Start Unit 1 Introduction to Theatre and Theatre History Wednesday December 25 2013 8 30 AM Week of Feb 24 Riders to the Sea and Trifles are now SUGGESTED readings Quiz 6 will open Sat April 19 at noon Quiz 3 is on Tues Feb 25 not Wednesday What is theatre Performance with the intent of telling a story or to teach a lesson Aspects you need audience stage actors crew money sponsors script Eric Bentley s definition A performs B for C in X Oscar Brockett addition o A at least one person actor or performer o B performance content thing that they are doing in theatre we expect it to be some kind of story usually scripted with character s o C audience o X location What elements of theatre does this leave out o Specific time that audience and performers come together o Visual aspect such as design costumes sets lighting props not necessarily needed but are still a very important part of theatre What activities or events that we wouldn t normally consider theatre might fit this definition o A lecturer teaching a class Skill Script Analysis Basics o Pay attention to character list o Read all stage directions tell you what people are doing things that are not said o Imagine it being staged written to be performed not written to be read o What are the major themes and ideas How can you tell Analyze your emotional reaction o Which characters if any do you feel sympathetic to Which do you dislike How do the choices made by the playwright affect this o Is it easy to read Confusing Different or similar to things you re familiar with How o Does the playwright seem to have different values or assumptions than you do How do your personal beliefs experiences and interests shape your reading of the play Quizzed on specific plot points and specific things that happen in the script Some basic reception theory terms Reception how the audience receives something comes to an understanding based on this interpretation Preferred reading reader the most straightforward reading best guess at the author s intentions reader is the person who the plays seems to be written for someone who would agree with whatever the author s views are Resistant or oppositional reading reader don t engage with the values of the piece reader does not share the same assumptions Skill Performance Analysis Identify what you see hear o Color movement sound words expressions etc o Keep this at the most literal level Explore what it means o What does each individual element add to the whole piece Theatre History What plays have been performed o Old or new Comedy or tragedy Where and how have they been performed o Spectacle or minimal design Urban or rural How are they financed Who has been performing o Professional or amateur What kind of training Who works behind the scenes Who has been in the audience o Is limited by gender class race etc How are these norms enforced How are the plays related to the things that have happened at the same time o Previous art Strengthen or challenge the status quo Directly comment on events or provide escape Also keep in mind We will be making a lot of generalizations and simplifications Pay attention to moments where they don t hold up Shakespeare in Production Friday January 17 2014 9 09 AM What are the goals concerns of those who have produced Shakespeare in different eras How have the choices they made in production served those goals Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Theatre as a Moral Force There is a lot of freedom to adapt the plays in order to emphasize a message Nahum Tate s adaptation of King Lear 1681 performed regularly until at least 1838 o Some rewrote the tragic ending for this script by keeping some of the good characters alive and added in a love story o Changed the play to convey a more moral message There is not a whole lot of attention paid to costume and design o Actors reuse costumes o Designs and backdrops are very generic Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries Theatre as Emotion and Spectacle A lot more emphasis on design o More money put into costumes and sets When theatre became a very commercial enterprise o Wanting to draw audiences in for entertainment Actors who were more dramatic in their monologues o Ideal form of acting was seen as being big dramatic and emotional Not really the presence of a director but instead an actor manager o Responsible for financial decisions and hiring other actors o Not necessarily guiding the production more for directing and solving conflicts Early mid Twentieth Century Theatre as a Psychological Window Rise in psychology of a discipline o People start to ask why o Most important thing for the actor is what is going on inside the character s head wanting to fully understand them from the inside Rise of the role of the director o Actors needed to be guided asking more of them emotionally rather than just physically More realistic delivery and portrayal o Much more subdued and subtle attempt to recreate reality o Less dramatic and grandiose and emotional Late Twentieth and Twenty First Centuries Theatre and the search for something new Much more freedom allowed o People are allowed to experiment with things that may even be strange o Emphasis on new ideas o People are going to the theatre less so in order to attract audiences directors want to give them something they already know but in a different way Production option New Setting o Trying to find a way to make a script new and exciting as well as humanizing a conflict Production option New Approach to the Text Production option Non traditional Casting o Gender age race o In most Shakespeare plays most actors were white males o Deliberate changing of ideal or expected actors to make point or send a message French Neoclassical Tragedy Wednesday January 22 2014 9 00 AM Political Background King Louis XIII 1601 1643 o Reigns 1610 1643 Cardinal Richelieu 1585 1642 o Becomes chief minister 1624 o Political figure advisor to the king Academie Francaise o Officially established 1635 o 40 members o Trying to maintain purity of French language control art and the way it s done Efforts to make the king the center of France people owe loyalty to the king Rules Bienseance Decorum appropriate behavior o Appearance of goodness o Characters be morally noble heroes should not diverge from proper behavior o Characters who behave badly usually die Vraisemblance Likeliness believability o Don t stretch the disbelief of audiences Unities based on Aristotle s poetics o Time Everything should take place in