DRE121 Exam Notes PDF

Unit 0: Introduction Lecture 0: Theatre in History and Now: An Introduction it Terms and Techniques of Analysis What is theatre? - theatre is a place, a art form, a live event Etymology: from the Ancient Greek word meaning “a view a seeing” or “something that is seen” Hence/and: “a place/thing fo...

Unit 0: Introduction Lecture 0: Theatre in History and Now: An Introduction it Terms and Techniques of Analysis What is theatre? - theatre is a place, a art form, a live event Etymology: from the Ancient Greek word meaning “a view a seeing” or “something that is seen” Hence/and: “a place/thing for viewing” or “place where things are seen” - Theatre involves both seeing and watching and being seen and watched - Theater/stage/seating has changed over the year - Auditorium: Listening/Hearing 1. Quotes by Peter Brook-(The empty Space: London,1968)- “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged” (11) One definition of theatre- A person just walking on a empty space and identifies it as a stage is theatre 2. Quotes by Eric Bentley, at he life of the drama(New York, 1964): “The theatrical situation, reduced to a minimum, is that A impersonates B while C looks on”(150) Second definition of theatre- that if a person impersonate someone else and if there is a person as the audience it theatre (If I impersonate someone else while someone is watching me as the audience, it is theatre) 3. Quotes by Andreas Kotte, Theaterwissenschaft: Enid Einfuhrung(Cologne,2005): - “Something made exceptional, by spatial, gestural, or acoustic means, with the help of objects, through language, etc” - “An action whose consequences are significantly reduced in seriousness” - An audience that accepts this event as theatre(15-65) Third Definition: that it has to be something exceptional by using spatial(sound) or object or language. That there are actions and incidents performed on stage that are similar to real life but the consequences of those actions are less serious, (Example: If a person was stab in real life they would most likely die, but if a person was stab on stage in most case they don’t die) the audience have to accept the event and that what they are watching is theatre. Terms: Play - Is not a performance it a text which is often printed usually in dialogue form, typically play are written to be performed, usually not written from the voice do the narrator  - Exception-Closet Drama: the pages are written like scripts but were written to be read privately or aloud in private space. This was more common throughout European history before the 19th century, a form of dramatic writing that was often practiced by women who weren’t allowed to work as a professional playwright. - Famous Authors of closet Drama:(Seneca the Younger- Ancient Rome, 4BCE-65CE, Elizabeth Cary- England, 1585-1639, Mary Wroth- England, 1587-1651/3, Margaret Cavendish- England, 1623-1673) Drama - A awkward synonym for play, it a genre for play, is a art form, a category for the play like drama, horror, comedy Production/show - collaborative creative process, a performance event that involves actor, director, lighting, wardrobe, etc. This event might take weeks or months to create. The production can’t be seen - Performance event made from reading a play Performance - The actual event itself on a given day with a specific cast that made be different day-to-day with a specific audience that does differ day-to-day. Only form where you can see some of the production that was needed, is unpredictable but the only things the audience can see. Process/Terms and their implications - Play-Production-Performance - Decreasing the chance of it be predictable and stability Unit 1: Ancient Theatre Lecture 1: Ancient Greek Theatre: Spaces, Institutions, the chorus Ancient Greek and it's theaters was not were theater begin, it the place were we see extensive documentary, things were record in detail Greek theater and its origin - “Greek” Theatre really mean “Athenian tragedy” (Theatre) - Celebrated annually in March/April, the city of Dionysia was a five-day long celebration of a god(Dionysius) and the city. They also include a three day competition and agon between writers of tragedies Athenian culture and politics - Athens was a city state in a nearly constant state of war, conquest and or competition with other centers of economic and military power in the region  - By the time The Oresteia was written there was something like democracy in the country even through women, stranger and enslaved people were still excluded from political participation, only military trained male citizens could vote - The Dionysia in some way is a art festival which was a collective event involving many Athenian citizens and all citizens were, in principle expected to attends as spectators- there are many Athenian participants - The festival begins as a choral/ religious celebration. Choirs performed dithyrambs, long narrative compositions that were sung and dances often accompanied by an aulos(wind instrument) - The choir was financed by wealthy Athenians called The choregoi, to sometime to kickstart a political career. These choirs were directed and rehearsed for many months by playwrights - By funding the theater you are able to be recognize and might be able to get a higher job - During this event other city that were rule by Athenians, would come to Athenian with money(good) to show submissions and to show that Athenian is more powerful than all the other place/city/land - In the mid 6th century(the 535 BCE) performance of dithyrambs continued to be performed as well but eventually turn into something more like plays but even than music still remained a central element - The Dithyrambs are songs and dance that were performed to celebrate Dionysus still continues being performed - Around 502 BCE the format of the tragedies agon emerges three tragedies by the same author performed followed by a satyr play all in one day. There was three days of this, after which a winner was chosen Choral parts in plays remained highly formalized consisting of specific and recognized elements: 1. The chorus entered singing a parodos(Plural: Parodoi) 2. Subsequent choral songs or odes were called stasimon(Plural: stasima) 3. They followed a scheme of “strophes” and “antistrophes”(turn and counter-turn) and conclude or intermittent epodes(Poem it the format of shorter line than longer line) 4. Character sometimes sung to and the chorus sometime spoke not always in unison - Over time, one, then two, then three actors were added to the chorus; the chorus leader, the coryphaeus, also sometimes spoke or sang alone. The leading actor was the protagonist. - All performance were male and all wore masks, these male actor would usually play multiple parts that are both female and male - Flowing costumes and wigs were commonly use Quick Timeline - 560 BCE: peisistratos establish the city Dionysia as an annual celebration of the god Dionysis and a celebration of Athens  - 550 BCE: Thespis invents dialogue, by adding single-voice actor to the chorus- he won the competition it 534 the hypokrites the back talker - 540 BCE: It was say that female masks were invented around this time - 502: Probable the beginning of the tragic competition at the Dionysia - 499 BCE: Aeschylus first participates in the Dionysia, add a second actor - 484 BCE: Aeschylus first wins the Agon - 468 BCE: Sophocles first win - 458 BCE: The oresteia wins the agon at the Dionysia - 456 BCE: Aeschylus die - 428 BCE: Euripides first win - 406 BCE: Sophocles and Euripides die Greek Theatre and its Spaces - Venue for the city Dionysia was the theatre of Dionysus - In original state it may have room for 14,000 spectators on wooden benches/ In 300 BCE it was remodeled as a stone building and it was expanded and could now seat around 20,000 people / In the later form it became the site for the legislative assembly of all Athenian citizens( the ecclesia) - Theatre was it a open space kind of inviting - Most impressive surviving theatre was at Epidaurus which could seat 14,000. The theatre also preserves some of the key element of all Greek theatres Key Terms for Theatre structure - Skene: Tent or Hut/Building behind the orchestra a space that was reserved for the performer/ kind of Shadow building/ which main purpose was like a back/off-stags/ most main actor entry from here - Parodos: the gateway for the entry of the theatre/ the chorus entry this area to the orchestra/ main character don’t entry from this area - Logeion: Speaking place/ Theologeion the place which gods speak - Paraskenison: Side building in front of the skene - Orchestra: place for dancing/where chorus was place and stay/the stage for performance - Cavea or Koilon or Theatron: Different term for the fan shape seat - Thymele: An altar/ where the chorus leader was position - Mechana: a crane - Ekkyklema: A rolling platform/ that can be pull out from the center gate Lecture 2: The chorus continued and agamemnon/The Oresteia 2,479 year ago Staging I: The single voice Staging: Agamemnon’s Opening - A single-voice opening: The watchman(can speak in verse/ poetry, high language level) - Like a scene steeped in the ordinary - There are heightened language, but commonplace content: a worker complaint - This theatre/play start with no chorus and no fanfare/ it has a curious unmarked start/ instead there a person speaking form the place of the gods - Mismatch of actors and character: doubling- (The watchman actor probably also play other character it is seem that he might have Herald and Cassandra Staging II: The chorus - On one hand the chorus was use as identification, the people and community it the audience see themselves/itself in the group people on the stag was the chorus (The chorus spoke for the polity and the community) - On the other, the chorus is not made up of powerful people or representative citizen of a Athens would have thought a equal people, the chorus were made up of old men, women, exiles, defeated prisoners ( in the play The Oresteia the chorus was made up of female slave and the furies) The chorus speak they are prevent from doing any action - Example: In the Oresteia 1.72-79 showing the chorus speak ing about themselves - The chorus is not easy to identify, because it highly artificial, and crafted, the chorus is the element of the production that is furthest removed from the reality outside the theatre - In most case the chorus is seen as a distancing device Distance and identification: Agamemnon and Distance - The chorus is a distancing device and so is myth: “the stories that everyone already know a but on-one has experience  - The distance disappear when the audience his something like a shared experience with what going on stage of a character (ex: In The Oresteia the murder of Agamemnon and Cassandra - Distancing decides: The Chorus, Myth, rhetoric Lecture 3: Agamemnon/ The Oresteia Agamemnon: Distance and Identification - Example of rhetoric as anti-distancing device is Clytemnestra narrative of the beacons(11.281-311) - The form of Greek tragedy lets philosophical debate or reflection sit side by side with visceral, gripping shocking experiences - Example of sitting side by side: The everyday and the extraordinary(Old men vs a queen and mythological heroes), the formally extraordinary and the formally almost colloquial(The watchman and the chorus) - This juxtaposition of seemingly distinct ideas, experiences, or events is also as the heart of the play it self(ex: The chorus narrative of how Argos went to war with Troy: 11. 420-438 - The play the Oresteia on one hand is about private injury , private fury, private revenge and on the other hand it about huge, contrasting philosophical positions and about politics(ex: Clytemnestra and Agamemnon clashing principles of obligation- 205-17 and 822-24 vs 963-65) - But this play revolves nothing: on every level of form, content, ideas instead it create a contrast and contradictions - The main fundamental is the chorus mantra on “learning through suffering but no one is actually learning (1.178, 1.251) - A example how there is actually no learning happening is through the example on the endless cycle of destruction, from tantalus through to Orestes (11. 1654-1661) - Another example is whoever something look like a less on it’s trite or wrong( cf. 1. 1331-42) - Instead of learning the play keeps circling a round question too large and too contradictory to resolve 1.Is killing a child worse than killing a husband? 2.Is killing one mother worse than killing one husband? 3.what is justice? - these aren’t question that are meant to be answered they are question that are meant to be debated - The play work as investigating or discussing the truth to resolved, if at all, in and after performance, by the audience like agreeing on something collectively Agamemnon, C. 1980-2015 A radical response, Berlin, 2006 - Play example: Die Orestie, dir. Michael Thalheimer, trans. Peter Stein, Deutches Theater, Berlin, 2006 - Clytemnestra: Constanze Becker - This play was a endless bloodbath - He doesn’t quite leave the question to the audience: Learning is an illusion from beginning to end( this is a reading of the play) - The claim that suffering leads to learning becomes a shattering hollow phrase at the end: Act, Suffer, Learn Lecture 4 Agamemnon in Performace Agamemnon on the modern stage Agamemnon, c. 1980-2015 - There were 3 productions of the Oresteia - 1. The Oresteia, dir. Peter hall, trans. Tony Harrison, National Theatre, London, 1981 - 2. Die Orestie, Dir. amd trans. Peter Stein, Schaubuhne Berlin, 1980-81 - 3. Oresteia, dir. amd adapt. Robert Icke, Almeida theatre, London, 2015 Lecture 5: Medea then Euripides Medea - The play was first performed at the city Dionysia in 431 BCE, it places 3 place - This play was act out by 3 actor and the chorus, Sophocles innovation-(Influenced the development of drama, by adding a 3 actor and reducing the importance of the chorus - It was also the birthplace of soliloquy(Speaking to themselves so the audience could know how the character was feeling) - Ex: Medea speaks to herself (409-19) - In Medea there is a increase of dialogue, having more Stichomythia( when two character speak alternate lines of verse), there were more short speeches, more direct interaction between character, Medea rather the chorus become the central focus - Has shorter parodos(the song that the chorus sing) and Stasima(an ode that was sung by the chorus) - Has a sharper focus on individual characters like when Jason observing Medea(947-54) - Speeches that stand out as speeches within the play(Jason, 533-95; Medea, 884-919) Sidebar: Suffering - Medea was a play structured by pain but why? - 100 years later Aristotle(384-322 BCE)-(Aristotle poetics are the most important early theory of dramatic literature, although only the part about tragedy survives) gives an answer that it because of Catharsis: The effect of tragedy on its audience, it mean purging - That the only scenario that evoke the proper pity and fear are “cases where suffering befalls bonded relations” Lecture 6: Medea Now Medea; Core Themes - Isolation: Medea is not at home in the play she is at a random land with no power or allies, as a complete foreigner - She isolate in a way that make her seem powerless and powerful, will to go far distance and a witch but She a stranger but she wield magical power - Her willing to kill her children is another aspect of her isolation - Isolation: A stranger in a strange land - Infanticide: A killer of children - Inhuman: An agent of divine wrath, avenging broken oaths Line for example(499-503, 643-44, 755-56, 1034-35, 1443-5) - Oath was made and broken/ Oath is not promise, A Oath involved divine of agent involved the god - Medea fix the wrong for Jason and did everything for him and this family but Jason still broke the oath - Medea does things for a reason she not just a original woman killing her original children she on a mission Medea Now(clips example) 1. Carrie Cracknell’s Medea(2014) - 2014: dir: Carrie Cracknell, trans. Ben power, design Tom Scott; National Theatre, London - Helen McCrory as Medea 2. Michael Thalheimer’s Medea(2012)- 2012: dir. Michael Thalheumer, design Olaf Altmann; Schauspiel Frankfurt - Constance Becker as Medea Additional Recording: Greek Comedy: Supplementary Mini-Lecture Beyond Tragedy - Tragedy wasn’t the only thing popular in Ancient Greece, Comedy was also a part of “official” theatre as tragedy 1. Aristophanes(446-386 BCE): “Old Comedy” - Old comedy was highly topical(interest, relevance), political satire(humor, irony, mockery), Full of sexual and scatological jokes, Spectacular( Had a chorus of 24) - All male actor and they were masked but wing individualized masks 2. Menander(342-290 BCE): “New Comedy” - New comedy was less satirical, had a shift of focus from public to private life - Had introduction of character types: the angry old man, the repressive father, the young lover, the bragging soldier, the sly slave etc - The role and importance were greatly reduced Other 2 forms of theatre: 1. Mime (mimos/mimus): was first reference in the 6th century BCE (599-500) - It largely improvised, the topics are drawn from everyday life or parodies(copying) of myth  - There were both female and male actor that usually didn’t wear masks, had incorporated music and dance 2. Phlyakes: From the 4th century BCE - Had professional, Masked actor which were all male - Parodies(copy) of myth and tragedy, highly phallic - Had public performance on wooden stages with curtain as the backdrop Greece to Rome: More Comedy Other comedy options were Phlyakes and Atellanae: - Under Greek influence, Atellanae develops in the 4th century BCE in atella in southern Italy in the territory of the Oscans - It farcical, Obscene, largely improvised plays, it rely heavily on character types and corresponding masks, all performer were male The play Atellanae stereotypes: - Had Pappus(an old man) Bucco(A braggart) Dossenus( A trickster) Maccus( A clown and glutton) The move to literature: - Atellanae become a Roman for, by 390 BCE - By 100 BCE they are being written by named authors, there were hundreds of titles that survive but none of the plays were complete Roman Mimus: - Had no mask, more Anarchic(lawless, less serious) than Atellanae, mocks the gods, often extremely obscene(sexual), use a lot of lower-class slang, has a highly expressive acting and frequent use of music - By the 46 BCE the Roman Mimus become more popular that Atellanae Lecture 7 Roman Comedy: Terence Roman Vs Greek Theatre Culture Major Differences - The plays in Rome we’re only part of a larger festival filled with rich variety of spectacles - The “ludi”(games) encompass of chariot, horse, races, wrestling, staged hunt, Gladiatorial contest, theatrical performances - Event in the circus were central element- Races - Play staged on impermanent Wooden platforms, (on the fringes of the main event) - Unlike the city of Dionysia the “Ludi” was not an occasion for democratic reflection or debate - were popular entertainment, not an extension of participatory polis - Later in the centuries of Roman Empire, spectacle dominated over language-based performances which was an effect of a multi-lingual colonial state The end of Tragedy(For Now)  - Over time the tragedy, costumes, masks and ancient conventions become to appear as ridiculous - Lucian of Samosata(125-180CE): “could anything be more revolting than this sing-song recitation of tragic woes?” - Lucian: “Other entertainment of eye or ear are but manifestations of a single art…the pantomime is all embracing in the variety of his equipment - Start to move toward a form of theater that focused primarily on music, dance and individual performances: Pantomime - The Pantomime: the performances is as much as an intellectual as a physical exercise/ there are meaning in his movements and every gesture has its significance and therein lies his chief excellence - It sharpens the wits, it exercise the body, it delights the spectator, it instructs him in the history of bygone days, while eye and ear are held beneath the spell of flute and cymbal and of graceful dance Architecture: A quick Overview - Look at the theatre of Marcellus, Rome( 13BCE) and the theatre Roman stages: Scaena( Sabratha, Lydia - The theatre were open, to the nature and had the half a circle audience Terence and Co. Two Major Roman Playwrights 1. Titus Maccius Plautus: 254-184 BCE - One of the two great Roman comic playwright - Develops new comedy into a Roman genre: “fabula palliata” (“Play in Greek Cloaks”) - Fast-Paced, with musical interludes - Stock characters, frequent use of “comic inversion” 2. Publius Terentius after(Terence): 195 or 184-160 BCE in Carthage, North Africa - Slave of a Roman Senator - Second great comic playwright - Play mostly based on Menander( Domestic situation)- Less Bawdy, more witty than Plautus - Lesser reliance on stereotypes African Terence Phillis Wheatley (1753-84), from “To Maecenas” (1773) - A first: a playwright who defends himself and his works - The Distracted audience- Competition: Boxers, tightrope walkers, gladiator: Ths two failures of the mother in law - Competition between playwright( The constant presence of the “malicious old playwright” (Luscius of Lanuvium) Unit 2: Medieval and Early Modern Theatre Lecture 8- The end and the “Return” of theatre- Hrotsvit of Gandersheim Drawing on other people work - It more complicated/harder when writing something completely new, easier and more common to write on old works - Rewriting new version of the pre-existing work happen especially in Rome comedy - When watching a play there are always aspect of past work and new aspect that were just create Christianity: the end of theatre?: the religious that dominate the ancient eras The end of theatre - In the 4th century any part/participation involved in or being in a play is excommunicated(going to hell in the after life not currently but in the future) consider bad - Christianity become state religion (323 CE), participation in playacting grounds for excommunication (398 CE), Emperor Justinian prohibited Mime and Pantomime and shuts down all theatre in 526 CE, The last Roman theatre was in 549 CE, A renewed bans of Mime and Pantomime at the Trullan council in Constantinople in 692CE - Any Theatre activities were considered prohibited - In the Ten Commandments burying victim is not allow, any act of pretending was not allow even through in most play there are some form of pretending - In the Ten commandments having imagine or copy of god weren’t allow either - Both Greek and Rome comedy are sinful in a Christianity perspective - Simply by being speculator or exciting for theatre in the culture of would lead you to be sinful - It was said that if Christian took over theatre, theatre would disappear even though it didn’t happen. Theatre never quite went away and it uncertain what has happen - Come to realize that some of theatre things might come to use in church like music - They took a eastern scene and stage it in church - “Comedy” and “Tragedy” and fully realized pantomime seem to almost disappear but other modes of performance survive: Like mimes, jugglers, artistes, singers, storytellers- Music and elements of performance were integrated into the church liturgy in the 9th century - Biblical episodes given scenic form( Nice place) in monasteries and nunneries Christian Europe turn to theatre Theatre Rediscovery - The church turn all form of religious play base on drama into show about Christian fate( Saint plays, passion plays, allegorical morality plays, cycle plays- From the 11th century onward - There are many different plays that were made from the 11th century on. This start to happen after the 900 century  - Some of the play involved the whole community even though most of the play were performed for the community, The community involvement is an important aspect of the performance especially in cycle plays and in particular in England - There was a rise of professional acting company in some case they where hire by church - Moral, mostly explicitly religious content married to forms that owe much to Roman and Greek Predecessors Cultural amnesia - Theatre base on drama did go away for sometime - Have play that every educated person know but those play aren’t being perform anymore - There were missing link between Terence play and Terence performance - Papules- People - Calliopins- A person that sit in a tent and read Terence play while the performance/actor with mask dance, and act out the play-Pantomime - There wasn’t any recorded of this actually happening - They thought giving actor to read the line was something new but they didn’t know that it already exist they lost the the link and thought that they were inventing a new form, they just bought it back Hrotsvit of Gandersheim: The pioneer c. 935-975 CE - First known Christian playwright the poet we known for writing in Saxon and the first European female historian - She the author of six play all formally imitations of Terence - Her goal is to write play just as good as Terence but direct toward Christian people - Take the elevated Terence play and make them just as elevated but not just about Christian but change and about women Dulcitius: Topic - Through the play we read we can be tell in someway that the person who wrote it has never been to a play - Play about historical point like Agamemnon  - Historical setting: Diocletian(c. 245-316 CE) was an actual Roman Emperor and persecuted Christian ferociously( Violated manner) - The play dramatizes what Hrotsvit and her contemporaries would have thought of as an actual historical event which took place in 290 CE Dulcitius: Form - She use stichomythia( A lot of back and forth/Pattern, rhymed Latin prose) - Has a strong sense of form - Apart from the model of Terence she has no other idea what she supposed to do - The sense of space in the play is wild, the space are all over the place at the house than the mountain, two character that are really far from each other speaking to each other - Dramaturgy: Scenes of argument and verbal dispute alternate with scenes of humor, which can be verbal or physical ( Scene 4 vs Scene 5-7) - Dramaturgy: Juxtaposition( Comparison/ Contrasting effect) of almost farcical scenes with scenes of extreme horror (esp. scene 11) Dulcitius: Representation - Doesn’t really think of stage space think more of functional staging - Example in the play on scenes 13-14 where the motion need to be done in close but also at a far distance - How quickly the actions travels between scenes, and how complex space become Dulcitius: Purpose and Genre - the genre is comedy- something from scene 12 to scene 13 and also in scene 4 and 8 about dragging a person to the top of the mountain( God intervention to save Irene is funny) - It show that man are powerful and say they can do all the things but fail at it and end up doing something small - This play is a comedy because the 3 sister die in grace die in sinner and not as saints - A conflict result in death and a comedy result - To glorify the laudable chastity of Christian virgins sounds serious but end up being shown as a form of comedic Dulcitius: A feminist play? - these chaste women(Immoral women from sexual activity) are not just chaste and limiting to just call them chaste and they are much more powerful than man, men talk big game and fail to deliver through on what they want to - The sister are all courage even when up against extreme threat: The sister courage when debating with the Roman Emperor and his torturer - There no male in this play who aren’t so full of themselves - The author went further when comparing men and women to show the extreme power of women - The absurd ineptitude( Lack of skill) of Dulcitius(Play by Hrotsvit) - Compliant but still have meaning  - A medieval Christian play written by a nun that resonated strongly for an early 20th century radical feminist - This is the end of 10 century Lecture 9: The theatre of 16th- Century England( well, London) The English Morality Tradition Medieval England: Moral Interludes - History of English before Shakespeare show up - where morality plays and we’re generate of allegories play where character were represent differently and to depict life and to die a good life living in a state of saints and trying to embrace that- Morality play were allegories depicting the struggle of the individual Christian escape temptation, do good deeds and attain salvation - The vice become a character, the vice are usually the secondary of hell and sin, It usually super theatrical and charming, funnying and compelling - Sinning is fun and virtue is fun and they embrace it and create a line of play that they are supposed to reject - Making sinn fun because it show you how easy it to fall into sinn and change your good path toward heaven to show you that there is something wrong with the way you are doing things - The devil are hilarious and also fility, like Phlyakes, old comedy and mime, morality play The joke are more about poop than sex - You lure into acting sinful and not just as audience - They were stage of professional actor who made money where there a part of scene when the devil goes around taking money, There saying we are teaching a lesson and your paying us to teach you this lesson - These crucially,these interludes were not just vehicles for moral education, they were commercial enterprises Early Modern Theatre - this kind of play get written between the 15 and 16 century - there were actor tour happening - In the 16 century there are actually involvement of government to bring these theatre to life, also increase professionalization of acting - Traveling companies under patronage of noble households - “Royal interludes”: Company of six, performing at court and throughout the country( To the 1570s) - By the 1570s Acting company start to think London as a home, they travel but spend the most time in London which has consequences on how they Stage - Purpose- built, temporary structures with a stage and riser recorded in the 1530s and 1560s- 1567, the red lion - Use to be call playhouse instead of theatre The 1570s and the rise of the playhouse The rose of the playhouse - Explosive increase in the number of “playing places” in London in the 1570s - First: The yards of inns lightly converted to be used for theatrical performances - The Inns were used for theatrical performances - Inns has important use in theatre performance they have a large yard with a control mode of access with one door for entries and for people to pay before entering, they also have gallery where they can put people to see the performance has a well control space and control where people and be control and organize - Outdoor play were harder to do all year since there isn't enough space to hold everyone - The structure of inn were built entirely for staging play like (The curtain c.1576, The Theatre c. 1576, The rose 1587 etc) Permanent Playhouse - the format of those inns yards - open- air structure, Yard for standing, 2 or 3 galleries with seats, at least 2 stages door, a balcony above the stage, sometime had a trust stages - The most expensive place to sit was near the stage - No lightbulb it relied on natural light like the sun no lighting effect - They don’t share the same shapes and size some were rectangle and other were round and some were smaller and other were bigger - There were probably trap door where people could entry for the actor which is what they have in commons - Indoor theatre were use for company of children and teen in the 1610s - This was early version of broadway in the western time - people like to see Shakespeare play and than a bear killing a dog Professional Theatre in Shakespeare Time - By the 1590s performance we’re taking place almost daily , not on sundays - Companies under the patronage of high- ranking nobles occupied theatres for the majority of the year performing for a paying public and on holidays for the royal court The professional Theatre: The repertory - Operated a repertory system, mixing genres and styles  - The same play are not usually stage twice a week, a new play would be introduced every 2-3 weeks- at any given week a company would have about 10-15 play ready to go to be stage having a mix of recent new scripts, recent revivals and permanent “classics” The professional Theatre: Playwriting - The earliest playwright were actor - The London boom of the 1570s created a market for dramatist who only wrote plays, they worked fast, for hire and work often in teams - Older play were patch and revised but not by the original authors, the playwright has no control over the texts or their performance The professional Theatre: Acting - Company we’re collectively owned by sharers (8-12 per company), also employed hired men who received a salary for their work in smaller roles - All female roles were played by boys, teenager and young me unusually apprenticed to a shared, doubling was common( one actor playing more than 1 character) The professional theatre: Staging - Flexibility was key there were barely any set and few item on stage as furniture - Tapestries( texture fabric) and other decorations may have been used - Special effect and sound effect were popular, costumes see a major investment and attraction - It was a theatre of rhetorical/ poetic and visual appeal Lecture 10: Early Modern English theatre and Twelfth Night Twelfth Night and the Art of Language - there were verse and it often rich in imagery and complex In though (eg. 1.1.1-15) - Prose(written in original form), often fast-moving, witty, and full of puns and wordplay (ex: 1.5 up until Viola/Cesario breaks into versus in line 238) - Music and sung lyrics throughout the plays as complete songs and as quotation One sex - Galen( c.129-c.200 CE) and the “qualities” - Women were cold and moist they were passive accepting things without much of argument or resistance - Men were hot and dry were active were more engaging - Boy actors and masculinity in early modern England - Example: In standing water between boy and man (1.5.157-58) - Example: They shall yet belie thy happy years/ that say thou art a man (1.4.33-34) Lecture 11: Twelfth Night The professional Theatre acting during Shakespeare time - All female roles were played by boys, teenagers and young men, usually apprenticed to a sharer Twelfth night and dramaturgy - Shakespeare play were built in-medias-res beginning: 1.1, Episodic(Consisting of a series of loosely connected parts or event) narrative structure, tied together by recurrent themes (sibling love vs erotic attraction, order and disorder, youth growing up and death, inward vs outward identity) - Has long scene alternating with highly charged short scenes: Highly flexible scenic rhythm - Also has soliloquies where character would speak only to themselves, or thinking they are only speaking to themselves (ex: Twelfth night Malvolio in 2.5) this kind of speaking was more common in tragedies than comedies - Highly ambivalent(mix feeling) ending Twelfth night: Exploring themes - The strangeness of attraction: Wooing by proxy , lethal Love Wooing by proxy: Acting someone else love - Love at arm length ( Example: 1.4.28, 1.5.176-77, 1.5.271) Lethal Love: Antonio and Sebastian - Example: 3.3.2, 3.3.20, 3.3.41, 3.4.381-82) Lecture 12: Twelfth Night on stage Now Twelfth Night 2.4 (production play) 1. Twelfth Night (Shakespeare’s Globe, London 2012) dir. Tim Carroll 2. Twelfth Night (Stratford festival, 2011) dir. Des McAnuff 3. Twelfth Night (Burgtheater Vienna, 2011): dir. Matthias Hartmann Twelfth Night 2.3 (production play) 1. Twelfth Night (Shakespeare’s Globe, London 2012) dir. Tim Carroll 2. Twelfth Night (Stratford festival, 2011) dir. Des McAnuff 3. Twelfth Night (Burgtheater Vienna, 2011): dir. Matthias Hartmann Lecture 13: Moliere and the theatre his time French 17th-century theatre Two rival traditions: 1. Neoclassicism 2. Commedia dell’arte Neoclassicism - First emerges in Italy in the 16th century - Argues for a return to the principles supposedly put forth in classical Greek Roman texts, primarily Aristotle poetics and Horace ars poetica key demand 1. Verisimilitude: Derived from Aristotle mimesis/representation, theatre must be true to life or at least bound by probability  2. The three unities: Time, Place, Action (only the latter is in Aristotle 3. Decorum: That theatre must be tasteful and avoid shocking its audience, class divisions are rigorously(carefully) observed, each character speak according to his condition, his age and his sex - voices for greater freedom(rayssiguier 1632): Those who wish to gain profit and approval for the actors who recite their verses are obliged to write without observing any rules A culture clash: La Querelle du cid - A big public debate on what art in theater is and if it art or entertainment - The clash of the two traditions comes to a head in 1637 with Pierre Corneille le cid - Seen as improperly combining popular and learned theatre - Caused a heated controversy until the first minister cardinal richelieu asked the French academy for a judgement Pierre Corneille(1608-1684) - One of three great French playwrights of the 17th century - The other two great French playwrights are Moliere(1622-1673) and Jean Racine(1639-1699), Racine was the most important write of neoclassical tragedies A culture clash : judgment time - came to a verdict that it not art - It violate poet justice it is also improbability - What is popular is irrelevant even if the public like it, it was really up to the person at power to determine what is art and what isn’t - Art should perform a more order version on what art is - No one was sent to prison to breaking the rule of art - But if you want to be sponsor by royal family afterward you were require to follow the rule of art - Truth is no justification: There are monstrous truths which must be repressed for the good of society it is primarily in these cases that the poet should prefer verisimilitude to truth - Neoclassical rules In effect became royal cultural policy - Further reforms of the 1650s: the Abbé d’Aubignac’s proposal to create a governmental dramaturg; to ensure that actors lead a moral life; to build living quarters for royally sponsored actors (none of which actually happens) - D’Aubignac’s Pratique du théâtre (1657): the first practical manual for playwrights. Basic principles: all must be done “as if it truly is happening. The thoughts must suit the characters, the time and the place; results must follow from causes.” A culture clash: Corneille recalcitrance - also go with beauty, historical content didn't really matter - Tragedy is not for love like romeo and Juliet should not exist - Argue that comedy is harder to write than tragedy because comedy has more to do with a human everyday life it easy to notice when something is out of place or is out of the normal  - But Corneille continued to disagree:Purpose of art (he argued) is primarily pleasure. Moral purpose is a consequence of pleasure: witnessing the workings of a moral universe - is pleasing, but not the principal purpose of drama. - Historical truth is more important than probability. (Contrast d’Aubignac: “One should never insist on the details of history when they do not suit the beauty of the theatre.”) - Genre is not determined by the types of characters involved or the endings of the plays (as was commonly argued), but by the seriousness of the topics. Tragedy calls for “an illustrious, extraordinary, and serious action;” comedy for “common, playful subjects.” No love in tragedies. A culture Clash: Moliere middle ground - Molière on comedy (from Critique de l’Ecole des femmes): he follows the rules, but actually, the only rule that matters is that the play has to please the audience - It is not inconsistent (or violating verisimilitude) when characters are wise in some things and foolish in others - Comedy is more difficult than tragedy, because its world has to be recognizable to everyone - The basis of comedy: “to represent in general all the defects of men, and especially the men of our own time.” Moliere theater and its stages - commercial company, women and man unmasked travel around but want to settle in Paris near the royal had to rental theatre to try to gain favor or form a connect with the royal so they didn’t have to rent theater anymore - Theater were usually constructed in tennis court but it wasn’t really tennis it was more like squash expect for the hotel de Bourgogne and the theater du Palais-Royal - A piece of stage technology use to change the background, a bunch of people under the stage to push a wheel to change the set call the chariot and pole - Commercial companies (with male and female performers) would rent theatres to stage their plays - Some found royal favour, increasing their revenues - Some developed particular reputations: - Molière’s company (La Troupe de Molière, later Théâtre de Monsieur) were especially famous for their comedies - Les Comédiens du Roi were better known for their tragic repertoire (they performed most of Jean Racine’s plays) - Theatres were mostly constructed inside disused tennis courts, except for the Hôtel de Bourgogne and the Théâtre du Palais-Royal - The Hôtel de Bourgogne, constructed in 1548, was the first purpose-built theatre in post-Roman Europe - From c. 1599 to 1680, it was the home of the Comédiens du Roi (i.e., the king’s own company)  - Molière’s company performed for most its existence at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal (from 1660-73), which they shared with a company of Italian Commedia players - Designed by Giacomo Torelli and equipped with his chariot-and-pole scenery system - The most famous tennis court theatre was the Théâtre du Marais, where many of Corneille’s plays were first staged. It operated from 1634-73 - The stage was really deep A lot of the space is use for the set the panel get smaller as they go back that give the depth effect Production watch - General Atmosphere: from Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Cyrano de Bergerac(1990) - Perspectival sets: From Ariana Mnouchkine, Moliere (1978) Lecture 13: Commedia dell’arte: A supplementary mini lecture French theatre in the seventeenth century: Commedia dell’arte - A form of theatre of uncertain origin, but related to Roman Atellan farces and all sorts of physically agile, popular performance - Established in Italy by the early 16th century; first professional company recorded in Padua in 1545 - Features female actors as of 1566 - Commedia was a largely improvised mode of theatre, based on written scenarios and featuring highly recognizable characters and relationships that repeat over and over - Scenarios provide opportunities for lazzi, bits showcasing individual performers’ special talents and skills - Improvised, but very sophisticated, rhetorically structured, allusive, and literate - Initially, focused on master-servant plots; after the appearance of female performers, plots of romantic entanglements dominate - Highly codified costumes and masks (or not) Firmly established set of typical characters: - The vecchi (the elderly): Pantalone (a rich merchant, a glutton, impressed with his own “wisdom” and often obsessed with young women) - The vecchi (the elderly): Dottore (learned but lecherous, often has long, ridiculously punny, very ill-informed speeches)  - The vecchi (the elderly): Capitano (a braggart soldier, arrogant, but sometimes deeply in love) - The zanni (the comical servants): Brighella (sharp-witted, cunning, greedy, and disloyal; often nasty but entertaining. The primary “first zanni” type.) - The zanni (the comical servants): Arlecchino (dressed in motley; a physically agile servant plotting against his master; later often a romantic lover type. The most famous “second zanni” — the foolish type.) - The innamorati (the young lovers, unmasked):Being in love was their sole - dramatic function, Usually face obstacles, which are always overcome in the end, Strongly, excessively emotional Commedia Dell’arte in France - Italian commedia companies toured France for over a century, where they competed successfully with native French farce performers (in Italian) - By the 1630s, there is a resident Italian company in Paris, regularly invited to the royal court - Italian influence remains strong until the late 1660s, when it dwindles; it comes to an end in 1697 - The clash of the two tradition comes to a head in 1637 with Pierre Corneille’s Le CID Lecture 14 Tartuffe Tartuffe and the Neoclassicism debate Tartuffe is: - Neoclassical - Unities of time, place, and plot/action are observed - It move quickly part of the plot - Observe the poetic justice of the play-“Poetic justice” is done the king sets everything tight in the end - Plausibility is more or less achieved if one shares Moliere critical view of his contemporaries - Formal decorum: five act structure: Alexandrines(12-syllable verse lines), rhymed couples Tartuffe is: - Use structure form the commedia dell’arte- Indebted to commedia dell’arte structure - Characters follow commedia type(organ=pantalone, Tartuffe and Dorine =Zanni; innamorati= Mariane and Valere etc) - There a rich sense of physical comedy- example like when the one person was in the middle pulling the character back together as they try to run away, actor wore long sleeve that were pull by the character in the middle (ex-2.2, 2.4, 4.4-7)- Reminiscent of lazzi - The Innamorati emerge united Tartuffe is:  - He take character and make them more complex rather than just leaving it up to the actor - Form of literacy that can be read and perform very poet - There are a few individuals, that stand out as the main character, play not written for big company there are some actor that will stand out more than other - He insist on act style based on social observation - different. - Development of Commedia types into characters - Importance of literary quality of the text - Focus on a few individuals (Tartuffe, Orgon, Dorine), not the entire company of improvising virtuosi - Individual characterization reduces the potential for unpredictable, rapidly changing figures (another unity!) Moliere and the Neoclassicism Debate Molière’s insistence on an acting style based in social observation: - “Think yourself into your parts and imagine you’re the character you’re playing” (The Impromptu at Versailles, Scene 1) - Adopt appropriate pronunciation, tone, gestures, attitude (cf. Impromptu, Scenes 3-4) Tartuffe: Dramaturgy The importance of form: - Long verse lines and the effect of the short line (e.g., 1.1, 1.4, 1.5 [esp. 410-25]) Rhyme and scene breaks (2.1-2.2 and elsewhere) - What is a scene in Molière? - The power of scenic withholding: Tartuffe does not appear until 3.2! - The importance of silence (e.g. Mariane in 2.2, Tartuffe in 3.4-3.5) - Irony as a key element of Molière’s satire (e.g. Dorine in 2.3, Tartuffe in 3.6) - Language and linguistic decorum (e.g. Mme Pernelle in 1.1; Orgon in 3.6; Dorine in 1.2) - The didactic moment (i.e., lessons to be learned): Cleante in 5.1 Production watch(2) - Dir. Bill Alexander, Royal Shakespeare Company/BBC, 1984 - Dir. Benno Besson, Odeon-Theatre de L'Europe Paris 1995 Tartuffe Now - It was difficulty to bringing the form into present, the thematic relevance trumps that - Why is the play interesting now? It hard for play like these and this play the play is rigid form and rhyme and taking something that so polish and changing it or bring it out is harder since it already so polish, It like a old painting you can admire and find the historical background and like it but it hard to take the painting and find why it still revenant now - The topic of play still continue to be resonate(meaningful) more now than maybe in the past - The form is still in the past Thematic Relevance - For Molière: central theme probably hypocrisy - Now? The anti-factual power of belief - Orgon and “knowledge” (4.3) - Mme Pernelle’s “fake news” moment (5.3) - The problem of royal infallibility (5.7) - the play was seen as an attack toward religion and church but it wasn’t it was just an attack on the character tartuffe - There are two aspect in the play that are still important now is between belief and fact- like how organ refuse the fact that truffle is not really the person he his- scene where truffle is sleeping with organ wife - Tartuffe was kind of predictable so he wasn’t really popular in the past compared to now - The unlimited conclusion of the play is the king can fix everything and that the king is the solution to everyone problem - It not that tartuffe is the only evil one and everyone is a victim, everyone is still somewhat fault Production watch (2) 1. Dir.Dimiter Gotscheff, Thalia Theater Hamburg, 2006 - people life are empty and meaningless just fill with streamer and champagne 2. Dir. Michael Thalheimer, Schaubühne Berlin 2013 - the entire set is a gold box - This is the part where tartuffe confess and explain his crime Two glimpse of what modern production look now, they lead with form, the staging has there own form Unit 3: The Long Eighteenth Ce Lecture 15: 18th century theatre spotlights: The New Playhouses; the rise of female playwright; the rose of the superstar actor The eighteenth century: continuity and change- a hundred year gap 18th century theatre - in france neoclassicism continue to reign - The comedy company still there and remain the central and shape how French theatre look like - French has one new call sentiments comedy which is not to make you scary but small empathy small fear of sadness and happiness - They don’t like theatre and shut down in theatre before 1660 - And than after in 1660 there were 2 reopened new theatre and only theatre that had the right to perform Shakespeare or they were given a set of play they could perform  - Theatre of royal still exist, the building and institutions still exist - All three theatre still exist now - Singing was allow but only speaking in play was only allow in those 3 theatre - They were written with specific Audience in mind the royal, the royal travel alongside these theatre - The tragic were hornity and boring - The comedy are dirty - About Neoclassicism theatre, the building space and form change over time - In France, Neoclassicism continued to reign - The Comédie Française (founded in 1680 from the remnants of Molière’s company and the Comédiens du Roi) dominated the theatrical scene - One exception: sentimental comedy (“comédie larmoyante”) - Comedy less designed to elicit laughter than to move the audience to sympathetic tears - In Britain, after the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, only two licensed theatres re-opened in London: - Theatre Royal Drury Lane and Lincoln’s Inn Fields - From 1660 to 1767, there were only two “patent theatres” in London. In 1720, Lincoln’s Inn Fields was replaced by the Theatre Royal Covent Garden. In 1766, the Theatre Royal Haymarket became the third patent theatre. - Restoration plays were either comedies, often bawdy, always witty; or heroic tragedies — both designed for wealthy, courtly audiences - Other theatres existed, but were not allowed to stage “legitimate” plays - The new venues were modelled on continental European theatres, not the English playhouses of Shakespeare’s time - Staging and set design attained a new importance The second Drury Lane Theatre, 1674-1775 - the theatre has gallery and sitting area and for elite people who would sit not standing - With a shallow acting area like in france and a scene In the back The second Drury Lane Theatre after 1775  - most theatre look like this now The third Drury Lane Theatre, 1794 - Still exist now and more modern theatre, the sitting area was brighter than the stage the light weren’t turn off until later century - Light wasn’t turn off to tell people that the play has begun, half of the audience wasn’t really paying attention 18th century theatre - these play spread all over Europe - And sudden there all women in English theatre, in part because of French influence 1. Nell Gwynne (1650-87): was famous for being the first female actor and the mistress of Charles second 2. Aphra Behn(1640-89) was probably the most famous and professional playwright for commercial - The first professional female playwright (The rover, 1677) 3. Susanna Centlivre(1667-1723): also actor and writer famous for her writing for comedy- Actress and dramatist, one of the most popular author of comedies of her time 18 Century Theatre - This period was a big change cause there female on stages and writing and than it stop there wasn’t a clear reason since there wasn’t any law pass or anything it just stop, one of the reason it stop was because of the sentiments drama - about original life and family and establish domestic harmony and piety the people suffering - The goal of the drama was to piety the character create a wholesome social effect and make us feel sympathy for those more unfortunate people and make us feel more generous and not to shake the boat but let it be smooth  - The women who make money from writing and playing actor don’t fit into the sympathy since in sympathy it happy and women stay at home to watch kids but if ur a writer u won’t really be at home so women didn’t really want to write those thing - However, after the 1720s, female playwrights disappear - again - Why? Because of the rise of sentimental drama in the 1720s - Focus not on courtly or heroic figures, nor on urbane wits, but on middle-class domestic characters - The centrality of pity as a desirable response in the audience - Theatre that is supposed to have a wholesome effect: emotional response to moving events on stage as a means of producing generous, sympathetic private - citizens - Acting was a central element in this new approach to theatre The reinvention of acting The new actor - there a new really physical focus - A kind of acting that relate directly to real life - Acting that try to connect to domestic life not copy just connect- the goal - Giving us a different attitude to what acting is - Move from grand rhetoric and/or physical comedy to domestic, emotionally grounded performance - Actor’s task was to transport passions - From a modern perspective: a strange mix of “realism” and highly expressive performance The extended pose/tableau - show a actor playing the character Medea and representing the emotion of terror - They would read the line and than hold the pose at the peak of the emotion, until the passion and emotion of the pose is convey and left it affect on the audience - The goal is to portray nature and realism - The extended pose/tableau - E.g., Medea’s “terror” (from J. J. Engel, Ideen zu einer Mimik, 1804) - Held until an impression had been created, then released David Garrick(1717-79): The first modern celebrity actors - a very interesting figure because he kind of the first celebrity and famous in all over Europe even though he mainly perform in London - The picture is him in the role of hamlet when he saw the ghost of his father - And buying of these painting of people freeze you can kind of feel the emotion of the play - Famous natural performance - His acting style is very contemporary which made him really popular  - None of his acting were artificial it was more natural and smooth - Everyone was more artificial on stage compare to Garrick which made him the main focus - He plan his performance with detail like he had saw in his example of hamlet when he saw the ghost his wig had a mechanical where he was scary and the hair stood up on edge like the phrase I am so scary that my hair is standing up- The pneumatic wig - He was famous for his role in Richard the third in Shakespeare - He change the character the difference between his view and Shakespeare view - Inward that all human being have the potential of good and that it just the outside word that make us bad - And Garrick made it sympathy and the good rather than the bad - Shakespeare’s Richard: a vice figure, rhetorically slick, physically deformed, morally depraved - Garrick’s Richard: tortured by guilt, revealing in that moment - “the inward man” — the inner potential for good in all humans Lecture 16: Theatre and the Nation: German Theatre: From Lessing to Goethe New theater nation Germany A new theater nation - Gemeray didn’t really exist until the later in 19th century - There wasn’t really a theatre until Hamburg national theatre was find, it collapse in two year but it was the start - Before the 1750s, almost all German theatre was performed by travelling players on mobile stages - Johann Friedrich Löwen (1729-1771) and the idea of a National Theatre - Hamburg National Theatre founded in 1767, with Gotthold Ephraim Lessing as its dramaturg; collapses in 1769 Lessing : Gotthokd Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) - Playwright, poet, theatre-thinker - he was a theatre thinker and maker - Translate and wrote poet of Aristotle play Germany: new theater nation - behind this there was no national of Germany - So in order for that to work you have to create a forum for people to speak at and since there no parliamentary the theatre kind of fill in and became that place - The only thing that can bring the national about/ which put heavy weight on the theatre - And that it not just art it was political and the point of the theatre was for people to learn about politics and national - the purpose was not to just train citizen on political matter - Why a National Theatre? Because there was no nation of Germany  - The German language as the single unifying force of German nationalism - The theatre as the single national forum for public debate of social and political concerns - The theatre as a pedagogical institution for the education of ethical citizens: “Theatre in its highest form …. can be seen as a supplement to the law” (Lessing, Hamburg - Dramaturgy, Essay 7) - Compare Schiller, “Theatre Considered as a Moral Institution,” p. 2-3 - theatre also serves a venue for the formation of a national consciousness Schiller: Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) - he was a really accomplished person - First a doctor and then went into art - He ran away, and wrote play and was a professor and philosopher and then stop writing for some time and then come back to writing again - Dramatist, poet, philosopher, and historian - Major plays: The Robbers, Intrigue and Love, Don Carlos, Wallenstein, Maria Stuart Picture of Hamburg theatre - Rapid appearance of other “national” theatres all over the German-speaking countries of Europe in the late 18th century - Schiller himself appointed resident poet at the Mannheim Court and National Theatre in 1783 - However, the ideals that informed those establishments did not necessarily hold up in practice The fail Hamburg experiment - they start having prolonged to tell you what you learn but since it didn’t work and people didn’t like it so they remove it - No ballet or clown performance - Löwen withdraws as director within a year Goal is to “educate the people through new German drama;” in reality, the repertory consists mostly of French tragedies and German imitations thereof - The project was supposed to be critically commented on in Lessing’s Hamburg Dramaturgy essays; the actors insist, successfully, that Lessing can’t criticize them  - Explanatory prologues and epilogues are supposedly mandatory; in fact, they are ignored by the end of 1767 - There are to be no more ballet performances; the third show staged is a ballet - There are to be no more clown shows; by the autumn of 1767, there are clown shows - An academy for actors is set up; the actors stop attending the lectures by the end of 1767 - A system of pensions for actors is planned, but never realised Shakespeare and Germany - even through Lessing was told to stop doing critics he still publish them in little sequel - One abiding legacy of the Hamburg project: Lessing’s championing of Shakespeare - Lessing strongly favoured Shakespeare as a model for German playwrights over the French neoclassicists - Shakespeare’s influence: blank verse; episodic dramaturgical structures; disregard for the “unities” - But unlike in Britain, Shakespeare’s plays both provided opportunities for new stagings and inspired new writing - First major dramatic movement influenced by Shakespeare: Sturm und Drang (“storm and drive”) - Schiller’s The Robbers (1782) as the high point of that movement — a play that loudly echoes the subplot of Shakespeare’s King Lear Sturm und drang - First staged in Mannheim in 1782, it ran over 5 hours, and caused an instant sensation: - “The theatre resembled a madhouse: rolling eyes, clenched fists, stamping feet, hoarse shouts in the auditorium! Complete strangers embraced each other in tears, women staggered almost fainting towards the exits. It was a general dissolution as in the times of Chaos, from whose mists a new creation springs forth!” (Contemporary eye-witness account) Sturm und Drang and “Truth” in acting - Exceptional youth of all artistic participants: Schiller wrote the play before he finished university. The lead was 22 years old - But sensationalism was not Schiller’s goal: uncompromising truth was - August Wilhelm Iffland as the villain became famous for (and a theorist of) truthful acting: renowned for “internalize[d] emotions” and “acting that was both intense and truthful” — but also “controlled” Lecture 17: Schiller in Weimar: Mary Stuart Sturm und Drang to Weimar classicism Weimar: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) - Dramatist, poet, philosopher, novelist, scientist, theatre director, and politician - Major plays: Torquato Tasso, Faust, Iphigenia on Tauris  - As the director of the court theatre in Weimar, Goethe closely collaborated with Schiller from 1799 - They both rejected middle-class realism - Beauty as an ideal designed to refine and educate audiences: Weimar Classicism - Schiller in the 1790s: art’s purpose is the healing of the fragmented modern psyche, to restore balance between reason and emotion, intuition and rational thought - Goethe established working practices that would shape German theatre for centuries: - Living wages and an insistence on ensemble spirit - Very close attention to staging - Extended table work: weeks of preparatory discussions before rehearsals - Assumption that plays should be edited to fit “the characters and abilities of the actors” (unlike Schiller!) Schiller on acting - Schiller argued for an art of acting in which the actor’s personal qualities disappear into those of the character - “The nature of the represented” needs to “defeat” “the nature of the medium” (i.e., the actor) - Iffland (in a similar vein) argued that an actor’s goal should be to represent the character in such a way that audiences would forget about the skill required to do that The purpose of schiller's dramaturgy - To take two modes of “fragmentation” and raise them to a level of abstraction beyond the everyday - Two characters representing two kinds of limitation, but free from the pettiness of middle-class 18th-century life - Drama unfolds as the potential to overcome those limitations is tested out and either realized or squandered, with the goal of having audiences detached enough to observe that process and reflect on it Themes and questions: Elizabeth - Elizabeth as bourgeois role model: work before passion (2.2.76ff., 2.9.824ff.: “sober royal labour” ) - A queen is also only a woman (2.2.122ff.) - Or is she? (2.3.255-82 vs. 283-4) - The question of virtue: a strategy or a conviction? (2.5.485ff, 4.10) - she a queen that had nothing to do with citizen - Since citizen were driven by work ethical and not necessary work in service like to a lord but to a higher level of productive - Elizethbeth as a Character is all about constring and limit in her options - Elizethbeth main job is the secure a heir for the city so there someone here after she gone, Which mean she would have to be marry off in order to protect her city, so she lose her freedom and will  - This woman is chain to a job and the job define what she can do Themes and question: Mary - Mary as a bad queen — but a more fully realized human being (1.7.860ff., 3.1) - Mary’s womanhood and her supposed weakness: not so much (1.7.692ff.) - Mary as an impolitic truth-speaker (3.3.147, 3.4.322ff.) - The serenity of having spoken truth: realization of a human being in harmony (5.6) Themes and question: Men and women - The problem of being a woman: men - Mortimer as a force against reason (1.6.360ff., 440ff., 2.8.768ff.) - Burleigh on Mary’s power over men (2.3.195ff.) - Shrewsbury’s infatuation (2.3.301ff.) - Mortimer between religious fanaticism and erotic infatuation (2.6) — and near-rapist (3.6) Themes and question: Aesthetics - Mortimer as archetypal Sturm und Drang figure - Elizabeth as embodiment of bourgeois tragedy - Mary as the figure that overcomes that divide Both Mary and Elizethbeth are seen as weak but they prove people wrong - Mary so true to herself that she a bad political Biggest problem in the play is men - both women biggest problem is the men, Lecture 18: Mary Stuart Continued Mary Stuart Now( Production clips) - 3.4.311 ff: Donmar Warehouse, 2005: dir. Phyllida Lloyd - 1.7.785ff: Thalia Theater Hamburg, 2008: dir. Stephan Kimmig - 3.1.3ff: Thalia Theater Hamburg, 2008: dir. Stephan Kimmig - 5.6-5.9: Thalia Theater Hamburg, 2008: dir. Stephan Kimmig Lecture 19: A century of Acores: Edmund Kean, Ira Aldridge, Rachel Felix(Theatrical Romanticism) - The play Mary staurt of the 2 play try to keep the lines and plot but also add the competary factor to it to connect the contemporary From Weimar classicism to romanticism A century of actors - In the first half of the 19th century, a number of intense, overwhelmingly powerful actors rose to fame all over Europe and North America Edmund Kean(1787-1833)  - famous for his physical intense and his rapid change of mood and the strong he show, powerfully expressed emotions Ira Aldridge (1807-1867) - The first actor of colour to perform a Shakespeare role in England - Replaced Kean as Othello for two nights in 1833, after Kean’s death - Huge success in the English provinces, where he also played Shylock in some scenes from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice - Left to tour Europe in 1848 and became an international sensation there, receiving a knighthood in Saxony (in Germany) in 1858; first actor to perform Macbeth and Richard III in Russia (in whiteface) - Théophile Gautier (French critic): Aldridge’s Othello was “quiet, reserved, classic, majestic.” - A Polish critic: “Though the majority of spectators did not speak English, they did, however, understand the feelings portrayed on the artist’s face, eyes, lips, in the tones of his voice, in the entire body.” Rachel Felix (1821-1858) - Renowned for her combination of fluidity and grace with emotional vibrancy Unit 4: Nineteenth-century theatrical realisms Lecture 20: The road to realism: From Melodrama to the box set Melodrama The triumph of melodrama - A genre that make broadway - Somewhat happen in England and france at the same time - The line between popular theatre and serious drama - In the 19 century the popular drama become dominated by melodrama, In England that didn’t happen cause there wasn’t a division - Melodrama become really quickly the dominated in the later 100th, Melodrama is about extreme and stage technology, Melodrama strive on stage technology - It has good and evil character either extremely terrifying ot extremely moving - Melodrama is kind of like a rom-com and it predictable - Division between popular theatre and classical theater remained in France to the 1830s: melodrama become the popular genre after 1797 - In England, all theatre was commercial- and melodrama become the dominant genre in the early 1800s - Extreme emotions, spectacular stage effects, often set in sublime landscapes, ruins, forests, wild sceneries, rough weather  - Uncomplicatedly “good and “evil” characters; terrifying or moving situations; cruel twists of fate with happy endings(virtue rewarded) or ending in despair( the gothic version) Quick example The Corsican brothers - for every play he wrote he got other to invent new version for staging - Ex: Harry Potter play was melodrama - Melodrama by Dion Boucicault(the king of melodrama) - First staged, with enormous success, in London in 1852 - Spectacular stage effects: Notably, the appearance of a ghost using what became known as a “Corsican trap” French Melodrama - the French acting became really out touch - In french Melodrama was confined to the commercial theatres and shut out from the comedie francaise, which still clung to the old neoclassical ideal - Break with that radiation with Victor Hugo’s Hernani in February 1830 By mid 19th century - Mid 19th century light start going out in theatre and the importance of watching about what going on stage - 19th century also start having director and had director Frederick Lemaitre (1800-76) - The greatest actor of 19th- century France- but not at the comedie - He sprang about filling the stage with his ample supple gestures and his giant strides. They were real tears that he shed and the flame of passion burned in his eyes. His face, flushed with genuine anger, went pale with real terror, softened with sincere pity - His voice was so faint to begin with, burst forth in cries, groans, sobs. This was truth itself, since it was life, but truth as it should be revealed to the people, that is to say magnified by art, poetic, poignant, and grandiose - Describe his performance: “A tremendous shudder went through the whole( audience), and a murmur of fear, escaping from every breast, turned into a terrified shriek The rise of Realism: Stages as Rooms - In the second half of the 19th century, romantic melodrama became merely popular entertainment - Literary drama and “mainstream” theatre turned once more to the domestic: bourgeois prose tragedy the well-made play, problem plays - One consequence: Set design turns domestic( from Latin domus, “House”) A first twitch - London, 1832, the olympic theatre: Elizabeth Lucia Vestris, the manager, introduces the box set for a production of william bayle bernard the conquering game  - Insistence on historically accurate costumes, real furniture, naturalistic detail (walls, doors, windows, a ceiling) - Insistence on historically accurate costumes, real furniture, naturalistic detail(walls, doors, windows, a ceiling) - Other theatre makers around Europe started experimenting with box sets around the same time - For instance, Johann Nestroy in Austria: The house of Temperaments (1837)- Four boxes like a doll house Sets become rooms - By the 1870s, box sets become more and more common- this is the kind of stage Ibsen wrote for - Stages and rooms had become indistinguishable( can’t see the difference) A precondition of Realism? The emergence of the Director Changes: Germany/Austria - In Germany, Theatre becomes a matter of government responsibility in the 19th century: general sense that the state should treat theatre as worthy of support in the same schools, museums, and libraries are - As permanent theatres, sponsored by courts and/ or cities are established, professional structures are invented - Heinrich Laube (1806-84): as artistic director of the Vienna Burgtheater after 1849 set up the office of director as key element of the theatrical enterprise - The dramatic work of art is “an organism” that requires “an unified approach” and a “governing soul”- the directors - Directors not actors need to run rehearsals because actors are not free to lead; they are parts of the work of art itself. Therefore they cannot given it order or assess their own performance - Insistence on ensemble work over individual virtuosity Lecture 21: The Realist Turn: Meiningen and pictorialism- Ibsen and social realism Meiningen Realism Unboxed Realism: Meiningen - Realism without the box set: Meiningen - Georg II, duke of saxe-meiningen( 182-1914): An aristocratic theatre maker - Launches his theatrical enterprise in 1866; almost no public appearances for 4 years Georg II, Duke of saxe-Meiningen - Perhaps the first director in a modern sense- with more artistic control han Laube directors had - Designed all sets, costumes, and props himself - Developed rigorous principles for staging  - Insisted on the idea of stylistic unity, with the director as the guarantor of the production as a Gesamtkunstwerk - Everything has to submit to the dramatic work - Actors have to follow minute instructions - No stars: Even leads have to participate in mass scenes - No Censorship: the textual integrity of plays is respected(“werktreue”) - Historical accuracy is of paramount importance - Sensational success after 1874 - Between 1874 and 1890, 81 tours to at least 38 cities all over Europe - Almost 2,600 performances of 41 separate productions, in many European metropoles - Travelling by train, using up 15-20 carriages Meiningen Realism - Particularly famous for mass scenes - Most renowned production: Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar - Set based on latest archeological findings - Crowd scenes: every single actor( there often were more than 70) was given individual lines, grouped into highly orchestrated clusters - Crowds as such were not unusual: Hundreds of extra were used for spectacular productions, especially in London - The individualized and tightly choreographed crowds of the Mei ingen shows were exceptional - Rehearsals took months and relied on immersion: actors wearing costume and rehearing in the finished sets to inhabit the world of their characters - Reality of the on-stage world excludes the world of the audience: the fourth wall comes down hard - Some actors turn their back to the audience (unheard of before), even in highly dramatic scenes - Pictorialism: the stage as a picture come to life - Painting as a key aspect of theatrical production Meiningen and the rest - Pictorialism wasn’t invented in Meiningen, but in some ways perfected there - Also a major force in British theatre, especially in Shakespeare productions - In London, famous painters became regular collaborators with theatre managers in the second half of the 19th century (e.g., Edward Burne-Jones, Ford Madox Brown) Henrik Ibsen and A doll house Henrik Ibsen - Born in Norway, but spent his most successful 27 years abroad (1864-91) - Perhaps the first international playwright - Poet and author of mythological verse drama before the 1870s - Artistic director of Norway’s capital first Norwegian-language theatre, 1857-62  - Turn to realism and prose in the 1870s - Some key plays: Peer Gynt, Ghosts, An Enemy of the People, The Wild Duck, Hedda Gabler A Doll house - First staged in 1879, rapidly appearing on stages all over Europe - Part of a broader turn towards Social Realism: the sense that characters (and people) are the products of their social and economic circumstances, not of a shared, immutable humanity - What was not revolutionary about Ibsen: the feeling that “everything is real” and that the events on stage “are actually taking place in real life.” - Plot structure, three-act form, curtains between the acts, theatrical devices such as letters, blackmail plot, and the “woman with a past” storyline are all conventional - Formally, Ibsen wrote within the tradition of the “well-made play” - Preeminent dramatist in that mode: Eugène Scribe (French, - 1791-1861) - Key elements: late revelation of information already known to - the audience; “late point of attack;” reversal and some sort of reconciliation or triumph - It is what happens after Krogstad’s last letter that changes everything - Helmer’s surprise at Nora’s reaction mirrors the shock of the contemporary audience: the play’s dramaturgy is as surprising here to the contemporary audience as Nora’s move is to Torvald - George Bernard Shaw (1897): “Nora's revolt is the end of a chapter of human history. The slam of the door behind her is more momentous than the cannon of Waterloo.” - James Huneker (1910): “That slammed door reverberated across the roof of the world.” - It’s impossible to carry on with all these concealments and excuses.” (Mrs Linde, Act 3, p. 169) - Shaw on Ibsen’s dramaturgy: “Exposition, Situation, Discussion.” - “You and I have a lot to talk about.”(Nora, Act 3, p. 181) - But did the show end there? - The ever-changing ending: Ibsen’s alternative (Feb 1880, possibly at Heinrich Laube’s suggestion!); the Berlin version (late 1880) - A well-made ending: more satisfying than the original? For whom? Lecture 22: A doll house on stage then and now How to deal with this play now? A doll house now 1: Peak Realism - The production watch(trans. Simon Stephens, dir. Carrie Cracknell; Young Vic, London, 2012) - Focus on the psychological, even physical, impact on Nora - A historical frame of reference, not a political or even contemporary one A doll house now 2: Beyond (?) Realism - Schaubühne Berlin, 2002; dir. Thomas Ostermeier Nora: Anne Tismer; Torvald: Jörg Hartmann - Completely contemporary frame of reference - More physically than psychologically grounded acting - The German habit: change the ending Where is the past now? - Realism remains a dominant force, especially in the English-speaking world: theatre that acts like film - But none of the other traditions and styles and movements we have encountered have gone away - Things like the chorus, masks, shallow acting areas, frontal performance, no division between actor and audience Conclusion - The theatre is a mighty devourer of material - It feeds on new texts and old - It still invents new modes of acting, of staging, of experiencing - And it still recycles all the old modes, from 489 BCE till now - It the theatre, nothing is ever old, because everything is now.