THAR 281 1st Edition Lecture 12 Outline of Last Lecture I Musical Revues a George Cohan b Florence Ziegfeld c Tin Pan Alley d Jazz II Musical Comedies a George Gershwin i Porgy and Bess b Cole Porter c Rodgers and Hart i Pal Joey III Show Boat IV Movie Musicals a Buzzy Berkley Outline of Current Lecture I Expressionism II Furrurism and Dada 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 Surrealist IV Bertolt Brecht a Epic Theatre V Luigi Pirandello VI Lorca VII Adtaud a Theatre of Cruelty Current Lecture European Theorist I II III IV Expressionism was an expansion of art and literature This era was not realistic and offered a glimpse of the inner truth of a story or character These were small independent scenes that contained similar ideas Also they did not value dialogue Futurism and Dada both emphasize styles and media Neither of them had a big impact but were both influential to later areas in theatre Both of these thought that theatre should constantly reinvent itself and past theaters should die and not come back Also futurism and dada antagonized their audiences by confusion insulting loud noises etc in order to provoke a response from the audience Futurism started in Italy and they were fascinated with war and industry involving war and machines They thought the world as mechanized Dada started in Switzerland and they were passivist who didn t like war or conflict They also questioned the definition of art How is art defined Surrealist was a theatrical movement in France They thought the highest plane of reality was your subconscious They mixed real and imaginative events Bertolt Brecht was a German playwright theorist director and producer He worked with Curt Weill to produce his plays He was forced to flee from Germany so he came to the United States but then during the red scare he was exiled back to Germany for his political beliefs After going back to Germany he became head of the Berliner Ensemble He wrote three penny opera mother courage and her children and good women of Setzuan Brecht had a style of theatre called Epic Theatre a Epic theatre was on how to produce theater It was highly episodic and broke up the narrative frequently It was also didactic taught a lesson He saw it as a tool to bring social change He was very theatrical and liked when things appeared out of nowhere The Alienation affect was that the audience was always to be aware that they were in a theater and not to get immersed into the emotion of the play He did this by direct address to the audience visual technical elements plackers that would hold up signs songs that the characters would explain what V VI VII they were thinking and historification which meant the time period of the play was today but the setting was in the past Luigi Pirandello was an Italian playwright and novelist In 1934 he won a noble prize for his bold renovation of drama and stage He was conservative with his political views and influenced absurdism He is famous for 6 characters in search of an author These characters were unfinished actors and was about how everyone understands the world differently Lorca was a Spanish playwright poet and director He is known for lyrical quality in his works and his beautiful imagery that his characters portray His play a critique of Spanish government and Spanish society didn t last long His famous works are blood wedding and the house of Bernarda Alba He was assassinated Aftaud was a French playwright theorist and director He was heavily influenced by surrealism and Asian theatrical traditions During his life he did experience with drugs and therefore had periods of mental instability He founded the Theatre of Cruelty a Theatre of Cruelty was outlined in his book called Theatre and its Double He thought theatre should return to nontextual realistic origins He used the word cruelty to mean abrasively shatter the audience s false reality Aftaud advocated for the reconstructing of theatrical events audience performer relation and what was the importance of a theatre