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Introduction to the Theatre Ten Traits of the Theatre 1. Live Event 2. Actors 3. Audience 4. A particular place 5. A particular time 6. The present tense Ten Traits of the Theatre 7. A predetermined structure 8. Understood conventions 9. Communication through the 5 Senses 10. Lasting impact Theatre History • Aristotle - One of the greatest thinkers of all time. Wrote the essay, The Poetics, which highlights how to analyze theatre and the six elements that make-up theatre. • Purpose of theatre is to provide pleasure to the audience. • Organized the traits of theatre into 3 unities o Unity of Action o Unity of Time o Unity of Place Theatre History • Unity of Action o simple plot o chronological order • Unity of Time o one passage of consecutive time • Unity of Place o one locale Six elements of the Theatre Aristotle wrote out the six elements of the theatre, in the 2500 years since that time no one has been able to add a seventh element. • • • • • • Plot Character Thought Diction Music Spectacle Dramatic Genres Genre - is a category that a work falls into that will evoke different responses and feelings from the audience. Six most common dramatic genres: 1. Comedy 2. Farce 3. Drama 4. Tragedy 5. Meodrama 6. Tragicomedy Dramatic Genres Comedy • Play that makes you laugh • has plots that end happily • reaffirms the values you hold to be important High comedy - filled with elegant rich characters who are concerned with how they behave (The Importance of Being Earnest) Domestic comedy - usually about middle-class people with much of the humor resulting from awkward and embarrassing situations. (any sitcom on TV) Low comedy - Comedies where we laugh at what characters do rather than what they say (Dumb and Dumber) Dramatic Genres Farce - a play that produces a lot of laughter at crazy and improbable acts. Road runner cartoons are a great example of farce. They are fast moving, lots of action and a level of violence that doesn't cause hurtful impact but is meant for humor. Farce may also be described as slapstick. A great example of farce is the play Noises Off! Dramatic Genres Drama - a play that is serious in nature and will often leave the audience feeling sad because the characters have been defeated in some way. A typical drama involves a central character struggling for some goal we all feel they are worthy to achieve, when they fail, we feel their pain. Although drama can be depressing, many people love the genre because they experience the emotion without living it themselves. The Glass Menagerie is an excellent example of drama. Dramatic Genre Tragedy - the most misused word for the description of a play. Something that is sad, is not a tragedy, it is a drama. A tragedy is a serious play that tries to teach the audience that they're worst expectations about life are true and should give them affirmation and a sense of wisdom or certainty. In a true tragedy a sense of awe about the main character is reached because they strive for a goal they know can only be reached at their own peril. Even though seeking this goal can bring destruction they do so because it is the only way to be true to themselves. Oedipus the King and Othello are well known tragedies. Dramatic Genre Melodrama - this is the action adventure movie of the theatre. It is the play that we connect with the most even though it has the least profound impact on our lives. A melodrama is a play that is more focused on the plot and good triumphing over evil than it is on the character development. Melodramas reflect what we think life ought to be and do so with very exciting stories and often physical challenges. Star Wars is a melodrama at the movies. Inherit the Wind is a melodramatic play. Dramatic Genres Tragicomedy - if you leave the theatre feeling frustrated, anxious or agitated you've likely seen a tragicomedy. The play combines the serious nature of a tragedy with the playfulness of a comedy. These plays were developed in the 20th centuries and continue to be popular today as concerns for physical and economical safety continue. Tragicomedies strive to highlight the frailty of the human condition but provide a modicum of comic relief. Avant-Garde theatre is typically tragicomedy such as Waiting for Godot. Theatrical Styles Style - how an artist imitates reality Six theatrical styles that are divided into three pairs • Objective Reality - tells us how the playwright sees things by how they look and sound. A scientific view of reality. • Subjective Reality - shows the audience how the playwright feels about the world around them. The playwrights feelings influence how things look or sound. • Idealized Reality - this is the version of what a perfect reality would look like to the author. Theatrical Styles Objective Reality Realism - also called determinism. It is a popular style of the last part of the 1800's. It sees the characters as victims of both natural and social forces that are beyond their control. Traits to identify realism: • Looks like a world we know or believe existed in a previous time period. • Characters speak in a language that is believable or could be believed if set in a different time or locale. • Is there a logic to why things happened the way they did? Theatrical Styles Theatricalism - Shows us the truth of our world by imitating our objective imitation of it. In other words - "All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players" Shakespeare. Theatricalism takes the notion that all people are self conscious and watch how we act around others. There is a strong reminder that we are attending a play. Traits of Theatricalism: • The action is set in a theatre • Characters play roles inside the play (stage manager - Our Town) • Audience sees how the theatre works with set changes and such • Demonstrates that it is hard to distinguish between illusion and reality Theatrical Styles Subjective Reality Expressionism - at its introduction was considered a startling form of theatre. It is based on the belief that dreams reveal the truths hidden inside a person. A central character is typically complex and the world is viewed from his perspective. Traits of Expressionism: • The central character is typically tormented by society in some way. • The scenery, costumes and make-up are typically extreme, intense or distorted. • Dialogue is short and fragmented. • Character names are descriptive of what people do instead of names. Theatrical Styles Surrealism - developed in France during peace time following WWI is based on the belief that the images in our subconscious reveal the the truth and that the truth can be beautiful, lyrical and sometimes very funny. Unlike expressionism, it is a more fanciful world view of reality. Traits of Surrealism: • Scenery, costumes and make-up are curved and swirling instead of sharp, angry angles. Typically there are unusual proportions. • People and objects change their appearance before the audience's eyes. • The tone is whimsical with visual jokes. • There is an altered sense of time, some things happen slowly while others fast. • The logic or sequence of events is hard to follow. Logic by association. Theatrical Styles Idealized Reality Classicism - based on the belief that we can learn the truth if we use our powers of reason to crate n ideal world. The motto - moderation in all things applies to classicism. There is no excess, items and relationships are proportionate. Traits of Classicism: • The scenery and costumes are reminiscent of Ancient Greece or Rome. They are formal and symmetrically balanced. • Characters speak using formal rhetoric and often engage in intellectual debates. • The central character will assert his or her will in an effort to control basic impulses. • The tone of the play is intellectual in nature. Theatrical Styles Romanticism - based on the belief that the truth is discovered through feeling the emotions of our idealized image of perfection. It celebrates the quest for perfection. The image of perfection in idealized reality is based on emotions and not reason. Traits of Romanticism: • The action is set in an exotic and distant historical era or in a mythical time or magical locale. • The characters speak in elevated language as opposed to the vulgar language of realism. • The central character striving toward an ideal they could never achieve in real life. • The audience is swept up in the adventures of the plot and thrill of the emotions of the story. Theatrical Styles To illustrate the six different theatrical styles - take a blank sheet of paper, draw an image of a house based on the theatrical styles. Label each one and use details to distinguish between the styles. Realism Theatricalism Expressionism Surrealism Classicism Romanticism Another Opening, Another Show - A lively introduction to the theatre 2nd edition. Writing about Theatre Three types of writers about theatre: 1. Reviewers and Critics 2. Scholars 3. Students Reviewers/Critics - most people use these terms interchangeably but they do have some distinctions. • Reviewer - journalist who writes about the 5 W's • Critic - someone that analyzes the piece and forms an opinion about its worth. Writing about Theatre A well written review includes: • • • • • • brief synopsis of the plot clear statement of theme identify any prominent actors, directors or designers brief description of the director's interpretation brief description of the actor's work description of the audience response A good review also tells the reader if the reviewer liked the play, why they liked and why the reader should go see it. A critique is more in-depth and provides a more sociological perspective on themes and interpretations. Writing about Theatre Scholars - perform historical, analytical and theoretical research and them make contributions to our knowledge of theatre by writing about it. Scholastic articles can be found in publications such as the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism. Additionally, there are a multitude of textbooks on the subject. Writing about Theatre Students - writing by students is typically in essay form and covers the topics as set forth by the instructor. • 5 paragraph essays • critiques • predictions • application to relevant themes Writing about Theatre Goethe's Three Questions Created 200 years ago by the German playwright Goethe to organize your thoughts when writing about theatre: 1. What was the artist trying to do? 2. Did the artist succeed in doing it? 3. Was it worth doing? The Creative Process Although actors, directors and designers can have creative genius, it is largely interpretive work. Without the written work of the playwright, there is no theatre. The Playwright Process 1. The story 2. The plot structure 3. Technique o Dialogue o Stage directions o Characters o Actions The Creative Process The story - for many playwrights, the story is the first thing that happens. An idea for what should happen and to whom it should happen is imagined and from there, the rest is born. The plot structure - how the story unfolds • Linear • Cinematic • Contextual The Creative Process Linear Structure - Incidents in the plot are arranged in sequential order. • Continuous - the action happens from start to finish without any gaps • Episodic - the action occurs with gaps in the timeline, the author chooses to exclude different events • Simple - most linear structures are considered simple if they tell one story • Complex - a linear structure can be complex if more than one story is told The Creative Process Cinematic - a story can be told non-chronologically • Flashbacks • Non-reality sequences • Expressionistic in nature Contextual - a rare structure that strings together individual scenes that are complete and self-contained • Each scene is stand-alone • No cause-effect logic • No traditional plot (beginning, middle, end) • More like a bound collection of short stories or a greatest hits CD The Creative Process The Playwright's Tools • Dialogue • Stage directions • Characters • Actions Dialogue - the primary tool of the playwright, it describes the speeches that the characters say. Most of what is written in a play is dialogue. Stage directions - the descriptions that the playwright provides to actors to make the scenes more meaningful. Implicit or explicit. The Creative Process Characters - the agent for the action. Actors get information about their character from what the playwright says about the characters in stage directions, what the character says about themselves, what characters say about other characters and what characters do. Action - anything that is done to change the status quo of a scene. The Creative Process Theme of a play - an abstract idea that exists outside of the play as well as within it. Meaning of a play - the idea that is expressed through the plot of the play. To determine the meaning, condense the plot to a simple sentence starting with the phrase: "This is the story of...." Generalizations based on this synopsis will often be the meaning. The Creative Process Actors and Characters In crafting a character, an actor works with or has 3 raw materials: • text • self • context Four sources of character information • What the playwright says about the characters in stage directions • What the characters say about themselves • What characters say about other characters • What characters do The Creative Process The Stanislavsky System • Objective: What do I want? • Obstacle: What's in my way? • Action: What do I do to get what I want? The entirity of a role is built on units striving for smaller objectives that meet an overall superobjective that is the overriding goal of the character. Units can be broken down into beats or bits of information. The Creative Process In other fine arts, the instrument is separate from the artist, for theatre, the actor's intrument is themself. Four aspects of the self: 1. Body 2. Voice 3. Imagination 4. Discipline The Creative Process 10 Elements to acting/developing characters: 5 W's 1. Who 2. What 3. When 4. Where 5. Why 5 Senses 1. Sight 2. Smell 3. Hear 4. Touch 5. Taste The Creative Process Improvisation - a moment-to-moment collaboration between partners. Six rules of Improv: 1. Don't deny 2. Yes and...(agree and add) 3. Don't put your partner on the spot 4. Don't go for the joke 5. Beware of questions 6. Commit, commit, commit The Creative Process From Nothing to Something: 1. With partner, decide who, what, where, beginning, middle and end of a possible scene. Scenes should maintain unity of time, place and action. The simpler the better. 2. Improvise the scene from beginning to end. 3. Outline the main storyline as it happened, specifically inluding the best 3-4 lines. 4. Improvise the exact scene again. 5. Update the outline, listing changes and 3-4 additional best lines. 6. Improvise the scene again. 7. Begin scripting the lines.