Download Theatre / Performance – Origins and Development PRIMITIVE

Theatre / Performance – Origins and Development
PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS ritual – dances, songs and ceremonies- ACTIONS designed to provoke DESIRED
RESULTS/objectives with SOCIAL MEANING and COMMUNITY UNDERSTANDING.
Audience are also performers- but GODS are the intended spectators.
PERFORMERS are collective- featured roles are related to function not ability – ie spiritual charisma.
REPRESENTATIONS- masks and costumes, anthropomorphism, making tangible the unknown
REPETITIONS – must be repeated in the right way to provoke the desired outcome.
Story telling- oral history traditions, myth and folklore, CONTEXTUALISING ritual, a cultural guide between
generations within a community , entertainment and enjoyment of shared culture. UNIFYING community in
response to experience. Practical demonstration of community identity.
EGYPTIAN
Earliest examples of theatricalised ritual/ consciously realised performance of actions
Abydos passion play – annual ceremony retelling the story of Osiris, specific to the location at Abydos, spectacle.
Intended to keep the religious message VIVID and CURRENT in the minds of the spectators. Priests are the
performers – separation of performer and audience, but skill is spiritual not performative.
GREEK
Dramas grow out of DIONYSIAN festivals, state sponsored, rules of performance. Created by poets. Competitions.
Poets and actors selected by the state. RELIGIOUS base, moral and philosophical content- an act of homage to the
GOD. Grows out of choral speaking, singing and recitation
PERFORMERS- limited to 3 (originally 1), masks not individuals, chorus often playing silent supernumeraries.
Originally HYPOKRITES (one who answers) replying to chorus and leader.
THESPIS – introduced 1 actor to have dialogue with the leader of the chorus
AESCHYLUS – goes to 2 actors dialogue becomes scenes
SOPHOCLES – goes to 3 actors- variety of scenes – dramatic- requires skilled actors, who become to be known and
celebrated for their performances- named on the prize lists.
AUDIENCE of 20,000, religious obligation to attend as an act of worship, specific outside locations and structures
exist in which to perform, specific times, focus on act of worship .
Prepared performances, that can be repeated.
Representations of GODS, HISTORY, POETRY
First considerations of theatrical technique – eg gods descend on crane structures, or are placed in certain locations
that indicate divinity.(up high)
Beginnings of GENRE – ie tragedy, comedy (Satyr plays) and a considerations of drama as a distinct form / medium,
with certain rules to establish value (eg unities) and hallmarks of technique (hamartia, anagnorisis etc) that provide
the framework for a critical context to appreciate theatre texts
ROMAN
Rely heavily on greek texts, but these plays are shared in more literary environments – roman playwrights (Plautus )
emphasise knockabout comedy- developing satyr plays, but also feed into commedia archetypes. Also some
tragedy (Seneca) but largely there is imitation of the greek form. Some exiting texts.
Immensely innovative on a wider performance stage – colosseum, spectacle, high stakes drama (gladiators died,
Christians fed to the lions) technically advanced (reconstructed sea battles by flooding the colosseum), editing of
history (battles restaged with different endings) Political purpose – establish the glory and power of Rome.
Demonstration of cultural power. CIRCUS
Specific performance spaces, based on greek designs but more elitist, and more structured performance spaces.
MEDIEVAL
Dark ages – about 600 years of sod all – play texts are only in the hands of those who speak latin/greek – mainly
religious who don’t view theatre as a good thing.
Mystery plays (York, Wakefield, Oberammergau), morality plays, Mummers, wassailing, commedia, troubadors.
Interpreting CHRISTIAN morality and theology, bible stories in an ACCESSIBLE way. (ie not in Latin...) also folklore,
local history. Illustrating Christian LITURGY (choir boys might act and sing little sketches)
Some existing texts: Hroswitha, mystery plays – but captured for practical rather thena literary purposes.
Locations- in houses, in streets, in church- specific locations within a town related to audience and performers.
Timings- alongside the religious and pagan/ seasonal calendars- Christmas/saturnalia/wassailing/ pantomime,
Repeated cycles
Performers- community, guild involvement, not usually professional, not named related to their social role.
Troubador tradition between courts. PERFORMANCES have their own traditions and vocabulary within a
community, and increasingly beyond.
Blending of comedy and morality, spectacle and meaning, representations of VICE/Virtue, biblical characters, local
personalities- integrated clowning, music, juggling.
Geo Poltitical changes (nation states) itegration of geographically diverse areas through Christianity integrated with
folkloric traditions (ie Christmas mummers brought Christianity and the pagan traditions together)
TUDOR/ ELIZABETHAN
Playhouses ( enclosed but outside), court sponsored drama and masques, printing allows easier collation of texts,
travelling players. Theatre becomes secularised, power structures on earth become more pressing than divine
ones, humanism, religious reformation, urban development. Performance itself can be scrutinised rather than its
intended outcome.
Representations of wide ranging historical and fictional creations, renaissance shared origin texts, wider frames of
reference for stories, but also in alignment with the secular power structure- homage to king/queen etc
Specific locations- not related to nature of specific performance
Timing- broadly seasonal, but unrelated to religious cycles
Performers- specific and professional, named and related to roles created for them, BURBAGE, KEMPE, ALLEYN
increasingly important, socially separate and low ranking with exceptions – however share structure of the players
meant that social mobility was possible (eg Alleyn left a large some of money to establish school, shakespeare’s
legacy)
Audience- wide ranging and varied, performers hold focus central to space and performance
Shakespeare makes the shift between texts captured for performance (ie parts actors lean and pass on or nick for
performing elsewhere) and texts for literary and holistic comment (quarto/folio editions)
Part of the cultural identity of a nation.
CIVIL WAR AND INTEREGNUM
Cromwell bans theatre (essentially) and so the professional performance traditions are eroded and locations are
destroyed
STUART and RESTORATION
INTERNAL performance locations are the norm, few (2) but specifically professional and court sponsored
companies, restoration comedies push out tragedies, social rather than religious reflection, FRENCH influence as
the traditions have been lost.
New venues - tennis courts initially but then specific auditioria, recognisable in terms of what we would see now in
conventional design
REPRESENTATIONS of perceived contemporary life, but often with exotic locations. PERSPECTIVE alters concept of
design of theatre and setting, technology, inigo jones designs, SPECTACLE, artificial light, make up
TEXTS collated for repetition, printing, widening body of knowledge and references
AUDIENCE- more socially limited, theatre design prioritises the focus of the important audience members – king,
central point of focus, social drama in auditorium as well as on stage.
PERFORMERS – increasingly celebrated and focused, association with roles and their quality as actors, addition of
women moves towards the considerations of realism. Notions of fame are more located on acting
CULTURAL value and impact as an indication of civilised society. Playwrights have increasing literary status. General
investment in the value of the arts as something the ruling class enjoy. Women begin to have more direct power eg writing Aphra Behn, Susanna Centlivre – who also had random and idiosyncratic careers (Behn was a spy)
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY AND BEYOND
Comedies of manners, social wit and facade. {Plays become fashionable!) but also reflect more directly the social
context from which they originate – in terms of settings, characters and thematic preoccupations – and satire and
veiled political comment and burlesque
More nuanced concepts of genre and style – sentimental comedy, laughing comedy – all with a sensible and
domestic moral purpose – mainly because of the censorship impact of the licensing act, which required new plays
to be approved to make sure they weren’t politically subversive, critical of authority or immoral. Sudden rush to do
old plays, creates Shakespeare worship.
THEATRES are purpose built places for entertainment, but the SHARE process of the elizabethan process begins to
be replaced by actor/ writer managers (Sheridan) – only 2 theatres have patents to do ‘straight plays’ – others
produce a more mixed programme to get around laws.
‘Safe’ material meant the distilling of new writing into morally acceptable domestic dramas, melodrama, social
comedies, pantomimes and old plays. AUDIENCES from wealthy classes,
CELEBRITY ACTORS with social and literary status, Garrick, Kemble, Sarah Siddons, but also touring companies with
actors considered low brow, low tech, not’ respectable’ reputations.
With the 19th century working class forms of entertainment, outside of the mainstream theatre begin to develop –
driven by the urbanisation of British cities- different genres/styles.formats and venues according to class divisions.
NINETEENTH CENTURY
Melodrama – stock characters, plots, unambiguous drama of clear cut conflicts. Short scenes , dramatic tableaux,
musical interludes – so they get around the patents law
Patents become unworkable owing to demand for theatre, (1843 abandoned) Price riots of 1809 (tickets went up,
and popular riots brought them down again)
Keane, Tree, Irving – leading actor managers. Ellen Terry. Actors beloved for extreme hyperbole in acting,
transformations, elaborate makeup, vocal pyrotechnics. Celebrity status, increasing social legitamacy
Pictorial drama – historical, huge attention to visual detail, lengthy scene change, elaborate – Shakespeare v
popular, but also melodrama – emphasis on spectacle and over emotive high stakes. Classy melodrama given
legitimacy by the venues – theatre space is one of decor and appearance of luxury (ceiling paintings, velvet seats,
gilding)- upperclass tastes
Domestic drama – (Bancrofts), aimed for and popular with middle class audiences – cup and saucer drama
(Roberston) – revolutionary – contemporary issues staged with little technical wizardry – leads into the REALISM
and NATURALISM developments – the BOX SET (3 dimensional and attention to detail) – real activities (making tea,
making a jam roly poly in Ours caused a furore)- reinforced status quo.
Drama also began to challenge status quo – GBS, JM Barrie – new ideas (man and Superman 3rd act often cut
because it’s a philosophical dialogue between and man and the devil) political questions often coded as surreal
interludes – but v influenced by Ibsen and his ‘realism’- Pygmalion – class is a performance to be learned was
revolutionary to the Victorians!
Burlesques and music hall – short scenes, music, dancing, ‘saucy’acts, bars in the stalls, travesty (drag). Vestris,
Emma Cons (Old vic)- music hall programme interspersed with eg temperance lectures – intention to offer more
stimulating material to working classes.
Purpose built theatres across the country – regional middle classes wanted the status and the quality of
entertainment available in the capital. (MATCHAM)
TWENTIETH CENTURY
Questions of modernism, avant garde etc become more mainstream.
Refer back to first year notes for this period!