THAR 281 1st Edition Lecture 2 Outline of Current Lecture I Mimesis II Theatre background a Greek play writers III Aristotle IV Time periods of theatre Current Lecture I II III Mimesis universal inverse to mimic Way of showing connection To entertain tell stories Imitate instructions to get better at something by being shown how babies learn For theater to exist society has to exist and be complex The first society that contained theatre was the Greeks They separated tragedy and comedy These two categories never mixed The god of theatre was named Dionysus Theater evolved from the telling of stories from songs called Dithyramb long song hem danced by 50 men who tell stories at the same time Thespis was the first actor because he stepped out from the rest of the crowd and said something In the Greeks there were three great play writers Aeschylus oldest father of western drama Second actor that stepped out and created dialogue Sophoclese mastered the idea of having a plot Created a third actor on stage which made relationship triangles such as the love triangle Euripides most modern brought females up from the back of the stage Less sympathetic to heroes unlike the other two writers Aristotle argues two things about theatre One is the elements of drama He says there are six elements that include plot character theme language music and spectacle something to see The second argument is the definition of a tragedy which includes These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute IV imitation of action serious complete beg Mid End not trivial written for performance action based and catharsis emotion of the characters or audience GREEK plays were excellent examples of a climatic form theater plot over character Also they began at the climax which requires a good amount of background before the play starts exposition Violence tends to occur offstage and Greek plays heavily influence the Italian renaissance After the Greeks comes ROME Romans ripped everything from the Greeks and theater became a popular entertainment with several theatrical elements Chorus said tragedies must have six elements took Aristotle s ideas and put his name on it Rome believed in Decorum which is the idea that a character should behave as they would in society After Rome then the MIDDLE AGES In this time period there was not much theater because of Dionysus was not within their beliefs Also the middle ages people did not like the idea of actors acting like someone you are not Theater was slowly brought back in the church when people would have readings of the bible but different people would voice different people in the bible These readings become bigger and turn into mystery plays short pageant plays to express bible stories Later these plays became morality plays which is a secular version of mystery plays These plays were very black and white with simple and short stories Middle ages plays were mostly community based These plays created the episodic form of theater Characteristic of this form include Action was less focused many side plots or separate stories intertwined Stories were written from scene to scene The time and place changes frequently There was a de emphasis on realistic or literal showing of the story More violence After the middle ages then ITALIAN RENAISSANCE In this period there was a huge explosion of visual are and theater Two new forms were created Oprah which is a formality more like the original Greeks envisioned and Comedia which is and informal theater that groups less than ten people together that perform small comedy sketches The biggest thing in this era is that the Italians formalize and establish neo classicalism After the Italian Renaissance then ENGLISH RENAISSANCE The Church of England gets established in this period of time Also the printing press is invented which created a new idea of literacy The height of drama is brought under Queen Isabella Christopher Mario is one of the best writers of theatre that was brought about during the English Renaissance Shakespeare however was the greatest theatre writers He used regular speech and poetic ways to write by using the format of iambic perimeter Shakespeare was the greatest of them all because Significantly moves forward non neo classicalism theatre Updates existing characters shows like never seen before Created new canyon of characters and words ex Recognize quotes from Romeo and Juliet Situations of his plays are timeless After the English renaissance then the FRENCH NEO CLASSICALISM then ENGLISH RESTORATION In 1642 in England all churches which meant theater too were shut down In 1660 Charles II comes back to England to the throne and theatre starts up again Since Charles II came back from France many French theater characteristics were mixed with the new English theatre After the English restoration the SENTIMENTALISM This period was less popular and theater was stilted Theatre begins to be thought of commercially and as an industry In this period the middle class emerges Therefore women have a little bit of money to go out and when they go to watch a play they like sentimental and romantic not violent After sentimentalism then ROMANTIC AND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION This period was fed up with the formulaic pattern of theatre so everyone created their own rules The well made play was industrialized which contained an explosive climax The middle class continued to explode After the romantic and industrial revolution then came REALISM This time period moved away from mellow drama and sentimentalism These people wanted to put everyday people on stage and talk about things that people in the real world wouldn t want to For example STD s bad marriages or other personal problems The realism period created commotion and shut downs After realism then ANTO REALISM AND MUSICAL THEATRE The Americans contributed to theatre by creating musical theatres This developed America s voice in theatre After anti realism and musical theatre then World War 2 came After WW2 then POST WAR REALISM then EXPERIMENTAL THEATRE then POST MODERNALISM which is what we are in now