theatre study

Theatre as a form is at least ____ years

old.

2500

3 Basic Elements of theatre:

(1) What is performed
(2) The Performance
(3) The Audience

Key Components of the Performance include:

Performance Space:
Where the performance takes place and what the
relationship is between the performers and the audience

• Artistic Collaboration:
How the playwright, director, designers, and others work
together to create the performance

• Theatrical Elements:
Scenery, Costumes, Music, Lighting, and other effects that
contribute to the performance

The Audience:

Completes the cycle of Creation
Communication
• Provides Immediate Feedback to the
Performers

3-Way Interaction:
Performers Audience
Audience Performers
Audience Audience

Pre-18th century art definition:

18th centeury art definition:

Art = the systematic application of known
principles to achieve some predetermined result

Distinction made between Useful and Fine Arts

Useful Arts =
Arts that can be taught and mastered through
specific techniques
Fine Arts =
Products of genius that cannot be reduced to rules
or principles
• Literature (including Drama)
• Painting
• Music
• Dance

“Willing Suspension of Disbelief”

Term was coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Refers to the fact that we know that the events of the
play are not real; however, we agree, during the
experience of the performance, not to disbelieve the
events of the play.

Esthetic distance and empathy definitions

Esthetic Distance : We are detached
enough from the
performance to view it
with some objectivity

empathy : Feeling of
involvement with
the performance

Special Qualities of Theatre

Lifelikeness (Verisimilitude)
Theatre recreates everyday experiences.

Ephemerality
Theatre is live performance, and becomes a part of the past
immediately after it occurs.

Objectivity
Theatre “presents both outer and inner experience through
speech and action.

Complexity of means
Theatre combines varied elements such as
movement, lighting, and sound while also
drawing from all of the other arts.

Immediacy
Theatre is psychologically immediate, because it
transpires in the simultaneous presence of live
actors and spectators in the same room

Until the 16th century, Western Theatre was

Performed primarily at festivals
◼ Financed by community
◼ Performed by community
◼ Occurred for brief periods each year
◼ Presented as offering to a god
◼ Presented for enjoyment of general public
◼ Flourished in Greece, Rome, medieval Europe

Greek Drama:

Emphasizes attempts of humans to control own destinies
• Tragedies often focus on results of attempting to escape
fate
• Presented exclusively at festivals honoring the god
Dionysus = god of wine and fertility

The Theatre of Ancient Greece Fesitvals & Dionysia

By 5th century, Athens held 4 festivals per year in honor
of Dionysus.
• 3 of 4 festivals included theatrical performances.
• Major Festival = City Dionysia

Religious and Civic celebration
◼ 534 B.C. first recorded contest for Best Tragedy
• Winner Thespis

The Theatre of Ancient Greece Competition & 5 days of performance lasting all day, starting at dawn

3 dramatists compete
• Each presents 3 tragedies and 1 satyr play
• satyr play = short, comic play poking fun at a
Greek myth using a chorus of satyrs (half-
man/half-goat characters)

Skene (Theatre of Dionysus) = hunt or tent…used for___

Paradoi = spaces between skene and auditorium | used for….

Eccyclema = wheeled platform

Machina crane-like device

costume changes, developed into large structure

Choral entrances and exits

Acts of violence could not be shown onstage

‘fly’ gods into performance space

Information about performers of greek theatre?

Actors were male, 3 speaking actors allowed, but actors played multiple roles

performers in unison, leader sometime had solo lines, chorus entered after prologue

Chorus composed of 15 men, playwright assigned a choregus, trained like athletes

chorus is one of features of this theatre

Musicians , entered before chorus , remained on stage

masks all performers except musicians wore mask, distinctive of this theatre

chiton = ankle-length or knee-length garment
that served as usual dress in Greece
• Soft, flexible, high-topped boo

Oedipus Rex and its Performance

Themes of the play have relevance for many cultures
• Uncertainty of human destiny
• Limited ability of humans to control their fate
• Blindness versus sight (physical sight and inner sight)
• Finding a scapegoat
▪ Concern with moral taboos: incest, patricide

Greek Comedy

Play Structure:
• Prologue: introduction of “happy idea”
• Parados: entrance of chorus
• Agon: debate over merits of the “happy idea”
• Parabasis: choral passages
• Episodes: showing “happy idea” put into practice
• Komos: exit to feasting and revelry

The Roman Theatre Experience
Ludi =

‘games’

Religious festivals that included theatrical performances
• Theatrical performances honored several gods.
• Theatrical performances considered diversions, like sports
• Borrowed from Greek drama, but adapted it to Roman tastes
• Romans preferred variety entertainments
• short comic plays
• dancing, singing
• juggling, acrobatics
• gladiatorial contests

Roman theatrical information, how it looks

paid by state, semicircular orchestra, tiered seating for several thousands
long narrow stage, scaenae frons = facade

the menaechmi

written by plautus, most popular surviving roman comedy, characters as types rather than individuals. 10 roles, performed by 6 actors….doubling of roles common

other roman drama..

Roman tradedy:

Mime:

Surviving traedies = 9, surviving plays are by Seneca

Favorite form of entertainment, first time women were permitted to perform. no masks….dramatic action centered on sexual encounters

Professional groups in Professional theatre:

acting was not an acceptable profession at the time, but actors were considered masterless men

companies would petition noblemen to serve as patrons

What are the functions of costume designs?

Indicate gender and reflect age
• Reflect a character’s psychology
• Establish social and economic status
• Identify occupation or lifestyle
• Establish or clarify character relationships
• Establish the relative importance of characters
• Establish time and place

Costume Designers..

• Fashion Designer

• Visual Artist

• Tailor

• Seamstress

• Social and Cultural Historian

• Art Historian

• Actor

Design process…

Preliminary Designs - The sketches of each character

Final Designs - Renderings

Working Drawings - sketches from various angles…color chart, dressing lists

Procedures:

1. Measurements taken of all of the actors
2. Materials purchased
3. Patterns draped, flat patterned, and drafted
4. First fitting
5. Final fitting
6. Distressing, trim, and other finishing work

Functions of makeup:

Characterizes
• Aids expression
• Restores color and form diminishes by stage
lighting
• Indicative of performance style

Four types of makeup:

• Age groups
• Straight or character makeup
• Racial or ethnic types
• Special painted effects

Controllable qualities of light:

Intensity
• Distribution
• Color
• Movement
Lighting is among the most abstract of theatrical means

Functions of lighting design

Provides appropriate visibility
• Sculpts dimensionally
• Reinforces and creates stage compositions
• Enhances mood and atmosphere
• Supports style and production concept
• Reinforces the action

What lighting Designers need to understand..:

• physics and electronics

• Principles of optics and light

• what needs to be done and supply the info needed by those who actually do the tasks

  • social and cultural history

Approaches of a lighting Designer…Procedures

• Adjust work frequently to enhance the work of others

• cannot make firm decisions until later in process than other designs

• work very dependent upon the staging/blocking

How does the lighting designer convey the design?

through value sketches, lighting score, and computer simulation