Theatre History Flashcards

Flashcards for Theatre History Review

Cape and Sword Plays

Most popular Spanish play during the restoration.

Alphra Ben

Famous woman playwright, spy, poet, and novelist who was not celebrated due to her gender and career ambitions.

Unjust to Notal

A popular play in Chinese northern theatre.

Listra Strata

A comedy about women going on strike.

Escalis

Best known for introducing two characters to theater.

Terrance

Best known for double plots and sympathetic characters in theater.

Kabuki, Noh, and Bunraku

Styles of Japanese theater.

Moliere

Most popular French playwright.

Farce

Type of play Plautus was known for.

Abydos Passion Play

First known performance; occurred in Egypt.

Seneca's Innovations

Monologues and Soliloquies, Ruminations about Humanity, Horrific Acts, Obsessive Characters

Thespis

Known for introducing the idea of having one character.

Seneca

A Roman playwright who rewrote some Greek plays.

Liturgical Play

Kind of play Three Marys at the Tomb and Three Kings were.

Everyman

Best-known play of the dark (middle) ages.

Beijing Opera Training

Requires 6-12 years of training.

GOTE

Goals, Obstacles, Tactics, and Expectations.

Opera and Commedia dell'Arte

Two types of Italian theater.

Plautus

Roman author that was rediscovered in 1429.

Liturgical, Vernacular, and Morality

Three types of religious plays produced in the dark (middle) ages.

Ben Johnson

Was more regarded than Shakespeare at the time.

Natyasastra vs. Poetics

Natyasastra is divinely inspired, but poetics is by Aristotle.

Sanskrit Types

Rogue and social dramas.

Indian Folk Theatre Elements

Music, stylized, ignoring things.

Japanese Cultural Events

Advent of Buddhism and the Shogunate (led to a rise of samurai culture).

Commedia dell'Arte Features

Unmasked main characters, masked side characters (stock characters like masters and servants), Harlequin, Slapstick, improvised scripts.

Shakespeare Play Structure

An Early Point of Attack, A Chronological Organization, All Important Episodes are Shown on Stage, The Short Scene as the Basic Structural Unit, Time and Place Often Shift Rapidly, Tone Varies from Serious to Comic, A Moral Order Under Which Humans are Free to Make Their own Choice.

Typical Plot of a Noh Theater Play

Has ghosts, demons, people who are really obsessive, the divide between the physical realm and spiritual realm.

Noh Plays Topics

gods, deranged human beings, ghosts

Kabuki Theatre Innovation in the West

procedural arch

Actors in China

Childrens of the Garden

Ghosts, demons or obsessed human beings

Souls that cannot find rest because in life, they have been too much devoted to worldly honor love or some other goal that keeps drawing the spirit back to the physical world.