Quiz 4 THR 205
The Pioneer
The most famous system of training performers to act realistically • That is believable • Developed by Konstantin Stanislavski - Co founder of Moscow - The Stanislavski Technique - Relaxation - Concentration and Observation - Importance of Specifics - Inner Truth - What? Why? How? - Through Line of a Role - Ensemble Playing
• Federal Theatre Project
WPA-Workers Progress Administration o Had a depression • Someone wanted to solve it by putting people to work o People were put to work in the arts
• Stonewall riot
Where gay people hung out in Greewhich village and one point the tried to arrest the people there and a riot broke out this was a part of gay theatre emerging
Psychophysical action
You never write down the emotion but you write down what you are trying to get at. Its about making yourself believe that this is happening
The Public Theatre
a series of theatre spaces in a converted library
Ellen Stewart
• La Mama o Off Broadway Theatre • In response to commercial theatre
• Naturalistic Drama
- movement in European drama and theatre that developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. -It refers to theatre that attempts to create an illusion of reality through a range of dramatic and theatrical strategies. • Movement did not last long ;Did not get produced as much
Musical Theatre
Americas greatest contribution to theatre
Departures from realism by Hugo Von Hofabbsthal
Broke away from realism o German o Short plays o Reworked classical pieces like • Everyman
What is Realism?
Convince the audience that the stage action represented everyday life. • Subject matter o Taboos subjects dramatized • Unhappy marriages • Sexual double standards • Economic injustice • Venereal diseases • Religious hypocrisy
Edward Gordon Craig
Designer • Wanted to free the dependence on realism • As well as o Lit. o The actor • Do this to create uniform art o With light as the key element o Under the control of one person • Master director o Regisseur • Did not believe in the actor as a star • The best performer is Ubermartonette or o Superpuppet
Adolphe Appia
Designer • Lighting • Scene changes • Striking effects • Moving away from the realistic box set • Theory of antirealist staging • Symbolic sets would work with the actor • Advocated for multidirectional colored lighting to paint the stage and move in harmony with the production • Wrote • Music and the Art of Theatre • The Work of Living Art
oBiomechanics
Emphasized external physical training and performance styles and suggested that the actors body could be trained to operate like a machine • Through physical action a performer could evoke desired internal responses in themselves and their audience
Konstantin Stanislavski and psychophysical action
Emphasized the inner aspects of training - Various ways of getting in touch with the performers unconscious
David Vernoese
Fuerza Bruta (play)
Founding of realism
Great advances in psychology
A Dolls House
Ibsen's Realism Used well made play structure • Struggles with her husband seeking to be independent • About upper middle class marriages • Women are unhappy in the marriage • People did not talk about this at this time but it happened and this play addressed it • Economic injustice;Sexual double standards ;Unhappy marriages ;Women's role in marriage ;Unequal treatment of women inside and outside the home
Theatre Libre
Independent theatre • Paris • By Andre Antonie • Showed Naturalism and realism • Stage—Box sets—-Fourth wall he wanted used • Motivated lighting o House lights on the center of the stage • Argued the star system from Sarah Bernhardt and constant bento coquline • Organized companies of amateur actors • Used ensemble acting o Ensemble theatre
Who i know for The Public Theatre
Joseph Papp
Regisseur
Master Director/ Master artist who would create all theatre elements ; fuse the theatrical elements and that the designer was an interpretive artist brining the authors work to life and providing a functional environment for the actors
Moscow Art Theatre
Most dedicated to realism • Konstantin Stanislavski • Vladimir Nemiroch-Danchenko • The style was influenced by the duke of Saxe Meiningen
Stephen Sondheim
Most important figure in musical theatre This lyricist and composer is known for wanting to make the audience work hard, particularly with the use of subtext in the songs: American musical composer and lyricist who is critically regarded as possibly the most important figure in American musical theatre of the past 4 decades; music combines complicated lyrics, ingenious characters, intriguing subject matters, and complex music West Side Story
Best known Epic Theatre Production
Mother Courage and her Children page 380
Joesph Papp-
Off broadway producer • Public Theatre New York Shakespeare Festival Casted roles without regarding race Hair- did this as an off broadway production Even ran the Lincoln theatre Center
• August Wilson
One of the greatest American playwrights o Wrote a ten play cycle about African American life in the us o Fences o Evokes African American experience His argument.... • In order to know who you are now you must know who you were in the past
Howie Flanagan
She did a project called the living news paper and took the news and put it into theatre
What were the names of the independent theatre
Theatre Libre Freie Buhne The independent theatre
o Waiting for Godot
This was a play that provoked people
o Regional theatre
all over the country and vary in size
Freie Buhne
independent theatre • Free stages ---theatre • In berlin • Wanted to intordoced relasim and naturalism • Noted for doing the plays of famous german playwright Isben • Operated by a board of directors • Otta Brahm as its chairman • Atonie was the dictatorial director • Employeed profressional actors • Could only perform on Sundays
o Lugigi Pirandello
italy • Characters engage in philosophical debates questioning for example the relationship between appearance and reality • Highly theatrical devices • Imaginative way • Broke bounds of traditional dramatic construction to call attention to the work itself • Six Characters in Search of An Author • Six fictional characters abandoned by an author appear at rehearsal and demand that there story be presented • Juxtaposition of real actors and imaginary characters gives the rise to many philosophical and aesthetic issues including the appearance of reality the relativity of truth and the role of fictions • Ran his own theatre o Tearto de Arte o Touring his productions in Europe and America
• Lehrstucke
learning pieces
• Selective realism
o A typed of realism that heighten certain details of action, scenery , and dialogue without omitting others
Designers
o Adolphe Appia o Edward Gordon Craig
Anna Devers Smith
o African American o Reflects back on society in some performances o Twilight o Fires in The Mirror
Symbolism
o Antirealist movement o French were its major proponents o This type of drama was part of deliberate reaction against the realistic theatre of the 19th century and was influence by the philosopher Nierzsche o The well made paly because a predominate in so much theatre of the time • Relied on suspenseful, complex plots, with recognizable action and with characters who strongly resembled people in everyday life o Used revelation and depiction of inner life • Differed away from realism o Had no plaot action
• Paula Vogel
o Baltimore Waltz
• Anouhil
o Classical source • Antigone • BEST KNOWN PLAY • Reworked classical Greek plays that spoke to the situation in Nazi occupied France
• Theatre of the Absurd
o Combined existential philosophy with revolutionary avant-garde dramatic form o Belief that much of what happens in life can not be explained logically • It is ridiculous or absurd • Dramatic action of plays • Presents human existence • Relationships and language as futile and absurd • Illogical tech used to reinforce this theme • Plots do not have traditional climax or episodic structure • Nothing seems to happen because plots move in a circle and concluding the same way they being • Characters are not realistic • Little info given about them or exposed about them Setting is strange • Unrecognizable locales • Ostensibly realist world that suddenly becomes toppsy turvy • Language is telegraphic or sparse o Dialogue makes little sense o Characters fail to communicate o Dullness of routine o Futility of human actions o Inability of humans to communicate o Plots, language and characters seem absurd o Captures the ridicules aspects of life in a dramatic form o Waiting for Godot
• Sarah Ruhl
o Contemporary playwright o The Vibrator Play o Feminist theatre companies
• Surrealism
o Emerged out the dada movement o Using concepts that are far fetch but are still able to be grasped? o Pushing things to a point but does not step over the line-it could happen, but the chances are slim o Dream world mixing recognizable events with fantastic happenings o Parade
• Maria Irene Forneso
o Fefu and Her Friends unconventional in structure, dialogue and staging g fundamentally symbolic brutality and slapstick
David Mamet
o First playwright to pick up American swearing and put it into a play and make it sound like heightened language o Repetition and swearing
• Laurence Oliver
o First really great actor to bring Shakespeare to the screen • Spoke directly to the audience o Break through acting for his time • What he did was fresh new and different o English speaking actor o Acclaimed in Shakespearean and modern roles o Deep passion in comedy o Intelligent o Discipline o Was head of the National Theatre o Knighted o Appeared in movie roles o Wrote • Confessions of an Actor • On Acting
• Motivated lighting
o Illumination of the stage picture that seems to come from actual onstage sources such as a table lamp
• Josef Svoboda
o Kinetics o Laterna magika • Experiments the members of his company and some other people took part together in ritual of daily life to rediscover the origins of theatre
• John Gielgud
o Knighted o All over the place in film o Excellent speaking voice o Wrote • Early Stages and Stage Directions (not lpays books)
• Charles Ludlam
o Know for his ridiculous theatrical company o Take well know stories or movies and put them into a performance o Played women but didn't play them in drag
Expressionism
o Movement that was no confide solely to theatre • This movement did not last long ;15 years; not pop but connected to other art movements • A lot of disagreement ;So many ideas going on; Cant even be solid arguments • It is not for an audience it is more self satisfying • If you are trying to express your internal state it may look crazy, because not everyone will agree on. Visually will see these internal states differently o Representations of reality is distorted to communicate inner feelings • Well defined characteristics, Highly subjective, the dramatic action is often seen through the eyes of the protagonist ,seems dreamlike and distorted ,Opposed to society and the family • Protagonist is a typical expressionist play journey through a series of incidents that usually are not related • Station plays; A term that refers to the stations of the cross and this emphasized parallels between the protagonist and Christ • Characters: Man Women Clerk (Rather then names) • Language is telegraphic o Speeches consisting of one or two lines (Short speeches are alternated with)
• Epic Theatre
o Political and mean to instigate social change
Giraudoux
o Primacy of the world o Language was usually eloquent as well as witty o Stressed contractions o Ironies o Anthesese • in working out the themes of his play (all those elements)
ensemble acting
o Requires balanced casting and integration of all performance and it never allows a star to overshadow supporting players
• Ralph Richardson
o Reveal the strong but somewhat hidden passion of ordinary men o Good a frightened or baffling emotions then suddenly surface o Knighted
Departures from realism by Weekend
o Spring Awakening • Adolescent sexuality
Independent theatres
o Stage these plays because they were organized as subscription companies o Not striving for commercial access • Wanted to present new dramatic forms to the small audiences who were interested in them
• Native American Theatre
o Started because if the federal theatre projec
• Asian American theatre
o Started because if the federal theatre project
• Cuban American Theatre
o Started with the federal theatre project
Sam Shepard
o Started working at La Mama o Tragic downfalls in characters o Was a great American playwright o Prolific
Departure from Realism August Strindberg
o Symbolism o Several plays dealt with events in Swedish history o Wrote Inferno his autobiography o Him and Isben hated each other o Miss Julie • Young wealthy women • She has sex with a servant in the house • It is not cleat in script whether he raped her or not, could have been consensual • About the longest summer day • They drink all night long • The sun never sets on this day o Conservative about women , women should stay in her
Augusto Boal
o Theatre of the oppressed o Did theatre for people living in theatre and the prison population o His exercises were very influential o People in all walks of life can be engaged and communication through theatre and their value Marxist point of view
Robert Wilson
o Total theatre---believed in this o You're a puppet o You do exactly what he says o Great American theatre practitionist
• Eugene Ionesesco
o Turned characters into caricatures o Pushed dramatic action to the point of ridiculous o Concerned with futility of communication • Language was nonsensical
Anne Bogart
o Viewpoint o Highly vocal and physical techniques -director and playwright; collaborative works; artistic director of Trinity Repertory Company; co-artistic director/co-founded of Saratoga International Theatre Institute (SITI) with Suzuki; created viewpoints based on ideas from Merce Cunningham and Jerzy Grotowsk: space, time, shape, movement, story, emotion; wrote Bobrauschenbergamerica
• Theatre of Cruelty
o Who was a big part of • Antonin Artaud • Believed that western theatre needed to be totally transformed and that its literal tradition which emphasized language was antithetical to its ritualistic origins and that western theatre artist should study stylized Asian theatres o Wanted to bring back to the origins • This time in theatre was about shocking and changing what you expect this what he wanted to wanted to shake people out the idea that language was the most important thing o Bombarding the viewers senses
• Edward Ablee
o Worked with absurdist writers o Practiced own brand of selective realism o The Zoo Story o Several one act plays • The Death of Bessie Smith • The Sandbox • The American Dream o Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf o Symbolism o The "child" in the play proved to be imaginary o Plays mixed realism, mysticism and symbolism • Creating obliqueness and obscurity • That puzzled some and pleased others o Strong works included • Three Tall women • The Play about Baby
• Amiri Baraka
o Wrote game changing plays o Dutchman • About a white women on the subway taunting a black man who is educated and she taunts him into assaulting him.
Oklahoma
pop musical brought Rodgers and Hammerstein together for the first time heralded the golden age of the American book musical included a famous ballet sequence
Vefremdung
the alienation effect • Did this so that • If I go to the theatre see a play and a baby dies, and I cry, you have feelings. I go home and say I saw a sad play but if I go see a play and a baby does and understand that it happened because someone denied them health care to women of color, but because of the way it is present episodically and clinically you don't have a chance to weep. The political situation caused you to have a clear head so you understood why it happened • This allowed for people to have no sentimental o People do not have this luxury
Laterna Magika
• A complex integrations of performers and project images
Antirealist Directors- Vsevelod Emilievich Meyerhold
• Acting system known as o Biomechanics • Had his performers use extreme physicalizations to represent emotional states • Later to moved to more natural physicalizations
Regional Theatre
• Began in the 70s • Movement • First time we had a centralized art funding source • A permanent professional theatre
Lorranie Hansberry
• Best know black female writer • Raisin in The Sun
Eclectics
• Bridge the gap btw realism and anti realism • They were knows were not doctrinaire in their practices arguing instead that each play should define its own form
o Mikhail Chekhov
• Created psychological gesture • Performers could create realistic stage portrayal by finding physical characteristics for a role that would then trigger an internal response • External to internal
The independent theatre
• English • Jacob Thomas Grein • Run similar to the Freie Buhne • Hired professional actors • Leased professional theatres • Performed on Sundays • Organized as a subscription company to circumvent censorship by lord chamberlains •
Associated with Bertol Brecht
• Epic Theatre
o Ensemble theatre
• Everything and everyone acting and working together
o Author Miller
• Focused on • Failure • Guilt • Responsibility for ones own actions • And the effect of society on an individual • Tried to make us exam our own lives • Well made problem plays The crucible
o Jerzy Grotowski
• His starting point was I'm going train the actors and tell the story • Answered the question what is theatre o It is the actor and the audience
o Futurist
• Idealized war and the developing machine age • Came out of ta country {artist who weren't in the middle of war or in the industrial age} hat had very little connection to the machine age. Idealized war because they are no participating • Very short life-did not last long
George Bernard Shaw
• Irish playwright • Epic stage directions • Pol. and soc. reform • Was prolithic • Took social problems and philosophical concepts • Witty • Engaging comedies with lively dialogue and unusual well drawn characters • Characterized as realistic comedies of manners • Best known o Caeser and Cleopatra o Major Barbara o Man and Superman o My fair Lady (musical )
Visual elements in realistic theatre
• Make sure everything was similar to everyday life • Costumes and sets o Corresponded to what the audience observed in their own lives o Clothing was duplicated that of real people from that same social class and or occupation o Lighting in a would not seem t come from spotlight or flood light but from a lamp on a table o Of the sun coming in from a window
Peter Brook
• More concerned with the process of theatre o That is how things are done-than with the product or end result • Work reflects influence of Grotowskis innovations • Wrote o The Shifting Point: Forty Years of Theatrical Exploration • Prodigious • Elects Tried to avoid commercial theater
o Nilo Cruz
• One a noble prize for Anna in the Tropics cuban american theatre
• Existentialism
• Philosophy most clearly articulated by two Frenchmen named Jean Paul and Albert Camus • Believe that there is little meaning to existence and that god does not exist and that humanity is therefore alone in an irrational universe. • The only significant action an individual can take is to accept responsibility for his or her own deeds. • Obvious impact of the World War • Plots are based on traditional cause and effect logic • The characters are recognizable Fully developed human beings
o Kinetics
• Plays exist only in a performance its setting must be dynamic, changing though out the performance according to the demands of the text
Henrik Ibsen
• Playwright • Psychologist • Realistic • Dramatic tech • Started in realism and then moved towards symbolism • Believes in bring people back from the dead. • Strindberge and him were rivals/hated eachother • He felt drama should tackle subjects that have been taboo in theatre; sexual double standard, injust, economics, convince people in the audience that the stage action in his drams represented everyday life • A Doll's House
o Dada
• Was a reaction to WWI • Mirrored to madness of the world • Things were to insane to comprehend so they wanted to create art that was to insane to comprehend • Tried to confused and antagonism the audience • Make you truly uncomfortable o However eventually turned this was not always like this
Off Broadway
• Was a response to commercial theatre
Poor theatre
• Which developed while working with his polish laboratory theatre was an attempt to answer the endless debated question "what is theatre" • Is stemmed rom his belief that there are only two essentials for the theatres o The actor o The audience • Script and scenery and other elements were considered less important • To intensify the actor and audience relationship he experimented with various spatial arrangements that would intertwine performers and spectators though he did to advocate eliminating the barriers that separates them they plays he produced were reduced to their essentials ideas and they were cut rearranged or rewritten to serve his purpose • The actors the core of his productions was trained so that nearly every muscle of the body would be under complete control and could moved at will • Paratheatrical
Anton Pavloich Chekhov
• Wrote short farces • Got denied by Moscow o They included Ivanov-Two one act comedies o The Bear and The marriage proposal • Early works showed interest in ordinary incidents of middle class ordinary life and in the outside forces that change peoples lives • In farces was able to draw character swiftly and insightfully and to intertwine comedy and tragedy • Plays had variety of themes o Which developed through many characters and images • The Sea Gull o Indirect action o Character development to create tension • Realism and modern tragicomedy • Realistic Acting - The Pioneer: Konstantin Sergeivich
o Frederico Garcia Lorca
•Spain • Many of his productions are folk and have a strong female protagonist who desires are thwarted by oppressive circumstance in their lives • Tragic trilogy • Blood Wedding • Yerma • The House of Bernarda Alba
• The best performer is Ubermartonette or Superpuppet
•Would allow the director to control the performance totally
