Theatre and Drama: Understanding Performance, Genres, and Audiences - Prof. Gavina, Resúmenes de Teatro

¡Descarga Theatre and Drama: Understanding Performance, Genres, and Audiences - Prof. Gavina y más Resúmenes en PDF de Teatro solo en Docsity! UNIT 1. DEFINING TERMS: THEATRE, DRAMA,AUDIENCE, PERFORMANCE AND DRAMATIC GENRES. 1. DRAMA VERSUS THEATRE. Drama: From the Greek word drama, which means action, deed. Drama needs actors to perform the characters, a stage design, and it's temporary, because every performance is unique. Theatre: From the Greek word theatron, which means a place to see, therefore, it refers to the space. 1st meaning: the physical space where the performance takes place. 2nd meaning: the whole production of the drama play. 1.1 ORIGINS OF THEATRE. MH The origins of theatre are ritual and religious. MH When it ceased to be considered magical and religious, it became more and more a tool for social denunciation. Tn the Western Tradition, thatre as we know it began with the Greek culture. Platon in the Republic and Aristotle in his Poetics described the dramatic art as founded in the distinction between mimesis (imitation of action) and diegesis (narration of action by a narrator). Mm Theatre usus all the artistic and technological resources of its time. 1.3 PERFORMANCE. The general term for the visible part of the play, in opposition to the text. Other names: mise- en-scene, staging, spectacle. ” The director is the official responsible for organizing the production. ” It refers to all the resources used for the stage performance: acting, costumes, stage-design, lighting, music, digital media, etc. ” It's the concretization of the text, using actors and the stage space, an explanation of the text. The audience has access to the play only through this reading by the director. ” The same dramatic text may produce an infinite number of stagings which cannot be predicted just from the text. 1.4 AUDIENCE /SPECTATOR. The audience is the raison d'étre of a performance, there cannot be theatre without an audience. ” The individual spectator contains the ideological and psychological codes of their group; however, the audience may form a single entity. ” In theatre, the spectator is conscious of the conventions (the fourth wall, the characters, the setting, etc.) and can even intervene on stage. ” The audience's attitude and activity when faced with the performance are studied in the aesthetics of reception. ” Reception studies analyse: a)The way a play has been received, how it has been interpreted by each group and period, not only at the moment of its opening, but also in subsequent times — number of tickets sold, critics response, scholar criticism, censorship, new readings, etc. b)Te mental, intellectual and emotional processes whereby the performance is understood. 1.5 THE RELATION BETWEEN THE AUDIENCE AND THE STREET. MH Stage design: The placement of the audience and the playing area influences the transmission and reception of the performance. -picture-frame stage: the audience identifies with the fiction by projection -theatre-in-the-round or Elizabethan stage: reproduces the idea of community -proscenium-arch theatre: emulates social hierarchy -total environment theatre: presents a fragmented reality, stage space and the audience organization is transformed in order to blur distinctions. ” Psychological and social relationships between stage and audience: -identification -critical distance 1.6 DRAMATIC GENRES. 2.1 THE TURN OF THE CENTURY. Fin de siecle: aestheticism ans decadence. Mm The end of the 19th century saw the abandonment of Victorian morality in literature. E Artforart's sake. M_ Walter Pater's Studies in the History os the Renaissance (1873). M_ Comedies of manners: mildly critical of the vices of the bourgeoisie and tended towards melodrama. M_ Realism, Naturalism and Modernism rejected the melodramatic and comic worldview of the comedies of manners: Importation of the plays by Ibsen, Zola, Strindberg and Chekhov. 2.2 OSCAR WILDE. The plays; 3 Vera, or the Nihilists (1882). 3 Salome (in French in 1891, in English in 1893, performed in 1896 in France and in 1931 in London). 3 Lady Windermere's Fan (1892). 3 A Woman of No Importance (1892). 3 An Ideal Husband (1895). 3 The importance of being Earnest (1895). 2.3 OSCAR WILDE. (1854-1900). M_ He began with a type of drama based on French influences (symbolism): Salome, banned from the British stage because of its religious subject matter. Mm His failure to succeed led to comedies of manners: he could bring his aesthetic vision of literature to the stage. M_ He was also fascinated by Ibsen's social realism drama; Ibsen's darker themes in a funnier key. His plays were the most popular of the time. Despite the plays appearance of superficiality ans entertainment, they carried with them a strong criticism of the upper classes. 2.4 GEORGE BERNARD SHAW. The plays; Plays Unpleasant; 3 Widower's Houses (1892). 3 The Philanderer (1905). 3 Mis Warren's Profession (1902). Plays Pleasant; 3 Arms and the Man (1894). 3 Candida (1897). 3 The Man of Destiny (1897). 3 You Never Can Tell (1899). Other Plays: 3 Man and Superman (1903). 3 John Bull's Other Island (1904). 3 Major Barbara (1905). 23 Caesar and Cleopatra (1906). 3 Pygmalion (1914). 3 Saint Joan (1924). 2.5 GEORGE BERNARD SHAW. (1856-1950). The most enduring influence on British theatre of the twentieth century. Shaw's importance in English theatre: an adjective was coined with his name Shavian. Prolific and influential with his writing; drmamatic works, literary criticism and political pamphletism. He wrote more that sixty plays and received the Nobel Prize in 1925. He rejected the idea of “Art for art's sake” and believed that literature should be didactic. He rejected Victorian theatre for its rigid conventions. His early plays were “Problem Plays”, following Ibsen's dictates. Shaw's the lecture The Quintessence of Ibsenism (1891), the beginning of modern drama in Britain. Shaw Isaw Ibsen's naturalism as the basis for drama that dealt with social issues, this becamme the norm for 20th c.mainstream British. Plays unpleasant- “to force the spectator to face unpleasant facts by recognizing his own photograph”. MH Presentation of characters from their own perspective, independent of moral judgements. 2.6 PYGMALION (1914). e First performed in Vienna in 1913. e Tt deals with class society, education, linguistics ans social mobility. e Aresponse to the determinism posed by naturalism and a very strong critique of the British class system. O Name from Ovid's Metamorphosis: Pygmalion was a sculptor who carved himself an idealised female figure out of ivory and fell in love with it. e Shaw reworks the myth to give it a feminist, anti-romantic perspective.- Shaw was determined that Eliza should end up as an empowered, independent woman. UNIT 3. THEATRE BETWEEN THE WARS. 3.1 MODERNISM. Red Roses for Me (1942). Cock-A-Doodle Dandy (1949). The Bishop's Bonfire (1955). The Drums Of Father Nerd (1959). y yyy 3.4 JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK. Set during the Civil War A Captain Boyle and his eternal companion, Joxer, embody the clown couple from the music halls, with their slapstick routine and absurd dialogue. A The play's ending, with Captain Boyle and Joxer in the kitchen, has been taken up by Beckett in Waiting for Godot and Friel in Translations. A The play has comic scenes, songs and music, melodrama, political discourse, suspense and tragedy. HA Feminist stance, denunciation of violence and social snobbery. A O'Casey's most popular play since its premiere. Alfred Hitchcock filmed a version in 1930. 3.5 POETIC DRAMA. Revival of the Elizabethan tradition of poetic drama: T. S. Eliot Ml Objected to naturalistic drama because it limited theatre to transient and superficial themes, prose was prosaic and denied the archetypal or transcendental dimension of humanity. Ml Murder in the Cathedral (1935). Ml Another trend of poetic drama derived from German expressionism and music hall: comic verse drama of Auden and Isherwood. Ml Bertolt Brecht's had become the dominant continental influence by the 1930s. Bertolt Brecht and the epic theatre: | Brecht's theatre aims to make the audience think. | Techniques of alienation to make the spectator not identify with what is happening on stage: interruption of the story, banners, disappearance of the fourth wall, participation of chorus, etc. | Humour, music and dance: Berlin cabaret of the turn of the century. | Marxist ideology. | Actors must be able to step out of character and break the stage illusion. | Avoid sentimentality, catharsis should not be the ultimate goal of theatre. W. H. Auden (1907-1973) and Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986): Ml Plays in collaboration: The Dog Beneath the Skin (1936) The Ascent of F6 (1937) On the Frontier (1938) Ml Designed to denounce the growing fascism in Britain. Ml Mixture of politically engaged drama and music hall as it appeared in Brecht's plays. 3.6 THE POLITICAL THEATRICAL ORGANISATIONS. The Workers' Theatre Movement: MM Founded in 1926. Ml Believed in the transformative potential of theatre. Ml Agitprop style that rejected the naturalistic genre. Ml Travelled throughout Britain to mobilise working-class audiences. The Unity Theatre: Mn Founded in 1936 out of the remain of the Workers* Theatre Movement. Ml Troubled situation: unemployment and hunger marches caused by the Depression, the Republican struggle in Spain, the rise of fascism in the form of Hitler's Nazi Party in Germany and Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists (the "Blackshirts”). UNIT 4. THE ANGRY YOUNG MEN AND THE KITCHEN-SINK DRAMA. Development of the welfare state (1945-1955): creation of the National Health Service (NHS), free and universal education, housing benefit and unemployment benefits. Sense of despair among the intellectual youth (in the 19505). - Changes were not fast or deep enough. - The Class system was still too present. - Inequalities held them back from developing their full potential.