Download Chapter 7 - History of Drama

History of Drama
Chapter Seven
Stage and School Textbook
Essential Standards
B.CU.1 Analyze theatre in terms of the social, historical, and cultural contexts in which
it was created.
B.CU.1.1 Use theatre arts to explore concepts in world history and relate them to
significant events, ideas, and movements from a global context
B.CU.1.2 Exemplify history, culture, geography, economics, civics, and government
from a global perspective through the creation of theatrical works.
B.CU.2 Understand the traditions, roles, and conventions of theatre as an art form.
B.CU.2.1 Illustrate appropriate theatre etiquette as a member of an audience, as a
performer, and as a technician
B.CU.2.2 Use acting conventions, such as stage presence, subtext, style, and
ensemble work, to perform formal or informal works.
Ancient Beginnings
The history of drama is closely related to the history
of humanity. When the first hunters recounted their
adventures using pantomime, when the first
storytellers told their tales in rhythmic chants, and
when the first organized groups of people found
expression in the pantomime of war and fertility
dance, the dramatic impulse demonstrated itself.
Later, primitive actors used masks to portray gods or
animals.
Western Drama – The Greeks
• 6th century BCE – was worship of the Greek god Dionysus
• Dionysus – God of wine (pleasure god)
• Had two sides to him good and bad (comedy and tragedy)
•Chorus – group of chanters – danced around an altar to commemorate his death
•Song they sang was called the goat-song or tragos (the Greek word for tragedy)
• These performances evolved into dramatic contests
• Lasted 5-6 days.
• Last three days four plays were performed
• 3 tragedies (trilogy) and a comedy (satyr)
The First Actor
Thespis (the first actor) won the
first competition by stepping out
from the chorus and engaging in
dialogue
Thespian – the name given to
actors ever since
The Greek Amphitheater
Amphitheater – In the beginning the ancient
Greeks used natural sloping hillsides
surrounding a circular area where the
performances were held. Later wooden seats
were added, then stone.
Some of these theaters could seat more than
17,000 people.
Orchestra: ( "dancing space") was a flat circular area between the audience and
the actors. This space was normally occupied by the chorus. Our use of the term
now to describe a group of musicians had its origins in the place in a theater where
those musicians played.
Theatron: - ("viewing-place") is where the audience sat. The theatron was
typically on a hillside above the orchestra, rather than being built up. This gives us
the word "theater.".
Skene: ( "tent") was the building directly behind the stage. Early on, these were
actually tents (hence the name). The side of the skene facing the audience was
usually decorated to look like a temple or palace. Actors would often emerge
from the doors of the skene and could even play from its roof. Our word "scene"
comes from this building.
Parodos: - The parodoi were paths by which the chorus & some actors (made
their entrances and exits. In particular, the entrance of the chorus was an
important part of the play (which was called the Parados). These paths were also
the means of exit for the audience.
The Role of the Chorus
▪ Explains the situation of the play.
▪ Bring the audience up-to-date on things that happens.
▪ Make a commentary on the action of the play.
▪ Engage in dialogue with the actors.
Eventually role diminished as actors’ roles expanded. The
chorus is still used to increase realism of scenes and to
engage in scenes with the main characters.
Authors of Greek Drama
Aeschylus
• Expanded number of
actors, reduced the
size of the chorus.
• Only surviving trilogy
– the Oresteia
Sophocles
• Ranked with Shakespeare
as one of the best
playwrights of all time.
• Refined plot structure to
create unified works
• Author of Oedipus and
Antigone
Authors of Greek Drama
Euripides
o Emphasized human
relationships
o Master of pathos –
human sorrow and
compassion
o Author of The Trojan
Women and Medea
Aristophanes
o Author of Greek comedy
o Considered nothing sacred
o Skilled satirist and observer
of humanity
o Author of The Frogs, The
Clouds, and Lysistrata
Roman Drama
• Most were just copies of Greek Drama
• Andronicus – first “Roman” playwright, an
author from a Greek colony
• First Roman tragedy was a translation from a
Greek play
• Major Roman playwright – Seneca, a writer of
pretentious tragedies or closet dramas – his
plays were meant to be read rather than
performed.
Medieval Dramas
Little is known about the theatre between 600-1000 A.D.
- There are references to actors,
jugglers, rope dances in nomadic
tribes, remnants of Roman mimes,
popular pagan festivals and rites.
- Teutonic minstrels or troubadours
became the primary preserver of
tribal histories, but the Teutonic
tribes converted to Christianity after
the 7th or 8th century, and the scops
were denounced, branded as bad as
mimes.
- But there was little written drama;
none that survives, and almost no
other surviving references to it.
Performance Spaces
• Performed on platforms called mansions.
• Three mansions represented Heaven, Hell and the Sea of
Galilee
• Medieval craft guilds took over the presentation of drama
• Pageant wagons – stages on wheels
• Divided into two levels (upper = stage, lower = dressing
area)
Types of Medieval Drama
▪ Liturgical drama – question-answer song performed by monks on Easter
▪ Saint plays – based on legends of saints
▪ Mystery plays – based on biblical history
▪ Passion plays – address the last week of Christ’s life
▪ Morality plays – taught the difference between right and wrong
▪ Moral Interludes – shorter then Morality Plays, but with more humor
▪ Folk Drama – secular drama (non-religious)
 Discouraged by the church - Took place around planting and harvest time and
presented outdoors -Most pagan religions gave thanks to an earth goddess,
hence celebration around planting and harvest.
Drama in the
Renaissance
Italy
▪ Weak imitations of classical plays
▪ Opera – an attempt to revive Greek
Drama
▪ Commedia Dell’arte – “comedy of
the profession”
– Professional improvised comedy
– Plot outlines posted before
performance or scenarios
– No scripts
– Stock characters which represented
two classes
• Arlecchino –
The mischievous
servant
Drama in the
Renaissance
England
Queen Elizabeth and the Theater
• Queen Elizabeth supported the arts
more than any other ruler of the
time
• Threats of closing the theatre due
to the plague were often stopped
because of her
• Financially assisted some troupes
and theaters
Christopher Marlowe
• Introduced
important use of
blank verse
• Shakespeare’s main
competition
• Author of Doctor
Faustus (story of a
man who sells his
soul)
William Shakespeare
• The characters form the center of
interest in Shakespeare’s plays.
• Iambic pentameter/blank verse
• Author of Romeo and Juliet, A
Midsummer Night’s Dream and 35
others!
• Also wrote 154 sonnets!!
• Shakespeare used soliloquy or a
speech delivered by an actor
alone onstage to reveal a
character’s innermost thoughts.
The Elizabethan Playhouse
• The Globe and The Rose two most famous theaters
• Platform (thrust) stage with courtyard around on three sides
• Three tiers of seating – the higher the tier the more
expensive the seat (opposite of today’s theatre)
• Open air – if it rained, the groundlings got wet
• Groundlings- members of the audience that paid a penny to
stand directly in front of the stage or (pit)
The original Globe
theater
opened in 1599 but
burned in 1613. It
was rebuilt built &
operated until 1642.
Today the third
version of the
historic Globe
Theater is on the
original’s location
and has be in
operation since 1997.
Parts of the Playhouse
▪ Tiring House – A room that functioned as the actor’s dressing room.
▪ The center rear of the stage behind a curtain is called either the study or
inner below.
▪ The tarras is located on the second center balcony, behind curtains called the
arras. The arras was often hung to conceal another recess called the
chamber.
▪ The heavens is a roof supported by two ornate columns directly above the
stage. The sun, moon, stars, clouds, and signs of the zodiac were painted on
the underside of the roof.
▪ The scenery hut is located directly above the heavens.
Restoration Drama
▪ English Royal Patent of 1662 – “all women’s parts
should be performed by women” and that plays
and acting should be considered “not only harmless
delights but useful and instructive representations
of human life.”
▪ Raked stages – sloped upward away from the
viewers, so the audience could see the
performance. This is where our terms such as
moving upstage and downstage come from.
Drama later across Europe
▪ Czechoslovakia – The Capek brothers achieved fame in the 1920s –
1930s with expressionistic plays the dealt with social issues.
▪ Germany – In the 1890s, Gerhart Hauptmann began the new era of
realism, called naturalism. A style of theater that assumes humans
have little self –determination but act in response in response to
forces of nature and society that are out of their control.
▪ France – Moliere, Voltaire, Victor Hugo, and Alexandre Dumas in the
17th -19th were important to drama in France.
Bernard Shaw - Ireland
• Irish-born Shaw (1856-1950) ranks as the
greatest playwright next to Shakespeare.
• Shaw stresses two concepts in his plays.
• “The Life Force” – the belief that
humanity will improve and strengthen in
spite of itself.
• “The Thinking Person’s Society” –
Shaw believed that of every group of 1,
000 people, there are 700 who don't
think, 299 idealists, and 1 thinking
person. Shaw hoped to turn the idealists
into thinkers through engagement with
his dramas.
• Italy – Playwright, Luigi Pirandello, of the early 1900’s,
held the conviction that people are not what they appear.
• Norway – Henrik Ibsen, the father of modern drama & the
father of realism, his chief theme was that society must
Protect and develop the individual rights of each person.
• Russia - two major playwrights
• Anton Chekhov an early realist, wrote The Sea Gull,
The Three Sisters, Uncle Vanya, and The Cherry Orchard.
• Konstantin Stanislavski – developed Method acting –
Method actors tap into their emotions and channel them
to enhance their characters.
• Spain – Jose Echegaray used verse and the imagery of the
romantics, but his plays usually dealt with controversial
social issues.
Drama in Asia
▪ Dates to 200 AD
▪ Rituals that combined song, dance, gestures &
costumes
China
▪ Peking Opera
 Developed in the 19th century (still performed
today)
 Five main types of drama in China
 Historical, Spoken, Song, Dance, Ballet
Japanese Theatre - NO
▪Suitable for the
Japanese nobility
▪Fourteenth century
▪Used classical
Japanese literature
▪Combines words,
dance and music
Japanese Theater – Bunraku
▪ “Doll theater”
▪ Combination of puppets, chanting
and music
▪ Four-foot tall marionettes
▪ Three puppeteers dressed in black
hold the puppet close to their
bodies as they move around the
stage.
▪ The Broadway musical, Avenue Q
– is an Americanized version of
Bunraku.
Japanese Theater – Kabuki
 Seventeenth century
 Meant for the general
population
 Only male performers
 Combines aspects of
many Japanese drama
styles
Drama in the US
The American Company
▪ The first professional company to produce plays in the colonies
▪ Managed by David Douglass
▪ The Prince of Parthia – performed April 24, 1767 in Philadelphia
▪ American theater eventually became more innovative and
experimental
▪ Topics often controversial in society are easily covered in
theatre
American Actors
▪ Edwin Booth (1833-1893) one of
the greatest American romantic
actors of his time. Although he
promptly retired after his
brother, John Wilkes Booth,
assassinated President Abraham
Lincoln.
▪ Barrymores link early American
stage with the modern (Drew
Barrymore)
American Playwrights
▪ Eugene O’Neill
Issues range from interpersonal relationships to faith
Long Day’s Journey into Night
▪ Clifford Odets
Social protest in 1930s
Waiting for Lefty
▪ Arthur Miller
Moral and political tragedies
The Crucible and Death of a Salesman
▪ Thorton Wilder
Life in a small town
Our Town
Questions to Answer
Copy questions and turn in
1. How did drama originate?
2. What is the essence of the No theater?
3. Describe some of the characters from
commedia dell’arte.
4. What was the purpose of the Greek chorus?
5. Identify the following playwrights: Shaw,
O’Neill, Ibsen, Marlowe, Miller.
6. Name three Greek playwrights and list their
contribution to theater.
7. How did the Saint & Mystery plays change
drama?
Questions to Answer
Copy questions and turn in
8. Who were the great Elizabethan dramatists?
9. What is the Renaissance? How did it affect
drama?
10. How has American drama developed?
11. Draw a diagram of a traditional Greek
amphitheater, label all the parts.
12. How did drama change between the Middle Ages
and the Renaissance?
13. Explain the Greek trilogy.
14.Which famous American actor is related to the
man who assassinated Abraham Lincoln?