THAR 281 1st Edition Lecture 4Outline of Last Lecture I. What Changes Did The Romans Make?II. Two Major Playwrights: Plautus and Terrance III. SenecaIV. HoraceV. Popular Entertainment For The RomansVI. Eventual Decline of Roman Comedy Outline of Current Lecture I. General Background on Asian Theater II. Classical Indian TheaterIII. Classical Chinese TheaterIV. Japanese Theater FormsCurrent LectureI. General Background on Asian Theatera. Heavily Influenced by danceb. Symbolic in meaningc. Theater decline in West but continued in Easti. Religion causes decline in West (see previous lecture for more info)II. Classical Indian Theatera. San Skrit (language spoken by nobility)i. Plays written in this languageii. Written in this language so only refined people understand/appreciate itb. A cannon is a collection of worksi. In a cannon of san skrit drama there is about 50-60 playsc. Shakuntala is a seven act worki. Tells story of kind and an orphan of a hermitii. They are in love and get secretly marriedd. Total theater is when all singing, dancing, acting, etc. happen in the playi. All aspects are working together to “overwhelm” the audience III. Classical Chinese Theater a. Not a whole lot written about Chinese theater b. Yuan Dynastyi. has form of drama called Zazuii. Has a four hour workiii. 168 of the work survived c. Ming Dynastyi. Relevance in popularity from previous dynasty stagnatesii. Popular culture falls out iii. More academic/ornate iv. Aimed more to the upper classIV. Japanese Theater Formsa. Noh Theateri. Performers trained at young age in song, dance, and recitation of textii. Wording is very advanced (very symbolic)1. In order to enjoy, have to have good sense of culture iii. 2 types of text:1. Phantasmal: being approached by spirit of great or noble person of the past2. Present Experience: represents contemporary setting with characters as real people iv. Has some mask work to help define what the character is representing b. Bunraku Theateri. Influenced by Noh Theaterii. Main difference is that Bunraku is a puppet theateriii. Puppets controlled by up to 3 handlersiv. There is modern Bunrakuv. Handlers mostly dressed in black so are invisible to audiencevi. Puppets are 2/3 of an actual person’s sizec. Kabuki Theateri. Heavily influenced by Noh Theater (especially in tone/structure)ii. Most popular of all 3 forms of theateriii. Has elaborate costumesiv. Dances symbolic and structures in similar wayv. Costumes are all
View Full Document
Unlocking...