EXAM 1 I What is Theatre A Working definition 1 Theatre occurs when another or others isolated in time and space present themselves to another or others 2 Drama occurs when another or others isolated in time and space present themselves to another or others in imagined acts 3 These are events Ex Football game speeches class C Life Themes found in all origin stories 1 Love war generations rebellion betrayal horror revenge power jealousy B Formal Theatre Drama 1 The Actor agent of the action 2 The audience 3 The Story Action 4 The Space etc Origins o Oral Tradition East West African o Ritual Religious practice Social formation Political Identity o Divine Gift o Formal Theatre Aristotle written performed tradition All connected to ritual What are rituals Repeated behaviors designed to bring about a specific end o Can be social greek life prayer whiteout games o Rituals are connected to a specific outcome 1 The Mahabharata the moment of transition from story telling tradition to writing things down Indian work a The elephants tusk is broken off to create the written work i Why is there pain suffering joy etc and how was it brought about By the Gods Uzume s Trance Japanese theatre o Miko female shaman o Oral tradition performed ritual o Possession o Ecstacy trance of comedy Ogun s Sacrifice Yoruban Theatre Griot Griotte o Storyteller tradition o Cultural role Became the common areas of drama Comedy Tragedy o The comic aspect is rooted to the shaman who brought about a change in reality through transformation o By dancing and singing and getting people to laugh she exhibits the spirit o Roots of Tragedy human fate Baharata Divine gift from Brahma The Natya Shastra The Ramayana and Mahabharata o Epic poems stories o Sanskrit drama Aristotle Athenians Thespis and Dithyrambs o Canon of Dance and Drama integrated aesthetic experience Stepping Out from Narration to impersonation drama The Poetics fragments of a document made up of observations suppositions and logical conclusions o He lays out his observations of nature and scholars have filled in the gaps Joseph Campbell The human capacity to imitate and fantasize leads to creation of myth and ritual To master the realities of our own world To engage in the world of unknown To construct fantasies and dramas that help us create communities through art Robert Edmund Jones the dramatic imagination Spontaneous Inspiration Advantages of this Theory o Seems to hold true in life o Become part of our creativity vocabulary o Psychological to neurobiological The story of Ug the cavemen describing to his fellow cave dweller how he needed help to kill the beast Theatre Drama Conventions Conditions of make believe that demand our willing suspension of disbelief o 1817 Samuel Taylor Coleridge if you could put some semblance of truth into a fantastic tale you can get people to suspend judgment against it Conventional types of greeting handshake hug etc Conventions realistic to stylized The Willing Suspension of Disbelief o Said to be less when the main role for example on Broadway is played by a well known movie star o Not always a full break to make you forget who they are in real life instead of the character they are meant to portray Required regardless What do we agree to believe Recognition of conventions that triggers that willingness Conventions explained by Tyler s monologue from Our Town He directed us to where things were with description to create an imaginary level of scenery o The lack of the 4th wall allows him to narrate to us the audience although we can look inside to the private show o He also used phrases of direct contact ex you know and direct eye contact to engage the audience Biff from Death of a Salesman Conventions empathy aren t meant to be watching of conventions When the 4th wall is not broken you may feel as if you re watching something you All depends on how the world of the play is created created through a series A Midsummers Night Dream Instead of using young male actors like Shakespeare had done we use females many times to suspend the disbelief The convention of using a script during rehearsal o Acting is not reading it is the connection between the actors in order to portray the full effect Language convention rhythm of the Elizabethan theatre Conventions can change over time Some concepts ex 4th wall had not exsisted yet at this time so there were aspects of both the inside out outside for the audience Behind the Fourth Wall Characters talk ONLY to each other Breaking the Fourth Wall Characters are all aware that the audience is present and talks directly to them You can break the 4th wall selectively for certain events o Grammatik irony When a character talks for a sustained amount of time to another character s Outer Directed Monologue Soliloquy When a character is alone onstage and speaks their inner thoughts aloud Not directed to someone else rather to himself A guise whether created of wood or makeup that alters the actor s face Anything to do to transform an actors face One character talks to a character then talks to the audience then returns to talking to the other character When a character s emotion becomes so heightened that they must sing The use of physical gesture not sound to convey an action Any use of the body to imitate an object that is not truly there Stage combat is an example of pantomime Romeo and Juliet Video Clip Making narrator balcony pantomime Narrator begins as story teller 4th wall Various examples of masking to switch characters The quick change as actors went off stage and changed Mashing up plays and language throughout Masks Aside Song and Dance Pantomime Constant aside Dialougue audience Choreography Two moved in unison The stuffed dummy puppetry Use of rhyming couplets Brief second of slow motion during combat scene Death of a Salesman Video Clip Willie kept trying to escaoe the truth and disrupt Biff realism Highly stylized version of violence Inside of a home kitchen conventional items we recognize as a home Brother and mother tell us the problem is about the family Sample Quiz Questions 1 In the end it is Sam who puts money in the jukebox 2 The setting of the play is St Georges Park Tea room False True True Pea Soup 3 Later in the play Sam speaks about a promise he makes to Hally To stop Hally from having to be ashamed or f himself 4 What food does Hally eat for lunch at the beginning of the play 5 What song do they dance to in the beginning of the play You re the cream in my