Drama 115 003 Fall 2013 Exam One Review plays and notes for an overview of the following Plays Basics of plot character and themes especially scenes and speeches discussed in class Trifles Lysistrata The Tempest Tartuffe Topics Qualities of Drama and Theatre Initial Classes Aristotle s Elements of Drama Six elements o Plot rhythm character diction stage craft theme Classical o Plot character thought diction music spectacle Modern Plot character theme language rhythm acting stage craft Basic Cultural Contexts of Plays to Exam One Theatre Architecture to Exam One o Outdoor vs indoor Sound isn t as much of an issue in Greek amphitheater Subject to natural elements Aware of other audience members in outdoor because done during the day as well as environment Fed into festive nature More responsiveness more interaction because of the space o Built into hillsides held like 15 000 Results in theater style more formal ritualized because couldn t read Gestures have to be bigger and more stylized than everyday reality o No back stage vs on stage o Had two performance space THEATRON seating area SKENE scene building behind where the dancing occurred all purpose background Help concentrate limit field of vision Point of differentiation btw characters Divinity higher than the chorus Place where actors could vacate the scene Separate the contemporary world and the world of myth Separate mythical characters from the fictional reality of the chorus Functioned as a bridge btw them o The past and contemporary Orchestra where acting of people are An altar to the God Dionysus on the stage Even though some are doubting it But some were uneasy with this change away from the gods towards the secular civic beliefs Greeks didn t use a lot of scenery Compensate for the lack of stage craft Greek Theater ARCHITECTURE Amphitheatre outdoor space with tiered seating ORCHESTRA dancing place THEATRON seeing place SKENE tent all purpose background allowed actors to get on and off the stage Elizabethan playhouse illiterate and the literate established socials and strangers all mingle together 3000 maximum greater intimacy The globe microcosm of the entire renaissance world view circular wooden o actor is at the center of the world the heart of the universe of mankind very different from religious greek Licensed theatres first time have professional actors trying to make a living art and business dualism of theater and practice in Shakespeare time had to have a government sanction to create a play building a theater Shareholding companies financial groups all pooled money together all equally invested in the play all in rivalry with other companies around there was a lot of competition around shakespeare Literary and Performance Conventions of Greek English Renaissance and French Neoclassical Theatre Literary Conventions expectations about what is in the play and what isnt Myth o Homeric tradition of oral poetry o Everyone had some knowledge about the myths Chorus o Collective character No violence o Reluctance to stage violence in classical Greek o Nothing like a saw movie today Performance conventions Male Actors o All male cast o Not illusionistic o Reinforced sourcing of drama pre theatrical tradition of DYTHARAMBIC CHORUS Masks o Actors wore mask to help establish what character you are playing 3 Actors Chorus o Level the competitive playing field three play rights had to write the three play only three speaking actors along with a chorus Have to think about which characters are on the stage at what time to have them change into other characters Dramaturgical Features of Playwrights to Exam One Aristophanes Dramaturgy FORMAL CONTEXT SEMI FORMAL STRUCTURE EVERYDAY CHARACTERS o Ordinary housewife s and mothers soldiers o Opposed to gods and goddess of gr tragedy POLTICAL FOCUS o WIDE COMIC SPECTRUM o Set of comic theater o Slap stick verbal comedy refined sex jokes or higher promise of dynosian o Spectrum of life UTOPIAN CLOSURE o Happy ending Completely different than what actually happened with Athens World of pleasure vs world of reality Keys to Comedy KABLE S KRUCIAL KEYS TO KOMEDY Objectivity Surprise Exposure Deflation Practice of inversion turning status quo upside down to make us laugh and give us a different vantage point to the audience to change our poli social culturally outside of the theater Letting people laugh at the situation out of the theater the war had been going on for 20 years Slap stick humor Old Comedy Inversion Utopia o End of this note of comic fantasy peace being achieved o In reality nothing really changed in the war o 7 years later Athens collapsed in 404 when Sparta crushed it o wish fulfillment wasn t the reality outside of the theater o comedy often offers us some better world than we started with weddings feasts and dances human women set apart associations with Athena wine oath simplicity and rightness of Lysthostrata domestic skills and has the best of Athena in her offers prodigy when women get stressed she has like a pipeline to the gods she stands apart from the song and dance she s directing the action but then she goes back into the scene building metaphorically things are so dire for Athens that maybe it takes a god to get things better Film Screenings as examples of what All Vocabulary Due to the compressed calendar between PlayMakers opening and our coming exam the PRC Production of The Mountaintop will not be included on this test Screening Examples Exam One Glee Man in the Mirror TV 2011 Romeo Juliet 1996 Waiting to Exhale 1995 Women abandoned by her husband and thinking about how to get pay back on the man that wronged her She burns all his clothes Bernadente passionate extreme In audience we feel bad and don t want to be on the other end of that Prose and colloquial speech fuck Mulan 1998 Production value and interpretation Wall E 2008 The character wall e who collects debris of planet earth finds an artifact VHS clip to imitate that movie clip Wall e uses it differently than he watched the movie imitate the gestures mimices vs the rubix cube he sits on the shelf He tapes it and identifies with the fictional characters and gains something about himself liminality level of transformation changes him and his perceptions No Country for Old Men 2007 Mighty Aphrodite 1995 Diary of a Mad Black Woman 2005 Another abandoned woman Both have similar situations but we laughed at this one Creates a different reaction to this one Playing off each other Tyler dressed in drag