Intro to Theatre and Drama.docx

[Intro to Theatre and Drama ] [Week 2] - Greek Drama (534 B.C.E) (1st theatre recorded) - Athens: 'polis'= City-State - Art / Literature / Democracy - Peisistratus (dominated Athens from 560-510) - Improved social conditions - Promoted art...

[Intro to Theatre and Drama ] [Week 2] - Greek Drama (534 B.C.E) (1st theatre recorded) - Athens: 'polis'= City-State - Art / Literature / Democracy - Peisistratus (dominated Athens from 560-510) - Improved social conditions - Promoted art - Established/ enlarged festivals - Example: City Dionysia (major home of drama) - Dithyramb - A form of dance and song - A chorus of 50 men - Highly stylised rhythmic group - Celebration of Dionysus - Dionysus and his followers - Son of Zeus and Semele - God of fertility and wine - Was reared, killed by satyrs - Dithyramb→ Drama - Thespis → the first actor - Left chorus and took the roll 'the god' → City Dionysia of 534 BCE - A thespian in English = an actor/actress - 2 important annual festival in honour of Dionysus - Purpose of the festival - Display the power of Athenian Society and create people's unity - Promote their cultural identity 1. The City of Dionysia (7 days) (late March to early April) - Celebration of fertility - Day 1: procession if statue of Dionysus from its temple - Eleutheris → back to Athens - The statue was set back in the theatre - Day 2: Dithyramb competition (10 chorus) - Day 3: Comic contest (introduced in 487 BCE) - 5 poets,1 play each - Day 4-6: Play competition - Each morning: 3 tragedies + 1 satyr play - Late afternoon: 1 comedy - Day 7: Closing ceremony + prize-giving - Responsibility of the Poet - Directing the production - Supervising the rehearsals - Choregus - Wealthy citizen sponsors - Privilege / honour 2. The Lenaia (late January): local festival where comedy merged - The theatre of Dionysus at Athens - Skene - Parodos - Orchestra - Altar - Thymele - Theatrons - Theatrical Devices - Ekkyklema (or Eccyclema) - A wheeled platform which was rolled out of the skene - To reveal a tableau (picture) of action that had taken place off stage - Deux ex Machina (floating machine) - A crane to show characters in flight of above the earth - Aeschylus (525-426 BCE) - Wrote 70-90 plays (7 survived) - Won 13 times 1st place - Reduced the chorus from 50 to 12 - Introduced second actor - Creates dialogue between first and second actor - Create interaction between characters - Sophocles (496-406 BCE) - Wrote 100-200 plays (7 survived) - Won 24 times 1st place - Increased the chorus size from 12 to 15 - Introduce third actor - Creating more interaction between the actor - Euripides (484-c. 406 BCE) - Wrote 90 plays (19 survived) - Won 4 times 1st place - Won again after death - Aristotle (384-322 BCE) - Wrote 2 critical plays: Rhetoric/Poetics - The Poetics → great influence on later school of criticism 1st part: Tragedy 2nd part: Comedy - Written 80 years after Oedipus of King - These playwrights use drama as a platform engage with contemporary political issues, challenge societal norms, and critique the actions of political leaders. [Week 3] - The stories of Greek Tragedy - The stories were almost exclusively taken from mythology - Oedipus of King - Written in 430-428 BCE - - Characters of the play - Oedipus (Main character) - Priest - Creon (Oedipus's wife brother) - Chorus - Teiresisa (blind) - Jocasta (mother and wife of Oedipus) - A messenger from Corinth - Shepherd - Attendant - Background of the play - Delphic Oracle - 'Oedipus would kill his father and marry his mother' - Riddle of the Sphinx - Ans: Human - Plague on Thebes - Oedipus' prosecution of Laius' murderer - The Fall of Oedipus - Oedipus's movement - From "ignorance" to "knowledge" - When he is "blind" to the truth, he has his sight; when he achieves full understanding, he blinds himself - Structure of tragedy - Prologue : the opening scene - Parodos : The entrance of the chorus - Episode : Development of the plot through action and dialogue between actors - Stasimon : the choral song at the end of each episode, comment of what happened and give hints - Exodos : The final action after the last stasimon - The Flow of the story - Prologue - The background is established - Oedipus learns about the plague and also that an oracle has said that the plague will end when the murderer of the former king is found - Parodos : - A chorus of elderly men who pray to the gods to end the plague - Episode 1: 1. Oedipus proclaims that he will find and punish the guilty person 2. The blind prophet Teiresias arrives and professed ignorance of past events 3. But when accused by Oedipus of conspiring with Creon against him, he hints that the guilty person is Oedipus himself 4. Oedipus is incensed (angry) at the suggestion - Stasimon: - The chorus asks who the murderer can be - Expressing the doubt that it is Oedipus who is the murder - Episode 2: 1. Creon defends himself against an angry Oedipus, who accuses him of a conspiracy with Teiresias 2. Jocasta enters to tell her husband to ignore the oracle; which has predicted that her first husband would be killed by his son, but he was killed by thieves at a crossroads 3. Oedipus, remembering that he has killed a man at a crossroads, begins to fear that he is the murderer, but he is reassured by Jocasta, who urges him to ignore his fears. - Stasimon 2: - The chorus: - Beginning to have doubt about Oedipus's innocence - Says that reverence for the gods is the best; prosperity leads to pride, which will be punished - Episode 3: 1. A messenger from Corinth announces that the king of Corinth is dead 2. Jocasta is jubilant (happy) → the oracle cannot be trusted. It had said that Oedipus would kill his father, but the father has died of natural causes 3. The messenger then reveals that Oedipus is not the son of the king of Corinth 4. Fearing the worst, Jocasta tries to persuade Oedipus to cease his search for the facts 5. When he will not, she rushes into the palace 6. Oedipus sends for a shepherd who knows the full story of his origins and forces him to tell it. Learning the truth, Oedipus then goes into the palace himself. - Stasimon 3: - The chorus says that all life is sorrowful - Bemoans the fall of Oedipus - Exodos (final episode): 1. A messenger from the palace describes how Jocasta has killed herself and Oedipus has put out his own eyes 2. The blind Oedipus reappears to recite his sad story, courageously accepts his fate and goes into exile. - 6 main elements of tragedy - Plot - Character - Thought - Diction - Song (music) - Spectacle (scenic effect) - Aristotle on Tragedy - "Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear affecting the proper purgation of these emotions (Poetics, Chapter 6) - Aim of Tragedy - To bring about 'Catharsis' of the spectator - Catharsis (purification) - To arouse in them sensation of pity and fear - To purge them of these emotions so that audience leave the theatre feeling cleansed and uplifted - Actors and Acting - All members were male - All actors wore mask - All actors played more than one role - if not in a single play, over the course of the trilogy and satyr play - Much of the dialogue was sung or delivered as recitative, and dance was part of many scenes - →Considerable emphasis on voice - The origin of Comedy - Not definite but began in Dionysian festival at Lenaia - Was called Komoidia - Meaning revel or merrymaking-song - Introduced to City Dionysia in 487 B.C.E. () - Comedies in Greece - Old Comedy \ - Hellenistic period (336-c.31 BCE) - Construction of new theatres emphasised - Theatrical production secularised - Focus shifted from the playwright to the actor - New comedy developed (64 new comedy were known) - New comedy - Menander (342-292 BCE) - The only surviving complete play Dyskolos (The Grouch) - Always adopted by Roman writers - Central theme: domestic affairs (love affairs) - In order to get tong ching - Stereotyped situation and dramatic devices are repeated - Stock characters - Old man - Young man - Slaves - Parasite - Braggart (boasting) soldier - Difference between New and old comedy (mid-term/ term end) - New comedy - domestic issue - Old comedy - political issue - Roman Comedy (new comedy)(Imitation of Greek Original/Adaptations from Menander) - History of Rome → Roughly 2 phases - The Republic (509-25 BC) - The Empire (27 BC- 476) - Regular drama was largely abandoned in favour of variety entertainment - Because of Roman temperament - Under the empire - The stage was taken over by minor dramatic forms such as mime, pantomime and other popular entertainment - Plautus (254-184 BCE) - Most popular of all Roman comic writers - Over 100 plays → 45 are now considered authentic - 20 plays survived - Focus on comedy - Dealt with domestic romance but not with contemporary political or social issues → like Greek New Comedy - Example: the Haunted House - Roman theatre building - Scene building - Stage - Orchestra - Seating area - Decline of theatre - The Romans persecuted the early Christians - The power of Christianity gradually increased → Persecution - Constantine made Christianity lawful in 313 - In 393, Theodosius made the profession of any other religion illegal - The church was to be a contributing factor in the decline of theatre during the later years of the Roman empire [Week 4 Theatre history in middle age] - Middle ages - Church dominated the world - Wants to people so Gladiator the killing of each other and killing of animals of having live sex nudity in a Bloodshed you name it in order to divert the attention to people it would do anything that\'s really attention getting - Bird's eye view of Mediaeval Era - 476​​ → The fall of the western empire - Church officially closed all the theatres - Mimes/Pantomimes became street performers - The middle age/ Medieval era - New form of drama emerged from monastery - New drama moved into churches/ cathedral - 1240 Drama was banned in churches - Religious drama moved into the streets - Mystery/ Miracle/ Morality Plays enjoyed by people - Gradually influence of mimes/pantomimes felt in comedy of the above play productions - Theatrical Activities after disintegration of the Roman Empire - No formal drama / Popular entertainment acrobats, dancers ,wrestlers, storytellers ballas-singers - The new form of drama emerged from the church services - Jesus's words at the last supper - Take this, all of you, and eat it; this is my body which will be given up for you - Take this, all of you, and drink from it; this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so thay sins may be forgiven - Do this in memory of me - The Eucharist → reenactment of the last supper - Assumes increasingly dramatic performance - Plot: the Last Supper - Cast: Jesus (priest), Disciples (church attendants) - Stage: the church - Theatre as vehicle of mystery - Appeal to people's senses - Bible (latin) - How people learn bible is through the mouth of priest - Make the invisible visible - Explain the inexplicable - Educate the uneducated - Development of liturgical drama - Liturgy : particular form of religious service - Tropes in latin: added music - By ninth century, extended musical passages, called 'Tropes" had been added to services (later lyrics were written for the passages) - The tropes were in most cases performed in monasteries (chanted in Latin to musical accompaniment) - The trope for Easter - "Quem quaeritis" (whom do u seek) - Question ask by angel (year 925) → a short dialogue sung by priests and choir - Liturgical Drama - Short play based on the story of bible - How they were performed - Two basic spatial components - The mansion - Tells u where is it - Indicates a place - Hard to visualise - All places are visible to the audience - The platea - Vernacular drama - Written and performed in Latin - Latin → not the language people spoke - Ordinary people in audience would not understand dramas - In the 13th c. drama began to be written and performed outside churches in the spoken (Vernacular) language → became more meaningful - Place for people to worship god→the purpose began to change →the watch drama - 1240 drama was banned in the church → went to the street - Types of Vernacular drama - Mystery play / Miracle play - Mystery play - Dramatisation of series of biblical events, from the creation to the last judgement - Produced by religious people - Northern english -\ trade guild - Show off what they can do -\> Thay are the experts of the field - A form of cycle of short plays based on events in old / new testament - Filled with anachronism (stories are set in biblical times/ characters are Mediaeval type!) - Spectacular elements highlighted (e.g. Noah) - Elements of comedy incorporated (e.g Noah's wife) - English mystery Plays that took place in - York - 48 plays -\> 14 hours to perform - 11: Old Testament - 13: Annunciation to Palm Sunday - 23: The final week of Jesus' life - 1: The Last Jugement - Chester - Wakefield - N - Processional staging → English, Spanish and Dutch Plays - Stationary staging → Rest of Europe - Harrowing of Hell - Performed by the Saddlers' guild - The triumph of Christ over Satan - Miracle plays - Based on lives and the work of the saints → teaching moral lesson - Performed on the saint's feast day - The most popular subjects - The virgin Mary and Saint Nicholas - Morality play (an intermediate step in the transition from liturgical to professional secular drama) - Teaching or moral lesson through the use of allegorical characters (such as charity and integrity) in the play - Based on spiritual trial of the ordinary people - They attempt to teach a moral lesson through the use of allegorical characters - Characters often undertake a journey through which they learn the moral lesson - Staged by professional performers - Become less and less religious -\> performed by professional actors - Most famous play - Mankind (c.1470) - Characters: Mercy, Mischief, Nought, Nowadays, and Mankind - Secular Theatre - Folk drama and farce developed during the High Middle ages - Professional performers were employed at the courts of the emerging monarchs. - Decline of Religious theatre - The weakening of the church in 16thc - Elizabeth I (Anglican Church) banned religious drama in 1559 - The secular qualities of religious drama overwhelmed the religious material [Week 5] - Noh and its origin - Gagaku(court performance) VS Sangaku(public performance art) - Sangaku - Means scattered music - Become widely popular in Heian era (794-1185) - Comprised of "variety arts" - Juggling, acrobatics, rope-dancing - Dengaku and Sarugaku → paved the way for Noh theatre - Dengaku - Imported from Korea - Made up of rustic dances and songs - Sarugaku - Made up of many diverse acts - The Beginning - Culmination of several forms : - Dance-drama - Mime-drama - Song-drama - 2 people perfected the art of Noh - Kanami Kiyotsugu - Zeami Motokiyo (son) - Zeami Motokiyo - Greatest of Noh dramatists → wrote more than 100 plays of 250 plays - Continue to write plays until 1422 - Developed the concept of "yugen" - Most significant of his concepts: - Hana - Yugen - Riken no ken - Sotoba(wa) Komachi by Kanami - Most of the well known plays - Komachi → beautiful but cruel - Shiion Shosho pursued - Sotoba from stupa - Connected with someone death - Features of Noh theatre - Zen buddhism influenced Noh's world a lot - The plays often have protagonists ghosts, demons or obsessed human whose souls are troubled for some worldly reason - Stories are often taken from literary or historical sources with their characters already familiar to the audience - Noh plays are divided into two parts - Performers - Actors (Trained from early ages) - Shite or Shite-kata (main character) - Waki / Waki-kata (supporting character) - Tsure / Tsure-kata (an accompanying role) - Kyogen (acted as minor characters) - Kokata (mainly performed by children) - Chorus or Jiutaikata - 6-10 members according to each specific play - sing/ recite many of the shite's lines and narrate events - Musicians or Hayashikata - 2-3 drummers and 1 flute player - Types of Noh drama (Gobandate → five story program) 1. God Plays → the shite takes the role of a god 2. Warrior Plays → Shite often takes the role of a diseased man, such as the ghost of a samurai 3. Women Plays → a female ghost with the theme of love and suffering resulting from love 4. Madness Plays → crazy person is the Shite 5. Demon Plays → mainly perform such roles as oni and tengu - Kyogen - Without specific costume or masks - Originally was comic elements in Noh - Used to serve as short farcical interludes - Comic elements eventually developed as an independent drama → Kyogen - 5 types of masks - 1\. Okina 2.Aged 3.Male 4. Female 5. Demons - No mask assigned to a particular character - Depending on shite to decide which mask he will use for the drama from the available varations - No mask are called "Omote" - Important tools for spiritual transformation - Noh masks controls the rank of Noh drama - The Noh stage - Kagami-no-ma - Agemaku - Hashigakari - Ato-za - Kagami-ita - Kizahashi - Gazing pillar (Metsuke Bashira) / Sumi-bashir - Fue-bashira - Waki-bashira - Sumi-bashira - Shite-bashira - Kyogen-bashira - Koken-bashira - Arashi-mado 河原者 Education to zeami [Week 6 Noh and Kabuki Plays] - 1603 the shogun Ieyasu unified the country - Tokugawa 1603-1868 - Before Tokugawa period → Genroku Period (1688-1703) - The emergence of popular entertainment (background) - Noh evolved into and remained exclusively high art for aristocratic society → Edo era - Closed up the country (isolation policy) - The merchant class grew and its members' wealth → increasing leisure time - Money \> fighting skills / swords - Warrior lost their jobs - Popular entertainments such as doll theatre (Bunraku) and Kabuki thrived 17th century - These performance mirrored commoners' life - Genroku Period - Mechant-centred culture - 1688-1703 - The culture of commoners was awaken and flourished - Confucian Ideology - Most treasured in confusion - Filial piety / loyalty to master / self-restraint / self-discipline - Most treasured among the Japanese - Absolute loyalty to Masters should be observed !! - Public duty (This is how u are expected to do) - Conflicts between private inclination (Ninjo) and public duty(Giri) - Bunraku (Puppet theatre) - 1st popular theatre - The beginning of Bunraku - Developed from the art of chanting by wondering chanter with biwa in the mediaeval period - Biwa was replaced by Shamisen around 1570-1600 - 1600: Puppetry was added to the chanting performance (became the origin of bunraku) - 1685: Chikamatsu Monzaemon (Japan's greatest playwright) started to collaborate with Takemoto Gidayu (founder of company in Osaka)(perfected the Bunraku) - Major puppets are manipulated by 3 people(assume to be invisible to audience)who are visible to the audience - 1678 puppet with arms and leg are common → 18 century start to be more complicated where finger and eyes can be moved → enlarged to nowadays size - Bunraku Stage Convention - A narrator tells the story, expresses the feeling of the puppet , and speaks the dialogue. Seated stage left on a platform with the musician - Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1725) - Wrote for kabuki theatre and many of his puppet plays were later adapted for kabuki - Explored the problems of the middle and lower class (based on actual events) - Double Suicide at Sonezaki (Sonezaki Shinju) - Kabuki - The beginning - The meaning come from : kabuku: to be slanted degenerated, or to be dressed unorthodoxly - Dance of Okuni in the dry river beds of Kamo river in Kyoto in 1603 (Women's kabuki or Onna kabuki) - Banned women of stage in 1629 - Young Men's Kabuki started after Women's kabuki → become popular → banned in 1652 - Only permits kabuki to be performed only by mature men playing all the parts (Men's kabuki) - Genroku Kabuki - 1675-1750 - Most of its characteristic features were matured and completed - 1670: Chikamatsu Monzaemon began to write for kabuki theatre - Many of the domestic play he first wrote for kabuki around this time became models for the domestic lovers' suicide plays - Kabuki actors were readapt these Bunraku dramas for their stage later - Classifications of plays - Jidai-mono (history plays) - Deals with matters related to the pre-Edo era (eg. Chushingura) - Chushingura - Based on real incident 1701-1703 - Set in the 14thc. ; Kamakura/ changed name (audience recognises everything) - Enya Hangan Takasada → Asano Takuminokami Naganori - Kohno Moronoh → Kira Kozukenosuke - Oboshi yuranosuke → Oishi Kuran - Sewa-mono (domestic play) - Deals with the lives of the ordinary citizens of the Edo era (eg. double suicide of Sonezaki, or Sonezaki Shinju) - Dance play - Often features ghosts, courtesans, and other exotic creatures (e.g. Musume Dojoji) - Aragoto (rough style) - An athletic exaggerated, masculine style of acting - Developed in the late 17th by Ichikawa Danjuro - Examples: Kanjincho( Subscription list) - The most popular drama - Matsubame-mono - Subscription list - Grir vs Ninjo (the obligation VS Humanity) - Togashi has a duty to be loyal to Yorimoto - Wagoto (gentle style) - Used mainly by actors playing romantic male leads, - Consider very refined - More realistic than aragoto and used in plays dealing everyday life - Developed by Sakata Tojuro I in the late 17thc in Osaka Week 8 Renaissance Italy - What is Renaissance? - Revived interest in the humanist ideal of the classical world - Main concern → humans and early life - As the merchant became wealthy → they became patrons of arts - To display their fortunes - Great inventions & discoveries - Perspective - Printing - Telescope (solar system) e.t.c - Theatre in Italian Renaissance - Major innovations in 3 areas of theatre arts 1. Dramatic criticism (Neoclassical rules) 2. Italian Intermezzi → Opera - Scene design → Painted-perspective scenery → Groove system of scene changes - Theatre architecture → Picture-frame stage 3. Professional Acting Troupes → commedia dee'arte - Italian Dramatic Criticism - The Neoclassical Rules - Formulated by Italian critics which dominated dramatic theory in Europe for nearly 200 years - Italian critics insisted that their ideals were derived from their examination of Greek and Roman - Greatly deviated from - Aristotle's Poetics - Horace's Art of poetry - Rules included such items as the unity of time, place, action/ decorum/ verisimilitude/ genre and five-act rules - Neoclassical Rules 1. Stage must represent real life → verisimilitude of life 2. Drama must include moral lesson → decorum 3. No mixing of dramatic styles → comedy / tragedy 4. Three Unities must be observed (time, place, action) 5. Drama must resolve in 5 acts - From Intermezzi to Opera - Intermezzi were elaborate complements that suggested parallels bet some mythological figure and the person in whose honor the festival was being given - Were played between the acts of regular plays - Became a primary medium for popualarising perspective scenery and the picture-frame stage Week 9 Renaissance Theatre England - When? - Began during the reign of Henry VII (1485-1509) - Ended with the Puritan takeover of England (1642) and the following execution of Charles I in 1649 - Main stage of English Renaissance Theatre - Elizabethan Theatre - The term "Renaissance Theatre" usually includes both Jacobean and Caroline theatre - Tudor line founded by Henry VII - Henry VIII (1509-1547) - The Church of England (1534) - Edward VI - Protestant King (1547-1553) - Mary I (Bloody Mary) - Catholic Queen (1553-1558) - Elizabeth I - Protestant Queen (1558-1603) - Early Renaissance developments 4. School Drama Trend by students and graduates of Oxford and Cambridge (from early 1500s through about 1580) 5. The trend was carried to London's Inn of Court - Gray's Inn - Lincoln's Inn - The Inner Temple - The Middle Temple 6. Dramatic exploration of the "University Wits" - Establish the strong foundations for the later renown playwrights like Shakespeare - Christopher Marlowe (1564-1953) - The most influential of the University Wits - His most influential dram (especially for his powerful dramatic verse) - Doctor Faustus - Employed elements of Morality Plays (e.g. Everyman) - In his time, many critics believed that he hed the better command of blank verse than Shakespeare - Worked as a secret governmental agent - Stabbed to death in a tavern brawl (age 29) - Elizabethan Drama - With both Roman and Medieval Influences - Revenge obsessed or supernatural characters, violence on stage (Seneca's) - Plautus's comic plots and techniques - Episodic structure (medieval drama) - One of the most popular drama - Thomas Kyd's Spanish Tragedy (1582-92): - Revenge, ghost, play within the play, pretending to be insane - Shakespeare (1564-1616) - When he was in London - All the potential elements for great drama had been prepared for him - What he did - Fuse these elements into one of the most unique bodies of drama - Life of Shakespeare - Born in Stratford-On-Avon - Dropped out of school at age 13 because of his father's business losses - Married to Anne Hathaway (Nov 1582) - First daughter and Twins - Appeared on the London theatre scene as an actor and playwright around 1590 - Associated with the Lord Chamberlain's Company (from 1595 until his retirement) - Died on 1616 - 1623: The first folio published - Acting companies - All troupes had to be sposored by a nobleman whose rank was no lower than baron (1572) - All plays and companies had to be licensed by the master of revels - A decree by Q Elizabeth 1574 - The most famous of the London-based Companies - The Lord of Chamberlain's Men / The Admiral's Men - Theatres - Private (indoor) Theatre - For wealthier audiences - Public (outdoor) Theatre - Examples - The Red Lion (1567) - The Theatre 1576 - The Curtain 1577 - The Rose 1587 - The Swan 1595 - The Globe 1599 - The Fortune 1600 - Characteristics - Open air theatre - Polygonal shaped - With a few exceptions (e.g. The fortune) - Capacity → 2000-3000 - Apron Stage - Tiring house - Grounding (the yard) - Influence of inn yard theatre / bear-baiting arenas - Only few documents on Elizabethan Theatre survived - Scholars attempt conjectural reconstruction from few visual sources - Episodic Drama and Neutral Drama - Elizabethan Drama / Episodic Drama - The structure of Elizabethan drama involves many characters and many scenes ranging through time and shifting from place to place () - Neutral Stage - Elizabethan stage was a neutral bare stage: it allowed scenes to move freely from one place to another and one time to another - Suited for episodic drama structure - Both of the above characteristics were inherited from the **Medieval drama** - James I (1603-25) - Divine Rights of Kings - The Court Masque - Aristocratic entertainment in the court music, dance expensive costumes scenic design - Charles I and Masque - His wife, Henrietta Maria (Louis XIII's sister) appeared in a masque - Puritan reaction increased against extravagance - Euro 20,000 for one performance (about 400 million yen) - Inigo Jones (1573-1652) - Architect - Designer for court masques - Brought Italian innovations in scene design to England - Example of Inigo Jones's scene design in 1640 - Italian scenic devices were introduced into the spectacles - Painted angled wings - Back shutters shifted in grooves - Puritan Revolution / English Civil War (1642-40) - When the Puritan faction of Parliament gained control over the city of London - Ordered the closing of all theatres (2 Sep, 1642) - Music was allowed - 1649: Charles I executed [\ ] [Week 10 French Renaissance Theatre and English Restoration Theatre] - French Renaissance Theatre - France - Civil and religious unrest till the end of 16^th^ c. (war between Catholics and Protestants) - 1598: The Edict of Nantes - Gradually Stabilized and Flourished - Profited from ecploration of the new world (under Louis XIV) - Strong Italian Flavor (Neoclassical Rules + Italian scene design) on French Society - Medici family members married into the French royal family - Catherine de Medici to Henry II - Marie de Medici to Henry IV - Cardinal Richelieu - Chief Minister of France (1624-42) - French Academy 1635 - Heavy Italian Influences on Theatre - Italian scene design (mid-17^th^ C.) - Proscenium-arch space with painted-perspective - Wing-and-shutter scenery - Neoclassical rules 6. Stage must presents real life (verisimilitude of life) 7. Drama must include moral lesson (decorum) 8. No mixing of dramatic styles (comedy/tragedy) 9. Three Unities (time, place, action) must be observed 10. Drama must resolve in 5 acts - Pierre Corneille's Le Cid (A big controversy over Neoclassical Rules) - Le Cid (1636) was based on a Spanish play → The youthful Adventures of the Cid - An enormous success - Became the cause for a huge controversy regarding its compliance with the neoclassical rules - 5 acts, 24 hours, 4 locations in a single town - The Academy's Opinion - Not a good neoclassical tragedy - The unities → OK - Verisimilitude → too much happened in 24 hours - Decorum: The heroine agrees to marry the man who killed her father → not appropriate - After the opinion - The neoclassical standards of the Italian Renaissance critics prevailed in France - Jean Racine's Phaedra (Established a model of Neoclassical Drama) - Phaedra (1677) - Based on Euripides' Hippolytus - Established a perfect example of neoclassicism - All the events occur outside a room in Theseus's palace - the cover only a few hours - Action is unified within Phaedra's love for her stepson, Hippolytus Tragedy Comedy ------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------- Characters Rulers or nobility Middle and lower class Plot Affairs of state (or torn between duty and personal inclination) Domestic affairs (love story) Ending Unhappy Happy (everyone get married) Dialogue Poetic Prose / ordinary speech - Moliere's Tartuffe (New Comedy that poked fun at failing of upper class) - Son of a furniture maker in the court of King Louis XIII - Dropped out of law school, started the Illustre Theatre which went bankrupt in 1645 - 13 years of Provincial Tour - 1658: Louis XIV became his patron - 1665: His troupe became the King's Men - Tartuffe (1664) - Moliere laughs at the established Christian Church in the drama - A number of religious figures, including the archbishop of Paris, opposed its performance - Moliere's Death - Collapsed during a performance of The Imaginary Invalid in 1673 - French law forbade the actors from receiving Christian burial in those days - His funeral was held at night - Theatres of Neoclassical France (with their origin) - Comedie Francaise - The first government-supported National Theatre in the world - Established in 1680 → 7 years after Moliere's death - King Louis XIV granted a monopoly - From 1689, it owned its own theatre building (lasted for 81 years) - Ground Plan - A converted tennis court (like many other theatres of the time) - A proscenium-arch stage with machinery for scene shift + a horsehoe-shaped auditorium - Audience on stage → customary in French theatre - Many French theatre were converted from a tennis court - English Restoration Theatre - 1660 - Charles II (reign 1600-1685) was invited by a newly elected Parliament to return to England - Italian Renaissance practice was reinforced by England's contact with neoclassical France - Magical devices of proscenium arch theatre became part of English stage (Unique flavor = Strong influence of Elizabethan theatrical tradition) - Restoration comedy / Comedy of Manners became extremely popular (focus on the fashion, manner and human failings of the upper class) - Comedy of Manner - Influence by Moliere - Focus on the fashion, manner and human failing of the upper class; gossip, adultery - Stock type / Characters - Most of the upper-class characters are disreputable and their names usually describe their distinctive personality traits - Language - Witty and full of sexually suggestive references - William Wycherley's The Country Wife - Good examples of comedy of Manners (Breaches Roles/ Names describing their traits, etc) - The Country Wife (1675) - One of the most famous Restoration comedies - Character's name describing their personality - Pinchwife - Horner - Dr.Quack - The Decline of Restoration Comedy - The Puritans attacked Restoration theatre - 1698: The minister, Jeremy Collier, wrote "A Short view of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage" attacking theatre of the time - The sexual content of plays was toned down - 18^th^ C, English comedy began to stress morality - Eleanor (Nell) Gwynn (1650-1687) - Grew up in the London slums - Became a mistress of a leading actor at Drury Lane (selling oranges) - Acted mainly in breeches roles (1665-9) - Became Charles II's mistress, left the stage and had 2 sons by him - Theatres in the Restoration - Extended apron, equal in depth to the rear stage area - 2 proscenium doors on each side of the stage were vestiges of the Elizabethan platform stage - The entire stage was raked to improve sight - Unusual combination of English and Italian Renaissance stages [Week 11 From Romanticism to Realism] - Rise of Melodrama and its special features - Theatre Movement from 18^th^ C through early 19^th^ C - The emphasis on sentimentality and morality in both serious and comic drama - Star performer glorified - The emergence of early director - Acting → Bombastic / Declamatory - Emergence and Popularity of Melodrama (Late 18^th^ C.) - 19^th^ C → The Age of Melodrama - Means "song drama" / "music drama" - Attempts to evoke strong emotional feelings - Suspense / fear / nostalgia - Has clear-cut characterization (stock character) - Heros and Heroines are always depicted as righteous people and stood in sharp contrasts to the villains (highly moral tone) - Often stresses visual spectacles and special effects - Advent of Realism and Naturalism 1. Historical Background (Influence of Positivism by A. Comte) - Strong trust in science and the notion of progress - August Comte (1798-1857) - Positivism: Any social problems can be solved by scientific method - Charles Darwin (1809-1882) - Theory of Evolution - Science can even solve the mystery of the world - A notion that progress in inevitable - Karl Marx (1818-1883) - Believed in evolutionary socio-economic system toward utopian Communism 2. Representative features of Realism - Stage action represented everyday life - Characters → behaved / spoke / dressed like ordinary people - No taboo subjects - No simple moral judgements → showed the complexity of life - No happy ending - Depicted complicated personalities influenced by heredity and environment - Colloquial language 3. Ibsen and A Doll's House - Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) - The founder of realism - Theme: Problems of society and of men and women - His realistic social dramas - The Pillars of Society (1877) - A Doll's House (1879) - Social play / Thesis Play - An ordinary family: - Torvald Helmer (bank manager) - Nora (his wife) - Three children - Nils Krogstad threatens Nora - Nora's disillusionment and deaprture - Ghosts (1881) - An Enemy of the People (1882) - Hedda Gabbler (1891) - Ibsen & problem play - "The slam of the door behind her is more momentous than the cannon of Warterloo" G.B Shaw - "A dramatist's business is not to answer questions, but only to ask them." Ibsen 4. Visual elements of realism; Stage set, Costume, Lighting - The box set → 3 solid walls and a ceiling → Invisible 4^th^ wall - Realistic / actual objects for scenery - Costumes: Corresponding to social class and occupation - Lighting: Made to appear to come from realistic source (a table lump) 5. Naturalism (features of naturalism; slice of life) - The movement began in France in 19^th^ C. - Extreme form or realism - As a pure movement → short-lived - "Slice of life" should be presented on stage - Focus on the lower-class people - The Lower Depths (1902) by Maxim Gorki - Demonstrated the influence of environment and hereditary on us 6. Independent Theatre Movement to promote new drama - Theatre Libre (Paris 1887) - Freie Bhune / Free Stage (Berlin 1889) - Independent Theatre (London 1891) - Moscow Art Theatre (Moscow 1898) 7. Moscow Art Theatre and Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard (1904) - The Moscow Art Theatre - The most influential of the late 19^th^ C theatres dedicated to realism - Organized in 1898 - Konstantin Stanislavski (1858-1938) - Professional acting company for realistic drama (unlike the rest of independent theatres) - Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) - The Seagull (1898) - Uncle Vanya (1899) - The Three Sister (1901) - The Cherry Orchard (1904) - Chekhov's Tragicomedy - As represented in the final scene of this play, he shows us that there is often tragedy underneath comedy 8. Stanislavski and his system - The actor must: 1. Have a trained body & voice 2. Know 'Stage technique' 3. Be a skilled observer of life 4. Analyze the script 5. Become emotionally involved 6. Concentrate on the character 7. Continually work - Realism Theatre Movement in Japan Tsubouchi Shoyo and his Literary Art Society (Bungei Kyokai) - It began 2 sources 1. Tsubouchi Shoyo - A professor of English at Waseda - Founded the Literary Arts Society (Bungei Kyokai) to train young amateur actors in Western drama in 1906 2. Osanai Kaoru and Ichikawa Sadanji - Established the Free Theatre (Jiyu Gekijo) to retrain professional theatre artists to perform Western drama in 1909 - The first production of A Doll's House in Japan - Produced by Prof.Tsubouchi's Literary Art Society in 1911 - Directed by Prof. Hogetsu Shimamura - Melodrama Realistic Drama (realism) ------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------------- Goal Entertainment Social reform Characters Stock characters Nature Acting Bombastic acting / declamatory / star play Ensemble acting / Set Spectacle Box set Costume Lighting For mood spectacle Made to appear to come from realistic source Moral Strict moral distinction / most important subject→morality Will not specify this is morality action Ending Happy ending Not happy ending Language Prose Conversational Dramatic subjects Moral base → overcoming the evil → entertainment No taboo subjects [Week 12 Non Realistic Theatre] 7. Expressionism - Historical Background: Time of unusal unrest - 8. Epic Theatre and Verfremdung effect (v-effect) - Bertolt Brecht and his approach to theatre - A time Of Unrest (1915-1945) (Years of World Wars) - Theatre during these years mirrored the general unrest - Realism had become the most popular - Too simplistic to express the reality of society - Many anti-realistic movements emerged such as expressionism, futurism, dada and surrealism - Many anti-realistic movements emerged → expressionism / futurism / dada / surrealism - Many of them primarily began in visual arts / literature and eventually reflected in the theatre scenes - Surrealism play set in unreal world → dream like images - Expressionism (1905-1910 where it is flourish in Germany) - Materialism and industrialism are human sprit - Focus on test → on greater immediate impact on expressionism - Eugne O'Neill (1888-1953) - Son of a popular actor of romantic melodrama - Spending most of his children is homework and trains accompanying his father - Absorbing theatrical knowledge - After being expelled from Princeton in 1906 - Held a long series of miscellaneous jobs → the work on a tramp steamer at sea - Bringing American literature to reality → 1936 became first American dramatist to win Nobel Prize for Literature - Author of Hairy Ape - Wrote 47 plays - Expressionist Drama - Often highly subjective - The dramatic action is seen through the eyes of the protagonist - The dramatists are more interested in conveying their ideas than in giving a true representation of reality - The stage often seems distorted or dreamlike - The protagonist journeys through a series of incidents that are often not causally related (episode nature) - It strives to represent the longing for fulfillment, which suggest the need to change society - It sought to counter materialism and industrialism → Fundamental stance - The place of one can belong - Characters striving to look for identity - The Hairy Ape (may ask in the exam) - Collection of episode which are not related to each others - Yank: - is an ape-like coal stoker on a luxury Transatlantic Ocean Liner.' - A muscular, menacing figure who has difficulty with though - Often assumes the physical pose of Rodin's "The Thinker" when try to think - After encountering with Mildres (the symbol of power, money and influence), his confidence was shattered and his search for his identity begins - Scene 1 (in the first production 1922) - "the effect sought after is a cramped space in the bowels of a ship, imprisoned by white steel. The lines of bunks, the uprights supporting them, cross each other like the steel framework of a cage...." - Scene 5 - Identical masks on the people who/ act like "gaudy marionettes" contrasted with ape-like stokers - See through the eyes → expression of the - 1986 production by Peter Stein - Scene 5: the distorted perspective and destabilizing visions to evoke the social repression - Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) - One of the most influential + controversial dramatists of the 20^th^C. - 1924: settled in Berlin → became a Marxist - 1933: escaped Nazis Germany, lived in Scandinavian countries and in US. Kept writing plays and refining his theories on epic theatre - Totally entertain - 1949: Settled in E. Berlin, where the government gave him his own theatre → The Berliner Ensemble - Opened the same year with his play → Mother Courage and Her Children - Major Plays - Three Penny Opera - The Good Person of Setzuan - The Caucasian Chalk Circle - Epic Theatre - The goal - To instruct/ **educate audience** by creating an intellectual climate for social change → critical thinking - Actor should separate himself on his role and comment on the role - Keep audience aware that audience are watching the play - Judge instead of involving - Instead of uplifting the audience (realistic) - The means - By having the audience involved in drama not emotionally but intellectually - A production should force them to remain emotionally detached or "alienated" - Each production element → including acting → should convey the political message (V-effect) - Verfremdungseffect (V-effect) - Meaning "Alienation" / " Distancing" → "making the familiar, strange" - A common event is shown in such a way that it can be seen with fresh eyes from new angle - Historicization - One of the techniques with which Brecht attempts to alienate the audience - Many of his plays are either set in the past or in fictional foreign lands - Apparently that he is really dealing with the contemporary issues paralleling the historic ones - Mother Courage and Her Children - Major characters: - Mother courage (a canteen women) - Kattrin (he dumb daughter) - Ellif and Swiss Cheese (her sons) - Time: - the Thirty Years War (1618-48) - the war fought bet. Catholic and Protestant armies - **Effects:** - Permeated with intentional contrasting lines, thoughs and attitudes of Mother Courage in order to evoke and instigate the spectators' critical questioning against her way of living that is full of contradiction - Speech and everything is contradictory - Brecht stated that this production is primarily meant to show - "in wartime big business is not conducted by small people. That war is a continuation of business by other means, making the human virtues fatal even to those who exercise them - Realism believes to bring social change by drama → social reform - Expression like to coney their ideas in drama [Week 13 Non-realistic Theatre II] - Theatre of the Absurd - "What is reality or truth in this world?" - This is not a movement and forms are different from one another yet their common belief is that truth consisted of chaos and lack of order, logic, or certainty - Postwar New Experimental Trends (1945-1975) - Established theatrical and dramatic forms were questioned and restructured - New perceptions and definitions of theatre and drama emerged - Source of inspiration: - Existentialism - A philosophy that believes that humanity is set alone in an irrational universe - God does not exist / Human condition is absurd - What is Absurdist Drama? - Based on belief: Truth consisted of chaos and lack of order, logic, or certainty 11. Structure: Abandoned cause-and-effect relationship for associational patterns reflecting illogic and chance 12. Plot: Does not have traditional crisis structure or episodic structure 13. Language 14. Dialogue 15. Characters fail to communicate - Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) - Born in Dublin - Chance and logical in plays - Abandoned cause-and-effect pattern - Waiting for Godot was his first play / written in French in 1948 / produced at a tiny the theatre in Paris 1953 - The first of the absurdist to win international recognition with Waiting for Godot - Waiting for Godot - Most famous absurdist drama → awarded the Nobel Prize 1969 - The plot is cyclical - The action appears to start over with nothing having changed - Waiting for someone / Gotgo - Characters - 2 tramps : (main characters) - Vladimir (Didi) - Estragon (Gogo) - Lucky and Pozzo (switching roles) - A boys (a messenger) - Godot Expressim and epidic apr