, philosophy, poetry - and drama ADAPTS 4th century stories of martyrs for the stage - Although they were probably never staged
Theater is a SYNTHESIS of other art forms
Costume design Lighting and sound Props and set Writer acting director Video: - Kids - terrible at acting; absolute garbage - Lights and sound - Needed to learn how to act (needed a bit more help with that one) Scriptwriter (needs to be fired)
Greek culture was borrowed, appropriated, or served as an inspiration for many other cultures and in many disparate areas. Which of the following is NOT a way that this video shows how the Greeks influenced the Western world?
Culinary - the Greek method of food storage was borrowed throughout Europe (Things that were shown: - Language - they gave us a written alphabet, as well as the word 'alphabet' - Architecture - their three types of column have been reproduced by many cultures and countries - Religion - although their names were changed, the Greek pantheon of gods was taken by the Romans)
Kathakali
Dance drama, for the people, around 1600 CE Like Sanskrit Drama, reliant on make-up, costume, gestures Intense and precise Globe theater - Lots of banging on drums - WEIRD masks/costumes - Spinning in circles - Someone died and someone is sad hanging over them - No speaking; very strange; hand gestures - Last moment = youngest daughter died - Everything in it has different significance; masks, costumes, make-up - Gesturing play of king lear - 20 year process to become an actor Another Indian video - kathakali - Teaching dancing and facial movements - 12 years of study - Takes four hours to prepare for a dance (costumes, etc) - Hindu practices - Dedicate entire life to it
National Theater on Greek tragedy video:
Dionysus: god of wine Greek loved competition Three types: - Tragedy - Comedy - Satyre Four classical greek writers Some theaters were built to represent ancient Greece such as Olivier Theater - Circular stage with tiered seating around Used masks - used to change character Chorus - 2 roles *Fun (excitement) *Perspective of community on what was happening
Professional Theatre
Doesn't just mean people buy tickets and actors get paid - it's not just about the dawn of mercantilism/capitalism/business It's a change in mindset for theatre practitioners - it's a job like any other..maybe more speculative and insecure, but a profession. A lowly one at times, a glamorous one at others, but a job And shakespeare taking an early retirement is the clearest example of that Guy was tortured and kept letter because even though its a lie he wants to know someone loved him
Romans love sport Roman comedy
Domestic comedies of mistaken identity, get-rich-quick schemes, generational misunderstanding, pointless lies and deceptions Stock characters - the innocents, the braggart, the willy slaves Often vulgar and really misogynistic Two writers - plautus and terence - Terrence - african slave
Tragedy = Tragoedia Tragoedia = Goat Song Goat song = ?
Don't know much about the greeks Don't have the body of work
You can never trust text
Early modern printing was a nightmare All manual Lots of room for error Barriers: - Handwriting - Printer - Formatting - Drunk off ale - no drinking water
Climax
Emotional high point Punch line, turning point, final boss Resolution to the plot For Aristotle, ideally a moment of REVERSAL and RECOGNITION Followed by FALLING ACTION or DENOUEMENT
All of the playwrights agree that the writer should lock down their work with specific, iron-clad rules for how their plays should be interpreted.
False
Theater is ephemeral (major part of theatre, separates theatre from film)
Fleeting, temporal - like a soap bubble Keep a journal - regrets for life Adds to the theatre magic ;) Lawerence olivier - greatest shakespearean actor of all-time - He's a crier ... doesn't know how he was that good? - Had a great day ... scared he can't get back to that level Ray Allen - exciting player to watch! $20 tix - He doesn't know how he did it - Sports are like theater; can be great 1 night then shitty the next - "He's unbelievable - that's the ephemerality" - prof
5 act structure
Freytag's pyramid - Exposition - Inciting incident - rising action - climax - falling action - resolution 12th night - Act I: shipwreck, Illyria, love triangles, etc. - Act II: triangle, Malvolio, and Sebastian - Act III: People begin to act on feelings, and plot tangles further, climax approaches with challenge - Act IV: Sebastian gets mixed up in mess, more Malvolio - Act V: resolution
Christopher Marlowe
Gay blaspheming spy - Cursed a lot - Super gay, was very open about being gay Died by being stabbed in the head at a knife fight at a bar Brought before the Star Chamber
Tulips in Spring
Hallmark movie (SUCKSSSS) Lady is attractive but not too attractive Guy is a hard worker and does stuff with his hands??? Should the helpless young girl give up her entire career for a HU that's shes only known for a day? OBVI
Twelfth Night! This is a play about deception. Which of the following cruel pranks does NOT happen to Malvolio in Twelfth Night?
He is convinced to join the Illyrian navy, and ships out to fight pirates. (Things that do happen: - He is convinced that Olivia is in love with him. - He is locked up in a "dark room." - He is convinced that he should wear "cross-gartered" "yellow stockings," and smile.)
Why are music and spectacle unimportant to Aristotle?
He only read the plays - he didn't see them
Verse Shakespeare
High-class characters, text with emotion, or the whole play (romeo and juliet) Iambic pentameter 10 syllables, in 5 pairs of 2 called "feet" Unstressed, stressedm etc Unstressed (v on top) and stressed (dash on top) Midsummer's night dream: - Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged cuupid painted blind - Rhymes
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
If you think it's gonna suck it will Suspend your disbelief DEMON LOVER crazy high on opioids "(...) that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith."
To be or not to be, that is the question
In verse Can be dissected to find meaning behind play Be not be, quest
Prose Shakespeare
Lower-class people, casual conversation, or the whole play Just words A midsummer's night dream - "Here is the scroll of every man's name which is thought fit, through all athens, to play before the duke and duchess on his wedding day at night" - Alliteration - Antithesis
William Shakespeare
Makes sensible real estate purchases! Occasionally sues his neighbors Retires to country
Was his name truly shakespeare?
Maybe, maybe not Signed his name many different times w/ different spellings
Pageant wagons
Movable stages, with set, props, costumed actors Sometimes set up around town (the audience would walk from one to another), sometimes travelling like a parade Overly complicated but remember this is all new to them
Ben Jonson
Murderer! Keeps changing religion - to whichever religion is least popular Writes for the court - but always in trouble with the law Maybe tried to blow up parliament Funny
Chess the Musical
Musical from the early 80s Written by Abba Modern for early ages Staged in London in West End Song - Started off chorally then becomes more upbeat - Motivating you to do something (war song) - Sounds like national anthem About cold war - Played out through chess tournament Supposed to be a rock show Anotha song: one night in Bangkok - Rap - lyric-based form
Video: york mystery plays 2012
Now doing pageant wagons every four years
HAMARTIA = "missing the mark"
Often simplified to mean a tragic flaw, but the term itself comes from ancient greek bowmen Someone who comes close, but... misses. A good person who fails.
Twelfth Night! This is a play about disguise. Which of the following is NOT something that happens in the play?
Orsino dresses himself as a soldier. (Things that do happen: - Feste dresses himself as a priest. - Viola dresses herself as a man. - Malvolio dresses himself in yellow stockings.)
Video: York mystery plays 2010
Pageant wagon Play about adam and eve In the streets of the town - Looking at maps, highways, talking to enforcement - Need enough room for 12 plays
Mystery plays, 1200ish - 1500ish
Performed as play cycles (many stories from the bible) performed by individual trade guilds Each guild takes a story ("Mystery" is a pun, referring both to the curious guilds' occupations and the mysteries of the bible), stories written by an anonymous 'master' - the york master, the wakefield master, etc Three day festival (Chester), one long day from 4am to 12pm
Plato
Platonic ideal Anything in OUR world is a pale imitation Theatre, therefore, is an imitation of an imitation Theater is bad
Terrence in 10th century
Plays of plautus and terence survived, were copied and rewritten, and were used to teach latin in medieval europe
Elements of tragedy (in order of importance)
Plot (arrangement of events) Character (the agents) Thought (theme) Diction (language) Music (what the audience hears) Spectacle (what the audience sees)
Shakuntala by Kalidasa
Prob 4th century BC Based on love story from the Mahabharata About a hermit's daughter, Shakuntala, a king, Dushyant, and a short-tempered sage, durvasa - Bad bc Indian caste system - Demons attack the hermits *Demon killing son of a bitch - Terrible acting - Foreshadowing - gives ring to girl then goes to fight demons - Sage = certain amount of respect; durvasa cursed her out SHIT ton of plot How is this play different from greek tragedy? - Happy ending (love wins!) - Women are on stage - Its BIG
Catharsis
Purgation (purification of someone or something) of emotions (pity and fear) through watching dramatic action Examples: Carrie, the notebook, lego? Violent video games: Aristotle: play then leave in the past Plato: it will make you do it in real life
Clergy to commoner
Quem Quaeritis, as part of easter rites, expands Clergy being using theatricality (largely pantomime) for other holy days (Feast of Corpus Christi various saint days, christmas) Pope Innocent III (left) has enough - bans clergy from theatrical performance in 1220
Twelfth Night! This is a play about loneliness. Some characters have a happy ending - many do not. Which of the following characters has love and a partner at the end of the play?
Sebastian
Twelfth Night! This is a play about excess, both emotional and physical. Which of the following is NOT an example of that?
Sebastian's comic over-eating at the feast. (Things that do happen: -Orsino's self-indulgent melancholy - Olivia's self-indulgent grief. - Sir Toby Belch's drunken revels.)
Twelfth Night! This is a play about love. Which of the following is NOT something that happens in the play?
Sir Andrew Aguecheek falls in love with Lucinda. (Things that do happen: - Olivia falls in love with Viola, and ends up marrying Sebastian. - Orsino, Malvolio, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek are all trying to woo Olivia. - Orsino begins the play in love with Olivia and ends the play in love with Viola)
Which famous Greek is NOT mentioned or shown in this video?
Sophocles (People who are mentioned: - Homer - Aristotle - Solon)
Waiting for Godot, San Quentin Prison, 1957
Take it to the prison (obvi) They loved it sm Boredom, killing time, cracking jokes, maybe our lives will get better but probs not "Just like jazz," Blau said, "one must listen for whatever they may find. It is the same with Godot. For each there will be...
Gustav Freytag
Takes Aristotelian ideas of narrative structure, simplifies them, codifies them - well, geometric Ugly purpose - useful tool A nationalist project - he believed (pure-blooded, Protestant) Germans are the true inheritors of classical greatness
Christopher plummer
Terrible movie - worst ending in history "Halt the flow of time" like WHAT
One of the writers suggests that beginning playwrights should "hold their nerve," and not try to mirror which aspect of film and television?
The rapid edit
Sanctity of Text Shakespeare
The text is not meant to be kept in a glass case Not the greatest writer Yes he actually wrote his plays Not old english
One writer talks about his work as "texts for other artists;" another discusses the importance of "room for play." By this, they are stressing that:
Theater is collaborative
Which aspect of Greek culture does this video NOT show?
Theatre (Things that do happen: - Architecture - Politics - Military)
Theater is live
Theatre takes place in flesh ;) Theres live, living people ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN....LITERALLY ANYTHING - A DOG COULD RUN ON STAGE Video: - Break character - Bollocks - Long applause - Not exactly "theater" Monty python changed the world Unscripted but audience knows what they are getting in to Ceci n'est pas une pipe -- - It's a picture of a pipe not a pipe - Art is about choices - CoNsTruCtiVE rEaLiTy
If this theatre is in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine, madness, ecstasy, and chaos, why are plays so structured?
This is a competition
"Dulcitius"
Three christian sisters (Agape, chironia, and irena) are captured by the Romans They do nott repent their faith Dulcitius attempts to ravish them, but God muddles his mind The two women are partyred (two by fire, one by arrows), dignity and virginity intact - a happy ending
Quem Quaeritis
Three marys - they are all different in diff religions
Reversal and recognition
To Aristotle, the BEST plots have a moment of REVERSAL and RECOGNITION The plot reverses - a great man is brought low And he RECOGNIZES what has happened In the best tragedies, these moments happen simultaneously
White face queen? Queen Elizabeth?
Transcendence, spirituality Existential crisis - Which is the justice and which is the theme - Actual king vs king in a play
Video: The chester Noah play
Verse (rhyming) is good to listen to and good for amaetur actors About the dimensions of the ship
In japan they act out
Video Games
The audience
Video of soccer games 1st video audience is signing 2nd video no one is there Theater needs an audience for the act of artistic compilation????
Caging skies: won the Oscars
Violence Nazis
Nuns back then:
Women of wealth In the middle ages the priest delivers the story
Waiting for Godot
Written by Samuel Beckett, Irishman, in french (1953); first staged in London (1955), premieres in America 1956 with Bert Lahr (lion from wizard of oz) and Tom Ewell (plaid alongside Marilyn Monroe) - ...At the Coconut Grove, Miami (they didn't want to go to the show because they were drinking at the bar... relatable) - Where it's billed as "the laugh sensation of two continents!" - Catastrophe
Aristotle
Wrote a book on theater Plato was his teacher Mankind has a propensity for, and derives enjoyment from, imitation Imitation is an effective tool pedagogically and it also, when used properly, provides CATHARSIS Theater is good!
Rules Shakespeare
You can always trust the text - 5-act structure - Prose - Lambic pentameter
Hrotsvitha adaptations reverse the misogyny of
roman comedy to give female christian martyrs agency, wit, and victory
Definition of theater
"A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching, and that is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged."
Greek Theology
"Count no man happy until he is dead" - Oedipus Oedipus - Toughest guy in the world, king of thieves - Marries his own mother, plucks his eyes out Superman - Changed over the years Hermes - "Yes man" vs thief/trickster in different cultures
Deus ex machina
"God from the machine" An unresolvable plot settled by divine intervention - onstage spectacle for the greeks, bad writing for us
Freytag's pyramid
- Exposition - Inciting incident *sets story into motion - rising action - climax - falling action - resolution
4 elements of theatre
1. Theater is live 2. Theater is ephemeral (major part of theatre, separates theatre from film) 3. Theater is a SYNTHESIS of other art forms 4. Theater is collaborative
Festival of Dionysus (City Dionysia)
500 BCE-ish, probably, tot 300BCE-ish (probably) Religious/national/cultural/commercial festival Centered on theatrical competition 3 days - each day had a trilogy of 3 plays (tragedies) followed by a short comedy (satyr play) Of the thousand - plus plays written for the competition, only 33 now exist Start of sailing season - sailing time is everything
