Download Quiz #2 Review

TEST #3 REVIEW
THEATRE TRADITIONS
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Origins of theatre
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Egyptian Drama
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Abydos Passion Play
Greek Drama 4th & 5th century
Thespis (the first actor)
Dithyramb (Greek hymn sung and danced)
Festival Dionysus
Playwrights
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Storytelling and ritual
Aeschylus (two actors & 12 in orchestra)
Sophocles (Used three actors and 15 in orchestra)
Euripides (increased actors, strong female roles)
Tragedies vs. comedies
Parts of the Greek stage
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Theatron (seeing place), orchestra, parodos, proskenion,
skene.
ROMAN THEATRE
Evolution of the theatre architecture
 Plays were influenced by the Greeks.
 Two famous Playwrights
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Plautus & Terence
Seneca
Roman theatre degenerated into peer spectacle.
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Gladiator battles
Sea battles
MEDIEVAL DRAMA
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Liturgical drama
Church sponsored bible stories
 Done in Latin
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Vernacular Drama
Done outside
 Morality plays ( religious events) and mystery plays
(moral lessons)
 Pageant wagons & mansion house.
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RENAISSANCE DRAMA
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Italy
Commedia Erudita (hard to understand, performed
by nobility in Latin)
 Commedia dell’arte
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Stock characters
 Script was a guideline
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Opera
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Fusion between music and drama
Began in the late 1400’s
RENAISSANCE DRAMA
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English
Theatre was for all people
 Located outside London
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Famous playwrights include
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Shakespeare
38 plays
 Lord Chamberlain’s Men
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Christopher Marlowe
Ben Johnson
Open air theaters (2000-3000 people)
 Traditional costumes
 Three quarter thrust theatre with a tiring house.
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MODERN THEATRE
Industrial and intellectual revolution.
 Playwrights of the past seem simplistic and did
not fulfill the intellectual needs of modern
playwrights.
 Realism
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Life like
 Actors would become the characters on stage
 Plays that the common person can connect with
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Real life evidence that allows the audience to arrive at their
own conclusion.
 Pioneer of realist is Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)
 Other playwrights include Bernard Shaw, Anton Chekhov
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MODERN THEATRE
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Naturalism
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Extreme form of realism
Everything presented on stage should be lifted
directly from the real world.
Lower class characters
Lacking climaxes and characters as heroes.
Pioneers of Naturalism
Emile Zola
 Andre Antoine
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Antirealism
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Realism is seen as having some serious limitations
and excludes
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Music, dance, symbolism, poetry.
MODERN THEATRE
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Symbolism
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Focused on imagery instead of concrete actions.
Leading antirealist movement between 1880 and 1910.
Drama should not present non mundane, everyday
activities, but the mystery of being and the infinite
qualities of the human spirit.
Adolph Appia & Gordon Craig
Vsevold Meyerhold (biomechanics)
Expressionism
Flourished in Germany during WWI.
 A distortion of reality to communicate inner feelings.
 Protagonist is usually a Christ like figure.
 Major playwrights include Ernst Toller and Georg Kaiser
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MODERN THEATRE
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Theatre of Cruelty
Antonin Artaud (only play was Jet of Blood)
 Revolt against realistic theatre.
 Audience was the center of attention.
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Epic Theatre
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)
 Plays were episodic in nature.
 Complex plots
 Aimed at intellect rather than emotions.
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MODERN THEATRE
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Existentialism
Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus.
 Reaction to WWII.
 Existence has little meaning.
 God does not exist.
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Theatre of the Absurd
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Existence is futile.
Nothing happens in the play.
The plot moves in circles.
Characters are not realistic.
Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Edward Albee,
Harold Pinter.