Theatre History 1700 to Present Final

Who was Oliver Goldsmith and what was a major concern he had with sentimental comedies?

Wrote an essay calling out Sentimental Comedy because he though people should laugh again in the theatre

Who was Carolina Neuber, what country was she from and what was she trying to accomplish?

Carolina Neuber was a female actress from Germany who was inspired by Johann Christoph Gottsched to improve theatre. She implemented longer rehearsals, encforced line memorization, and tried to improve publlic image of actors

Why was the name “dramatic wasteland” given to England for the period of 1800-1850

Over 12,000 plays were written and most were bad. No copyright laws allowed for cheap knock-offs

Who was Ira Alridge and why is he significant?

The first internationally famous black actor. Began his career at the African Grove Theatre

List four effects that gas lighting had on theatre

1. Actors had more play field on the stage (depth)

2. Makeup was toned down

3. Acting style improved with more visability

4. Auditoriums could be dimmed so there was better theatre etiquette

What are three things David Garrick did to try and make productions more realistic?

Implemented historically accurate costumes, invested into the rehearsal process which inhanced the acting, and took spectators off of the stage to allow audiences to focus on the story more

Briefly explain three ideas behind the French Enlightenment philosophy

1. Opposition to Authority: Opposed to inherited or taught beliefs

2. Rationalism: Need evidence to believe, not just common sense

3. Human Rights: Campaign against censorship and abolish slavery. All humans are created equal

Name the three riots and state what they had in common? In other words, what were the societal forces that were in conflict with each other?

1. Old Price Riot: Economic class differences

2. Aster Place Riot: Class warfare

3. Hernani Riot: Economic class differences

All three riots had economic divide as a driving force behind it.

In She Stoops to Conquer why would the character of Tony Lumpkin have been undesirable for actors?

Actors were worried about the reputation they would receive from playing a prankster like Tony

Henry Fielding (England)

Wrote The Tragic History of Tom Thumb

Edwin Forrest (America)

American actor for the “common man”

David Garrick (England)

1st great actor-manager

Charlotte Cushman (American)

America’s greatest international star

Denis Diedrot (France)

Introduced concepts of “fourth wall”

Goethe (Germany)

Co-created “Weimar Classicisccm” with Schiller

Shakespeare (England)

Most popular playwright in 18th century England

John Phillip Kemble (England)

Partly responsible for the Old Price Riot

Hanswurst (Germany)

Embarrassment to german national pride

Victor Hugo (France)

Promoted the beautiful and ugly in art

Madame Vestris (England)

Introduced box sets

Ballad Opera (England)

The Beggar’s Opera

Carlo Goldoni (Italy)

Tried to get rid of improvisation and masks

Beaumarchais (France)

The Marriage of Figaro

William Alexander Brown (America)

African Grove Theater

Jermey Collier (England)

Attacked Restoration Comedy

She Stoops to Conquer was an attempt to replace what form of theatre?

Sentimental Comedy

The controversial French play that dared to criticize the nobility?

The Marriage of Figaro

Considered the “Father of German Theatre”

Lessing

German movement that gave rise to Romanticism

Strum and Drang

What invention caused a demand for greater realism on stage?

Photography

Realism was a reaction to what artistic movement that immediately preceded it?

Romanticism

Who started the Independent Theatre Movement? In what country? What was the theater’s name?

Andre Antoine, France, Theatre Libre

Name four major playwrights of realism, their country of origin and the title of one of their plays

1. Henrik Ibsen (Norway) A Dolls House

2. August Strindberg (Sweden) Miss Julie

3. Geroge Bernard Shaw (Ireland) Pygmalian

4. Anton Chekov (Russia) Three Sisters

List five acting techniques taught by Stanislavski

Relaxation excercises, given circumstances, magic if, suberobjective, letting inward emotions effect your outside physicality

Who is considered by most historians to be the first modern director? What was one aspect of his directing for which he is best known?

Goerg II and his crowd scenes

What were two significant structural features of Richard Wagner’s Festpielhaus Theatre?

No more box seats, no center ailse, hidden orchestra, triple proscenium

Who were the two men credited with cerating “New Stagecraft”, a new approach to sceneic design? Briefly describe one thing that was so different about their designs

Appia and Craig utilized the “Three S’s” (simplicity, suggestion, and symbolism) and made anti-realism sets

List and briefly explain three symbols used in Miss Julie

1. Bird and birdcage: Miss Julie is stuck in the middle class and both her and the bird are dead beacuse of Jean’s actions

2. Bells: Represents Jeans servitude and how he is stuck in the cycle

3. Beer and Wine: Julie drinks beer and Jean drinks wine representing their reversal of social class expectations

Which character in The Cherry Orchard seems to be the “voice of the playwright” (the character who tries hard to present the lesson or main point of the play) and what lesson did they present

Trofimov is the voice of the playwright. Warns that a neccesary change of social and class roles was coming

What play is an example of an expressionistic play you read for class. Give two examples from the play that made it expressionistic

Machinal: Follows the journey of one soul and is very subjective through her eyes, Sound effects and rhythms of speech, no mask for what the character is really thinking

In the film ‘Theatre of War”, the idea of a character’s fatal virtue is presented. What is Mother Courage’s fatal virtue and why does it lead to her tragedy?

Her fatal virtue is her devotion to her children. Her efforts to keep her children safe in the harsh society resulted in all of her children’s deaths. She wants to stop the complicity of war but her fatal virtues prohibit her from doing it

Briefly explain what metatheatre is and give one example of it from Six Characters in Search of an Author

Metatheatre is a play within a play. When the family enters for the first time, they are interrupting a stage rehearsal showing the play within a play

Berolt Brecht (Germany)

Mother Courage and her Children

John Millington Synge (Ireland)

Riders to the Seat

Antonin Artaud (France)

The Spurt of Blood

Noel Coward (England)

Private Lives

Frederico Garcia Lorca (Spain)

Blood Wedding

Luigi Pirandello (Italy)

Six Characters in Search of an Author

Jean Anouilh (France)

Antigone (modern interpretation)

Maurice Maeterlinek (France)

The Blue Bird

Sean O’Casey (Ireland)

June and the Paycock

Mixed narration with dramatic techniques and kept the theatrical elements (like lighting) visable

Epic Theatre

Forced audiences to confront themselves in order to break down their defences. “The theatre has been created to drain abscesses collectively”

Theatre of Cruelty

Arranged nonrepresentational platforms, ramps, turning wheels, and other objects to create a “machine for acting”. Allowed actors to better use the “biomechanic” approach to acting

Constructivism

Deplored the idealizing of the past as a barrier to progress. Glorified the energy and speed of the machine age and sought to embody them in artistic forms by creating “picture poems”. Also glorified war

Futurism

Grounded in a skepticism about a world that could produce a global war. Since insanity seemed to them the world’s true state, this movement sought in their actions to replace logic and reason with calculated madness. In their performances, many things would be going on at one

Dadaism

Emphasized subjective experience and internal vision as opposed to objecctive experience and external vision. Attempted to project and reveal inner feelings and experiences of characters to an audience

Expressionism

Rejected everyday logic and believed that the subconsious mind in a dreamlike state represented the basis of artistic truth

Surrealism

Tristian Tzara

Dadaism

Antonin Artaud

Theatre of Cruelty

Vsevelod Meyerhold

Constructivism

Guillaume Appollinaire

Surrealism

Jean-Paul Sarte and Albert Camus were playwrights and philosophers for which philosophy? And what is the title of a play by Sarte

Existentialism; The Flies

List three major French absurdist playwrights and a title of one play by each

1. Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

2. Eugene Ionesco, The Bald Soprano

3. Jean Genet, The Screens

Three playwrights from post WWII and a title of a play from each

1. Tenessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire

2. Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

3. Edward Albee, Zoo Story

Who wrote the first black musical written by and for black auditions? What was the name of the musical and what musical did this pave the way for

Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death by Melvin Van Peebles. Opened door for The Wiz

What was the “Angry Young Men” movement protesting against? Include the country of origin and name one key playwright

Younger men in Engand protested against the older generation for the damage they caused during the war. Gave us playwrights like John Osbuen, Harold Pinter, and Edward Bond

What controversy surrounded Edward Bond’s play Saved and what effect did the play have in England

Bond’s play was censored because a baby was stoned to death. People were outraged by this censorship and got the censorship law banned

What country produced the most popular musicals from 1980-1995? List two

Cats and Phantom of the Opera

Define what is meant by a “post-modern” theatre production

Moves beyond anti-realism/abstraction. Tends to combine abstraction and realism thus making it difficult to classify

Briefly describe how a regional theatre is different from a Broadway theatre and give the name of the closest regional theatre to Lawrenceville

Regional theatre is not for profit and relies on money fron individual donors. McCarter Theatre in Princeton is closest to Lawrenceville

Give at least two examples of what Mama’s plant might symbollically represent in Raisin in the Sun

Legacy and hope

What does Waiting for Godot seem to be about? What basic message does it present and which philiosophical school/artistic movement is it from?

Waiting for things that will never come. There may be variations in our day to day but life never really changes. Comfort in routine which is why we never change. Absurdist play

Give three examples that show similarities between Waiting for Godot and Pass Over

1. Biblical/Christian references

2. Inability to break systems they are in

3. Unknown passage of time (how long have these characters really been here)

Martin McDonagh

The Pillowman

Caryl Churchill

Top Girls

Stephan Sondheim

Company

Amiri Baraka

Dutchman

David Mamet

Glengary Glen Ross

Tony Kushner

Angels in America

Athol Fugard

Master Harold… and the Boys

Marsha Norman

‘Night Mother

Edward Albee

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Sam Shepard

True West

August Wilson

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Lynn Nottage

Sweat

Beth Henly

Crimes of the Heart

Paula Vogel

How I Learned to Drive