THAR 281 1st Edition Lecture 9 Outline of Last Lecture I Anti Realism a The Dream Play II Maurice Maeterlink III The Ubu Plays IV Meyerhold a Biomechanics Outline of Current Lecture I Current Lecture Popular theatres at the turn of the century I II Operetta was originated in France Translated to the little opera This was light in comic in tone and content Operettas take popular tunes and songs and turn them into story lines The actor s voices are classically trained a Gilbert and Sulivan are lyricists and composers They were widely successful There plays put the characters in bizarre situations They wrote the famous plays The Pirates of Penzance Mikado and HMS pinafore These plays contains a patter song which was what a character would sing fast like a rap song today The most famous is the Modern Major General After the play the audience would clap and want an encore When they did this the character would come back on the stage and rap even faster Oscar Wilde wrote many different kinds of writings He was heavily linked to the aesthetic movement which is the study of the way things appear Wilde is known for his quips or sarcastic witty remarks Unfortunately at the height of Wilde s career he was tried and imprisoned for gross indecency and was in jail for the rest of his life His most famous work is The Importance of Being Earnest which is a type of comedy of manners 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 III IV V George Shaw was also wrote of many different kinds He is said to have reinvigorated the English theatre since Shakespeare Shaw is very outspoken social critic and you can see this by his writings He wrote realistic comedies of manners His famous works are Candide Arms and the Man and his most famous Pygmalion These plays have long dialogues three acts and express political views Noel Coward wrote many different kinds of writing including his own music He is known as the master Coward s writing style is very witty and sophisticated He lived the royalty and wealthy life and this reflected in his plays There were not any politics in coward s plays His famous works are Private Lives and Blithe Spirit a In Blithe Spirit Charles is presented as the protagonist and Elvira as the antagonist All the characters are self centered and do not care what the effects of their actions have on other people A theme in this play is Farce vs Comedy Comedy has an end that the audience can clearly see what the comments throughout the play were about However Farce is just basically for laughter and there is not an end The characters do not really change or the audience does not learn a lesson Farces are mostly to just entertain Emerging American Theatre is heavily based on English theatre because they had an existing social structure and was easy to import the ideas New York became the center of American commerce and trade A theatrical syndicate was a business that owned a number of theaters around the country If a playwright was not in this group they tended to get pushed away by the business monopoly In 1915 the Shubert Brothers broke away from the syndicate and formed their own monopoly a Minstrel Shows rose up in the south with Jim Crow being a main character White performers would paint their face black in order to play black roles These actors were called blackfaces These shows were consisted of songs and skits Also these shows were racial insensitive county played banjos and didn t have a narrative b Burlesque was originally a variety songs and dances show with sketches and skits When it first came out this was meant for adults but over the years it has just became more vulgar and some characters now strip c Vaudeville is a touring variety show These shows feature every conceivable kind of performance such as circuses acrobats dancers singers escape artists etc Vaudeville shows works on circuits meaning once a show was one circuit then they would be booked all over that companies theaters This was specifically aimed at middle class families Vaudeville shows have declined because of the depression and they cannot compete with movies and the economy