THET110NotesOctober 31, 2012Reaction to RealismRealism- Foundational ideaso The artistWays Realism Changed Theater- Voluminous stage directions- Ending of a Doll’s House was extremely controversial – that Nora left her husband and childreno This had huge societal implicationsWorld War I: 1914-1919- Mechanization of waro Wireless communicationo Machine gunso Trench warfareo Tankso Planes and bombso Submarineso Mustard gas/chemical warfareo Mechanical/dehumanized warfare- Inconceivable loss of lifeResponse in Art and Theater- Realism no longer adequately spoke to human experience - Order obliterated two significant failuresBertolt Brecht and Epic Theater- German, committed Marxist (Hitler burned his books)- Uses theater to reveal social and economic construction of reality and invite audience tothink critically about how something is made to happen. Man is a process- Rejection of Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk- Rerfremdungseffekt – defamiliarization or “to make strange”- Masks- Place cards- Poor minimal theater- Theatricality: reveal the construction- Music - GestusAntonin Artaud and the Theater of Cruelty- French surrealist- Heritage of Dadao Anti war, anti art, anti past, anti futureo Importance of presence; only importance is how the now – the movement of performance o Language and logic are illusions- Theater of crueltyo Break down artificial walls between spectator and spectacleo Bombard the audience from all sides with new sensationso Induce a trance that might permit performers and audience members to escape or resist control of authoritarian
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