Seven Ages of Western Drama

• Theatre, like other art forms, is a product of culture, shaped by society and time
• Drama and theatre reflect the prevailing attitudes and conventions of a society within a specific historical period

Seven Ages of Western Drama

• Classical/Ancient Drama: Greece and Rome
• Medieval Drama/Middle Ages: The Dark Ages and Church Drama
• Renaissance/Rebirth: France, Italy, England
• Modernism: Realism, Expressionism, Nihilism, Existentialism, Absurdism
• Postmodernism: Media, filmic, and director's theatre

Golden Age of Greece

• Western civilization began with the celebration of religious festivals
• Greek gods determined the fate of man
• The Greeks valued reason, thought, knowledge, and wisdom, and they loved play
• Drama contests offered healthy competition, participation, action, and discipline
• Artistry was basic to Greek life

City Dionysia

• A key part of Greek culture was the City Dionysia, held every spring to unite church and state
• The celebration was planned by the government and presided over by Dionysus
• It was a competition for actors and playwrights in Greece
• The festival included heavy drinking and singing of the dithyramb, a hymn celebrating Dionysus
• A goat was sacrificed, giving rise to the term "tragedy" from "tragos ode" (goat song)
• Over time, performances shifted from praising Dionysus to featuring Greek heroes
• Thespis, in 534 BC, became the first solo performer to converse with the chorus, thus becoming the first actor
• Aeschylus and Sophocles introduced the 2nd and 3rd actors
• Women were not allowed to perform, and actors wore masks
• The competition was intense, like the Olympics
• Performances were highly respected, even exempting actors from war

Roman Theatre

• Theatre was influenced less by religion and more by recreation
• By the 3rd century BC, Rome's power extended across Africa, Asia, and Europe
• Rome conquered Greece in 146 BC, leading to the destruction of Greek art treasures
• The Romans emulated Greek drama, adapting it to their tastes
• Drama declined greatly during the Roman Empire; Seneca was the only notable tragedian
• Plautus was the only surviving playwright of comedy
• Theater involved mimes, short comic farces, circuses, acrobatics, dancing, and mock sea battles
• Orchestras were flooded, and the theatre became corrupt and violent
• Christian women were raped, and Christian men were torn apart by animals
• Christians saw the theatre as crude, foul, and pagan

Theatre of the Middle Ages/Dark Ages

• By 400 AD, barbaric tribes such as the Teutons, Vandals, and Visigoths looted the Roman Empire
• 476 AD marked the end of the Roman Empire and ancient history
• Civilization, reason, knowledge, wisdom, and theatre disappeared
• The world was engulfed in total darkness for centuries
• Europe was divided into feudal kingdoms
• Serfs were ruled by feudal lords
• The church controlled knowledge and understanding in Latin
• Life offered no hope, joy, or pleasure

Church Theatre

• Theatre was banned and outlawed by the church
• Around 965 AD, Bishop Winchester sparked a revival of theatre within the church
• Performances were used to enhance religious programs and activities
• Women were not allowed to perform
• Early church dramas, or tropes, were performed by priests
• Later, townspeople and guilds participated in "cycle" plays, which involved 300 or more performers that created community events
• Performers were amateurs dedicated to God and community

Medieval Plays Types

• Mystery plays cycles: Biblical subjects in short plays contributing to a larger story
• Miracle plays: Religious subjects in short plays contributing to a larger story
• Morality plays: Allegorical characters, anonymous writers
• Farces: Secular, ridicule of man's behavior
• Interludes- Performed by itinerant groups at feudal castles and banquets, forming a direct link to the Elizabethan period

Renaissance Theatre

• The Renaissance was a movement in the 14th and 17th centuries, marking a departure from the medieval period
• It was considered the rebirth of classical culture and learning
• Key aspects included the revival of classical knowledge, humanism, individualism, advancement in art, architecture, science, technology, and the development of new art forms
• Notable figures include Shakespeare, Moliere, Galileo, Machiavelli, and da Vinci

Renaissance Theatre - Italy

• The Italian Renaissance manifested itself in a love of beauty, inventions, and a return to classical knowledge such as the Commedia dell'arte
• Florence was the center of Renaissance culture, led by aristocrats in small academies
• The first building to include a proscenium arch
• Opera was created in Florence in 1594, reinventing Greek tragedy with music, dance, and chorus
• The Teatro Olimpico, built in 1585 in Vicenza, was the first major Renaissance theatre, based on misinterpretations of Greco-Roman structures
• Perspective painting on canvas backdrops was invented for opera
• Elaborate devices replaced manual methods for stage effects

Renaissance Theatre - England

• The 15th century was an age of change
• Guttenberg invented the printing machine in 1440
• Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, moving learning back to Europe
• Columbus landed in America in 1492
• Vasco Dagama discovered an all-water route to India in 1498
• Advanced weaponry and the compass led to the Renaissance
• There was a shift from the Roman Catholic Church to personal morality
• Elizabeth ascended the English throne in 1558
• She ruled for 45 years and established England as a world power

Elizabethan Theatre

• Churches became increasingly secular, evolving into English drama such as Elizabethan
• Elizabethan audiences enjoyed great pageantry, humor, wordplay and action
• Drama encompassed the entire Bible story and involved large casts
• The theatre flourished during Elizabeth's reign due to a sense of world power, national pride and prosperity
• Secular theatre became a national emblem
• Elizabeth forbade religious and political doctrine in drama in 1559
• The English secularized medieval tradition rather than emulating Greek and Roman models
• Elizabeth loved theatre but maintained control by creating the office of master of revels in 1576, who licensed plays and acting companies
• No company could exist without noble patronage
• James Burbage built the first dedicated playhouse
• Actors trained as apprentices without schools
• Performances needed to be realistic
• During Elizabeth's reign, theatre became a business

Elizabethan Theatre Unique points

• Young boys played women roles
• One of the greatest periods in theatre history.
• Plays offer testimony of the freedom fluidity, energy, pace, and dynamism
• Produced William Shakespeare.

Restoration and 18th Century Theatre

• Restoration refers to 1660, when Charles II was restored to the throne after 11 years of puritan General Oliver Cromwell
• Public stage performances, banned for 18 years by the puritans, were reopened
• Theatre and Drama was suppressed by the puritans
• Charles admired French entertainment and issued patents to leading playwrights
• Professional female actresses emerged for the first time
• Scripts reflected the aristocracy of King Charles II
• Restoration drama satirized everything and glorified in lewd statements
• Audiences included aristocrats, servants, and the middle class
• Female playwright Aphra Behn appeared
• Charles II was a patron of drama, granting exclusive staging rights to the Kings company and Dukes company
• Theaters were built on Drury Lane and Dorset Gardens
• Restoration dramatists adopted the comedy of manners
• The theatre became equipped with a proscenium arch.
• Dramatists removed all prior restraints to their works

The Restoration

• Restoration drama encouraged explicit language and comedy of manners
• Plays featured unfaithful wives, cuckold husbands, and tricky lovers
• A trend was reinterpreting older plays as semi-operas, most often works by Shakespeare
• Davenant sought to share appreciation through recasting and revising his works
• Women began to appear on stage
• Inappropriate and vulgar references led to the decline of Restoration Drama
• Playwrights include William Congreve, George Farquhar, and William Wycherley
• The Duke's theatre, designed by Christopher Wren, was built on the Thames River

The popular Italian Renaissance

• If Italian Renaissance represented all that was free creative and energetic, French drama of the Renaissance represented all that was ordered and controlled.
• England merely decided to follow and secularize their own medieval tradition rather than emulate Greek and Roman Models.
• Elizabeth loved the theatre but was unwilling to spend money on it and she had an iron control over it. in 1576 she created the office of master of revels
• Whose duty was to read all plays and license all acting companies. No company was permitted to exist without noble patronage.

France: Renaissance Controlled

• The French drama of the Renaissance represented all that was ordered and controlled due to war, monopoly, and government restrictions
• 1346-1450 France war engulfed in battles for over 100 years
• Civil religious war between Protestants and Catholics tore France apart
• A monopoly (confrerie de la passion) exclusively presented plays in Paris for 100 years
• Cardinal Richelieu, controller of France from 1624 to 1642, wrote plays and established the Academie francaise to maintain literary standards
• The French rules for drama were established, especially tragedies and writers were humiliated
• Resulted in the misinterpretation of Aristotle
• The Academic Francaise imposed rules which stifled French theatre:
  • Unifier of place times and action (must develop within one day)
  • The setting must be single and pure
  • No sub plots and no deviation
  • No extreme subject matter
  • Five act structure and plays must be written in Alexandrine verse
• Only jean Baptiste.Poquelin was a notable playwright

Modern Theatre: Experimentation and individual expression

• The Industrial Revolution of the 19th century changed theatre
• Gas lightning was introduced in 1817 in London's Drury Lane Theatre, and electrical lightning later appeared
• Elaborate mechanisms for scenery were developed: including tly lofts, elevators and revolving stages
• The advance in set designs lead to a theatre style which emphasized action and spectacle and not acting (melodrama)
• Music use to increase emotions or to signify characters
• Actors relied greatly on gesturer and body movements
• The villain poses a threat, the hero or heroine escapes and has a happy ending
• Realism was to bring a slice of life on stage
• As if the audience was watching through a "fourth wall", spying on these living characters
• Famous figures were Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw and Anton Chekhov

Realism theatre

• The greatest practitioner of realism in theatre was Konstantin Stanislavski
• His serious and realistic drama challenged actors to learn a new method of acting
• Stanislavski paid detailed attention to realism in terms of costume and stage
• invented "psychological realism", which warranted actors to enter into the world of the characters they played
• Stanislavski's method is still greatly used today

During the 20th century

• The world changed forever. With the advancement of science and industrialization it was relatively easier to spread news and information
• Hitler's declaration of war on the world marked the beginning of the second world war of 1939-1945
• 6 million Jews were exterminated and a devastating bomb
• The atomic bomb was dropped in Hiroshima towards the end of the war and changed the face of the world and the course of human history forever
• Man lost any hope in the redemption of humanity -Man lost hope in religion and the existence of a benign and loving God .Existentialism, nihilism, Absurdism took over Centre stage

Absurdism

• Belief that the human being exist in a purposeless chaotic universe manifested in theatre of the absurd
• The absurdist theatre are a set of play written in the mid-20th century in line with the tradition of the absurd which posits that life has no inherent meaning
• The plays shared nonsense dialogue, repetitive or meaningless action and nonrealistic or impossible plots
• The absurdist theatre was very experimental rejecting the formal principles of classical convention theatre,morality.order and descending
• Denying completely the existence of any God or gods, the Cosmo or the supernatural
• In an asburdist play time and settings where generally ambiguous

Modernist theatre includes experimentations

• The theatre of cruelly by Antonin Artaud
• The epic theatre by Bertolt Brecht poor
• New theatre by Jerzy Growtoski
• The theatre of the oppressed by Augosto Boa

The new cruelty theatre

• Developed by Antonin Artaud, seeks to communicate to its audience a sense of pain, suffering and evil, using lighting gesture, movement sound and symbolism.
• The audience senses are constantly stressed and engaged.

Epic Theatre

• Presents loosely connected scenes with didactics.
• For audience to make well informed judgment.

The Poor theatre

• Most important experiment theatre of the modernist era that adopted Artaud's teachings, was in Poland. polish laboratory theatre of Jerzy Growtoski.

Post Modern Theatre

• A movement that developed in the mid-20th century across various fields
• Characterized by a questioning of extant narratives, rejection of universal truths and an embrace of subjectivism, diversity,fragmentation, freedom, irony
• Continues to challenge authority and tradition and the notion of objective truth
• Celebrates ambiguity and uncertainty and diversity and aberrations, irony and parody
• Changed by universal culture: Trends like digitalization, film, television cinema, internet, the social media, great strides and advancement in science and technology
• The world has become a global village, causing significant change and influence across the globe

Modern Theatre Influence in the Arts

• Technological gadgets have changed the world including the Arts
• Consumption of entertainment, in the theatres, it is brought to you in the comfort of your home
• Postmodernism has hampered and retarded the growth and development of the theatre
• The stage is traveling to oblivion
• The theatre culture slowly traveling traveling to obscurity
• In addition from the new in the modern era, post modern theatre, the new theatre is greatly influenced by technology.
• Advanced technology has been integrated into theatre, scenic designer, lighting, sound effects, costumes, stage effects, stunts
• Films, slides and projectors have been integrated into the theatre
• The modern theatre is dominated but not by actors and playwrights but by directors
• Is the director's theatre, Exceptional and distinctive directors (like Peter Brooks) who brought extraordinary visions.
• Directors are regarded as the god of the theatre bringing new innovations
• Manipulated theatre resources like text, lighting, music, choreography and presentationalism.