Chapter 1:
What is
Theatre?
Theatre
• 1: a building where plays are put
on (the hardware). -architecture,
structure, the “place” Also use it to
describe where films are scene or to
refer to arenas where other actvities
occur like war or surgeries.
Theatre
• 2: players who perform in a space
and the plays (dran) that company
produces; combination of people,
ideas and works of art created in
collaboration in a particular “space”
• Guthrie Theatre, Steppenwolf
Theatre, Second City
Theatre
occupation, professional
activity, passionate
vocations; directors,
designers and technicians,
actors, producers, public
relations, etc.
• 3:
Theatre Building—
place to act and
space to watch
(and hear when
there is a text)
Theatre
derived from: theatron—
“seeing place”
A theatre is a place
where something is seen
Audience derived from:
audientia –
“those who hear”
(audio)
Acoustis derived
from:
acoustos—
“heard”
Theatre practitioners of
various specialties have
teamed up in long standing
companies or troupes.
Troupes can have dozens or
even hundreds of people
working together.
Lord Chamberlain’s
Men
(modern version)
Illustrious Theatre of
Paris
(founded by Moliere)
Theatre is work.
Work, Art,
Impersonation,
Performance
Theatre is work.
The planning phase of a
production is often equal
or longer than the
rehearsal phase and may
involve hundreds of
people.
Physical Toil AND
Oeuvre—sum of
an artist’s
creative endeavor
Producing: securing
personnel, space,
financing, promotion,
and legal
arrangements, etc.
Directing:
developing &
controlling
artistic product
and unified vision
Acting:
perform roles of
character in the
play
Designing: map
out the visual and
aural elements
Building:
translate design
into reality, the
“hardware”
https://www.yout
ube.com/watch?
v=Hh9-ErV99Ow
Crewing: execute
sequence and
timing of cues
and scene shifts
Stage Managing:
running a play
production in all
its complexity
House Managing:
admitting, seating
and providing for
the general
comfort of the
audience
Playwriting: usually
executed away from
the theatre building
(more specific
definition to follow in
later chapters)
Theatre is also work
in the sense that it is
not GAMES.
(although we often play
games to build skills)
Theatre
vs.
Play
(games)
Foreign words
with same dual
meaning:
jeu, spiel, jatek,
xi, ludi
Play= children’s
games and /or
dramatic plays
& role-playing
Commonalities with Sport:
• Greece—Dionysian and Olympic Festivals (focus on
competition and excellence)
• Romans—Public circuses with sport (physical
prowess) and dramatic entertainment side by side
• Shakespeare—theatres were designed to hold plays
and bear baiting on alternate days
• Modern TV—reality competition shows sports and
game shows alongside fictional, scripted dramas and
comedies
What are the commonalities
between theatre and
sports/games?
What are the commonalities
between theatre and child’s
play/role-playing?
SPORTS & THEATRE
Shared history (Greek, Roman,
Elizabethan, Modern)
Prestigious and well-paid
Sports figures turn to acting!
Attracts amateurs and audiences
Intense physical involvement
Friendly competition
Personal self-expression
Emotional engagement
CHILD’S PLAY & THEATRE
Dressing up and acting out—suspension
of disbelief, the ability to “make-believe”
Improvisation & role-playing
Prepares children for adult roles like
theatre prepares society for adult issues
Difference: theatre is a
calculated act from
beginning to end;
preordained conclusion
Theatre is the art
of making play into
work—A WORK OF
ART!
“Art is a supreme pursuit of
humanity integrating our emotions,
intellects and aesthetics with our
revelations. .”
(What does this mean?)
Art is empowering
both to those who
make it and those who
appreciate it.
Art is accessible without
subscribing to any particular
set of beliefs; an openended response to life’s
unending puzzles
Impersonation—actors
impersonating characters is the
single-most important aspect of
theatre; the very foundation
Enduring Question:
How is the audience to
distinguish between the
“real person” (the actor)
from the “character”
portrayed?
Ancient world’s
solution:
The Mask
The mask provides both a physical
and symbolic separation between
the impersonator (the actor) and
the impersonated (the character)
and helps onlookers to suspend
their awareness of the “real”
world and accept the world of the
stage or play.
The “paradox of the actor”
according to Denis Diderot—when
the actor has perfected his art, it is
the simulated character, the mask,
that seems to live before our eyes,
while the real person has no
apparent life at all.
The latin word
“persona” means
mask!
But the actor does live
behind the mask, which is an
even greater paradox:
We BELIEVE in the character,
but at the end of the play we
APPLAUD the actor!
Masks were also staples of
the masquerade dramas of
Nigeria, the NO and KYOGEN
drama of Japan, and the
COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE of
Italy.
Masks are still seen today in
modern stagings of these
historical styles but also in
expressionistic and avantgarde productions.
And the idea of masking—of
hiding the performer while
displaying the character—
remains at the heart of
impersonation.
And as the back to back
masks of comedy and
tragedy, it has become the
most fundamental symbol of
the theatre itself.
In modern theatre we have
become accustomed to this
separation of the actor and the
character, but people still
sometimes almost childishly
believe in the “truth” of the
character.
Soap opera stars who play villains
or “bad guys (or women) are often
stalked or harassed by fans who
cannot separate the reality of the
actor from the fantasy of the
character!
We are all performers the theatre
only makes an art out of something
we all do every day. The theatre
reflects our everyday performances
and expands those performances
into a formal mode
Two MODES OF
PERFORMANCE:
Presentational &
Representational
Presentational Mode:
performers directly and
continuously acknowledge
the presence of the
audience
Presentational
productions break the
illusion of the “4th wall”
and the focus is on the
style rather than the
substance of the play;
“theatrical”
Representational Mode:
“more fundamental”
The audience watches behavior
that seems to be staged as if no
audience were present (the
illusion of the 4th wall) and
focuses on the events being
staged rather than the nature of
their presentation
Samuel Coleridge calls
this double negative the
“willing suspension of
disbelief” and attracts
audience participation
through empathy.
Empathy—our
feeling of kinship
with certain (or all)
of the characters
Extreme examples of
“realism” (the late 19th
century representational
movement that sought to
have actors behave onstage
exactly as real people do in
life.
Bertolt Brecht rebelled against
extreme representationalism and
created a presentational style
featuring lettered signs, songs, slide
projections, chalk talks, political
arguments directly addressed to
the house, and an “alienated” style
of acting intended to reduce
empathy .
These extremes exist
more in theory than
in practice.
The fact is that theatrical
performance is always
both presentational and
representational, though
often in different degrees.
Two other aspects of
performance distinguish theatre
from certain other forms of
performance: theatre is LIVE
performance and in most cases a
SCRIPTED and REHEARSED event.
Unlike video and cinema, the
theatre is a living, real-time
event in which performers and
audience mutually interact,
each fully aware of the other’s
immediate presence.
Every actor’s performance is
affected by the way the
audience yields or withholds
its responses—its laughter,
sighs, applause, gasps and
silences.
Live theatre is always a twoway communication
between the stage and the
house.
This broad communal response is
never developed by television
drama which is played primarily to
solitary or clustered viewers who
(because of frequent commercials)
are only intermittently engaged.
It is also unlikely in movie houses,
where audience members
essentially assume a one-on-one
relationship with the screen and
rarely break out in a powerful
collective response, much less
applause.
The final ovation—unique to live
performance—inevitable involves
the audience applauding ITSELF as
well as the performers for
understanding and appreciating the
theatrical excellence they have all
seen together.
Plays with political
themes can even
generate collective
political response.
Live performance has a
quality of IMMEDIACY.
The action of the play
is taking place RIGHT
NOW and ANYTHING
CAN HAPPEN.
Although the play is rehearsed and the
changes that occur from one night to
another are subtle, ach night’s
performance is unique and there is
always the excitement that mistakes
can happen. . .this creates a certain
tension, which some people say is the
ultimate thrill of the theatre.
Live performance creates
a “presentness” or
“presence” that
embodies the
fundamental uncertainty
of life itself.
Actors call this
presentness “living
in the moment.”
SCRIPTED AND REHEARSED
PERFORMANCE—
Most theatre performances are
prepared and performed
according to well-rehearsed texts
or scripts.
Although improvisation may play a
role in the preparation process and
even in certain performances, most
of the action is permanently set
during rehearsals and the
performances appear nearly the
same night after night.
But the text of a play is not
the play itself. The play fully
exists only in its
performance—in its
“playing.” The script is
merely the record the play
leaves behind.
And published
scripts are an
imperfect record.
These scripts also leave
out important facets of
the live production like
non-verbals (tone of
voice, pacing, facial
expressions, etc).
Ancient scripts rarely
included anything but the
most basic stage directions
and modern plays with
extensive stage directions are
often simply the recorded
stage business of the first
production.
But a play (script) does
put us in touch with
theatre history in the
making and can service
as a blueprint for vital
theatre today.
This then, is the theatre:
•
•
•
a place—the building or space where
theatrical activity takes place
a company—a group of artists collaborating
to create a work of art
an activity—all of the diverse actions
undertaken to create a work of art
(playwriting, designing, directing, stage
managing, acting, etc)