Play, musical, film, acting, dancing, singing, ceremonies, religious acts/rituals, brushing your teeth, everyday conversation

EARLY “PERFORMANCES”
 Ceremonies (still continue today)
 Dances: tribal, religious
 Movements: gathering food, making a fire, etc.
 Speeches
 Rituals: religious
 Storytelling: legends, histories, etc.
 Any others?

Who was Aesop?
Who was Aristotle?

Aristotle created a structure for a WELL MADE PLAY including the various parts of a plot. He studied Greek plays from festivals to create his structure which we will talk about later.

ARISTOTELIAN PLOT
STRUCTURE
Climax
Falling Action
Rising
Action
Denouement
Exposition Inciting
Incident/Hook

OTHER ELEMENTS
NEEDED FOR THEATRE
 Actor
 Audience
 Place
 Light

“ The study of the way history has been and is written — the history of historical writing... When you study 'historiography' you do not study the events of the past directly, but the changing interpretations of those events in the works of individual historians ."
1. The study of the way history has been and is written
2. The changing interpretations of historical evens in the works of individual historians
3. ESSENTIAL: it is looking at history either through someone else’s perspective, opinion, etc.

YOU: INTERPRETING
HISTORY/STYLES
 When you watch the performances today, you will look at them through your lens (your understanding or view on things)
 Basically: you are all historians who understand or see history based on your own opinions, understanding, ideas, etc.
 Some styles may seem silly, “bad storytelling”, bad acting, hard, etc. But, you label them yourself.
 Note: the actors are also “historians” who are interpreting their style according to their own understanding and even desires

Greek plays were written:
1. Mostly in trilogies (3 plays to tell 1 story: think
The Lord of the Rings or Hunger Games)
2. Written for festivals . Main one being the festival for Dionysus, the god of wine and merriment

 Tragedy
 Comedy
 Satyr
• modern day satire (make fun of society)

HTTP://WWW.YOUTUBE.CO
M/WATCH?V=PL8LCV_POHA
40 seconds

1. We know little about him
3. Playwright? Actor? Priest? We’re not sure
4. His name is used to represent the dramatic (performing) arts
5. THESPIAN

 Largest held 20, 0000 people (Rio Tinto Stadium)

 Skene: backdrop and some special effects
 Orchestra: where chorus would dance
 Ekkyklema: wheeled platform (used to bring the skene's 'indoors' outdoors)
 Mechane: crane to raise an actor

 One “actor” standing, wearing a mask, telling the story
 Declamatory: “overdramatic”
 Chorus: chant, all together

HTTP://WWW.YOUTUBE.CO
M/WATCH?V=OSKCYPNFO
A8

Only men acted. Women not considered citizens

 Aeschylus: Oresteia.
• Introduced the concept of a second actor
• Possiblities for plot and historionics
• Interaction of the two (interplay)
 Sophocles: Oedipus Rex
• Chorus starts to go away
• Interplay between actors increases
• Third actor added

5 MAIN PLAYWRIGHTS
CONT.
 Euripides, Medea, Electra, Trojan Women
• Won less competitions than Aeschylus or Sophocles but most prolific and existing works produced today
• Foreshadowed the ultimate form of drama as we know it
• employing a far more naturalistic or human approach in his works, in contrast to the remote scale and formalized conventions used by his contemporaries.
 Aristophanes and Menander
• Comedies
• End of Greek reign, fall of the empire
• Outlet for frustration and economic downfall






1.
1.
2.
Fabula Palliatia: from Greek
Translated Greek plays
Also, Roman plays based on Greek plays
(Note: this happens from here on out with theatre)
Terence: introduced subplot
 Subplot: enabling us to contrast the reactions of different sets of characters to the same events or circumstances

1. Fabula Togata: from Rome
1. Native origin: original work written by Romans
2. farcical situations and humor of a physical nature
Plautus: playwright



 Plays of a more serious, literary nature
 Plays not intended to be performed so much as read or recited.
 Again, only men performed/attended
 Few works by Roman playwrights surviving to us in forms that would lend themselves to revival

 Roman theatre had a greater effect on performing space (theater)
• The semi-circular orchestra of the
Greek theatre became a raised stage
• More physical style of acting
(meaning they used physicality/movement more)

ROMAN AND THE CHURCH
 However, the greatest impact Rome may have had on the theatre was to lower it in the esteem of the Church
 This impact that was to retard the growth of the dramatic arts for several centuries.
 low comedy and its mass appeal -- coupled with its association with the entertainment of the arena (which involved the martyrdom of early Christians)

ROME AND THE CHURCH
CONT.
 Plays, or ludii were associated with either comedy of a coarse and scurrilous nature, or with pagan rituals and holidays.
 These rituals may be the reason theatre continued through middle ages

Secular (Rome)
 Bawdy
 Appealed to the masses
 Exciting
 Course
 “Innappropriate”
Religious (Church)
 Sermons
 Street preaching (missionary)
 Later performances based on
Bible writings

In your opinion, which is more popular today? Why do you think it is more popular?

GREEK/ROMAN
PERFORMANCE
 Greek
• Masks
• Declamatory
• “Monotone” or emotionless speech
• Violent acts happen offstage, chorus or servant tell the stories to the audience of what happened
 Roman
• More interplay between actors
• More movement/action

GREEK/ROMAN
PERFORMANCE, CONT.
 Do not
• Add contemporary movement to it
• Speak in slang, or as you would to your friends
 Stay as true as you can to they styles and the genre of the play





“Middle Ages”

 Pagan
• A person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main world religions
• Of or relating to such a people or beliefs: “ a pagan god”
 Illiterate
• Could not read (Bible) or were not allowed to

 Players (performers/actors) tried to make a living by performing where they could (traveling)
 Kept theatre alive in Europe during Dark Ages, thought the Catholic
Church tried to silence them in every way possible
 Church’s belief that the end of the world was near, it argued that people should turn away from worldly interests (performing being one of them) and prepare for the Day of Judgment

 Players traveled with what they could carry
 Stages were improvised trestle stages (folding and portable)
 Since the world did not end, the Church started to see less harm in entertaining diversions, but said they
(plays/performances) should be religious in nature

START OF MEDIEVAL
THEATRE
 Since the people could not read priests started acting out parts of
the Bible to help them understand Christianity
 First plays were about Christ
• The nativity (advent)
• The resurrection
• Other biblical events
• Noahs ark, Adam and Eve (Cain/Able), Moses and the Red
Sea, Jonah and the whale, the Good Samaritan, etc.

 Passion plays
• Christ: birth, life, death
• The Catholic Church looked at theatre as an “unholy”, negative and wrong practice
 ….until it needed theatre to spread it’s message during the Medieval Era

MEDIEVAL THEATRE
PRACTICES
 Street players
 Jugglers
 Acrobats
 Animal trainers
 Ironically, it is because of the Church that theatre survived the middle ages

MEDIEVAL THEATRE
PRACTICES CONT.
 Seasonal pagan festivals (rituals and superstition) still continued
 As a result: the Church linked it’s own religious holidays (i.e. Easter, Christmas) with these festivals and began to use theatre to illustrate the stories behind the holidays

PAGAN AND THE CHURCH
• Easter: the resurrection. The time of Easter is based on the cycles of the moon, the equinox, and seasons and things in nature.
• In simple terms Easter occurs on the first Sunday following the first full moon that occurs on or after the day of the vernal equinox (the first day of spring).
• Christmas: became generally associated with the southern solstice
(i.e., the Roman winter solstice), with a sun connection being possible because Christians consider Jesus to be the "Sun of righteousness”

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
THEATRE
 Re-enactments of the first passion plays (nativity and adoration of the
Magi)
• Played by priests in the church (cathedrals/sanctuaries/etc.)
 Priests would stand at various locations in the church (building), acting out scenes
 Choir would sing
 Audience would move from scene to scene

 Eventually moved outside the church
 Members of the towns began to contribute, plays became more elaborate
 Passion plays became super popular (like a new movie coming out)
 Added subplots and elements of humor

PAGEANT WAGONS, CONT.
 Roll from one town to another
 “To teach”
 Mysteries: plays performed on pageant wagons
 Wagon: stored scenery, dressing room space, offstage space
 People would pay more money than they could really afford to see them

CHURCH THEATRE, CONT.
 Held in a more permanent place
 Often scenes centering around the life of Christ
 Single stage with an elevated “heaven” and one end and a “hellmouth” at the other (usually belching flames and deamons)
 In between: “mansions”, or small buildings, that represented various points in the New Testament story
 “Hellmouth” the most popular because it used flashy special effects favored by the crowd (think summer blockbusters)…the dead boiled in cauldron, etc.

TYPES OF CHURCH PLAYS
 Passion Plays: Christ’s life
 Mystery Plays/Miracle Plays:
Bible stories
 Morality Plays: Taught morals

THEATRICAL ADVANCEMENTS
 Stage (as discussed before)
 Stock characters that were contemporary
(Everyman)
 When the protestant reformation took hold and stable government came into Europe, theatre became more secular (next time period)

MORALITY PLAYS: TEACH A
MORAL, DUH
Morality plays held several elements in common:
 The hero represents Mankind or Everyman.
 Among the other characters are personifications of virtues, vices and Death, as well as angels and demons who battle for the possession of the soul of man.
 The psychomachia, the battle for the soul
 A character known as the Vice often played the role of the tempter in a fashion both sinister and comic.

 Dramatized allegories of the life of man, his temptation and sinning, his quest for salvation, and his confrontation by death
 Developed most fully in the 15 th century, handled the subjects that were most popular among medieval preachers and was inspired by preaching technique

 An allegory about life and death
• There’s this guy named “Everyman” because he represents, well,
EVERY MAN (all mankind)
• God sends Death to summon Everyman to die
• Everyman will present himself before God to have his deeds tallied before him (final judgment)
• He goes around to get “friends” to go with him after death to make his account to God better
• These characters represent (allegories) various human actions, virtues and vices (Fellowship, Goods-material, Knowledge, Good Deeds,
Confession, Beauty, Strength, etc.)
• Conflict of good and evil seen in each interaction with a new character
• Only Good Deeds goes with him

Certain themes found a home in the morality plays:
 The theme of the Seven Deadly Sins (lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride)
 The theme of Mercy and Peace pleading before God for man's soul against Truth and Righteousness
 The Dance of Death, which focuses on Death as God's messenger come to summon all, high and low.

 Although much occurred during
Medieval times with theatre, it’s sole focus on Christianity ideals limited it’s growth

 In the first section of our History of Theatre, we looked at the beginnings of theatre in Greece, its migration to Rome, and its decline during the Middle Ages. In this section we'll examine the rebirth of the theatre and its domination by a playwright of genius. It is during this period that theatre re-emerges from the Church and becomes secular theatre-- although it remains largely under the control of the state, be that sovereign King or Republic.

 Morality play
 BUT….
 Added: more realistic and comic elements
 Term “interlude” might be from a short play performed between the courses of a banquet
 End of 15 th century (1400s)



 Gives us the beginnings of English
Comedy, the beginning of prose
(everyday speech in a play), and
English Tragedy

 Henry Medwall’s Fulgens and Lucres (end of 15 th century)
• Earliest secular play in English
Tudor Plays=written as part of the evening’s entertainment at a nobleman’s
house and their emphasis is more on
amusement than instruction

RENAISSANCE AND
REFORMATION
 15 th and 16 th Centuries
 Renaissance=“rebirth” or rediscovery of Greek/Roman
 Movement towards Nationalism (Protestant Reformation)
 Secularization of art
 Italy: Roman plays revived and performed, proscenium stages
(“picture frame”) used

 “ Play-Makers”, stages, included enclosed courtyards open to air
 Apron stage, or open stage=THRUST stage (audience on
3 sides)
 Groundspace for standing (groundlings)
 Elevated Stage

 Emphasis on dialogue, not blocking and action
 Plays still had a moralistic tone
 “Play-maker”=emphasis on performer
 Troupes created with owner-actors, journeymen and hirelings

 Protestant Reformation and the establishment of the Church of England (break from Catholic Church)
 Intellectuals based plays on Greek (Protestant) and
Roman (Church in Rome)
 Caused them to be called “Heretic”=life or death
 Thus they avoided revivals of classics and wrote original, secular works of a general, non-political and non-religious nature

THEATERS
THE BANNING OF TROUPES
 Traveling troupes were feared to carry the plague
 Possible civil unrest (riots, etc.) by people who drank and went to the performances
 Possible idleness and taking people away from work
 Theatres were associated with women of ill-repute
 Civil authorities banned performances of traveling troupes

 Previous things led to
• Established theatre companies
• Permanent theater spaces
• Licensing of official companies by the throne
• Domination of theatre by the state

 Secular Professional playwrights
 Graduated from Oxford or Cambridge
 Elizabethan drama became literary and more dramatic
 Influenced private and public theaters
 Paved the way for Shakespeare and later Elizabethan and
Jacobean dramas

 John Lyly: court comedies, private theatres, mythological and pastoral plays
 George Peele: courtly mythological pastoral plays
 Robert Greene: founded romantic comedy. Combined realistic native backgrounds with an atmosphere of romance and comedies.

 Thomas Lodge: Prose romances. His play Rosalynde inspired Shakespeare’s As You Like It…)
 Thomas Kyd: founded romantic tragedy. Mingled love, conspiracy, murder and revenge. Violence and grossness comes to the stage (tongue)

R & R AND WITS
ACTING STYLE



ELIZABETHAN THEATRE
AND SHAKESPEARE
 Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights: Christopher
Marlowe and Ben Jonson
 Shakespeare was a share-holder in companies and so made money as a maker of plays, an actor and an investor
• Born in Stratford-upon-Avon
• Plays are timeless for their understanding of human nature and character

 Member of Lord Chamberlain’s and King James I’s own company, part owner of the Globe and Blackfriars playhouses
 Open-air theaters
 Acting style is more “natural”. Encouraged a more natural style of speaking
 Men played women (women didn’t perform until 17 th century)

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

I left no ring with her: what means this lady?
Fortune forbid my outside have not charm'd her!
She made good view of me; indeed, so much,
That sure methought her eyes had lost her tongue,
For she did speak in starts distractedly.
She loves me, sure; the cunning of her passion
Invites me in this churlish messenger.
None of my lord's ring! why, he sent her none.
I am the man: if it be so, as 'tis,
Poor lady, she were better love a dream.

BENEDICK: O, she misused me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that
I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs.

Nay, I'll show you the manner of it. This shoe is my father: no, this left shoe is my father: no, no, this left shoe is my mother: nay, that cannot be so neither: yes, it is so, it is so, it hath the worser sole. This shoe, with the hole in it, is my mother, and this my father; a vengeance on't! there 'tis: now, sit, this staff is my sister, for, look you, she is as white as a lily and as small as a wand: this hat is Nan, our maid: I am the dog: no, the dog is himself, and I am the dog--Oh! the dog is me, and I am myself; ay, so, so. Now come I to my father; Father, your blessing: now should not the shoe speak a word for weeping: now should I kiss my
father; well, he weeps on. Now come I to my mother: O, that she could speak now like a wood woman! Well, I kiss her; why, there 'tis; here's my mother's breath up and down.

Cordelia. Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty
According to my bond; no more nor less.
Lear. How, how, Cordelia? Mend your speech a little,
Lest it may mar your fortunes.
Cordelia. Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, lov'd me; I
Return those duties back as are right fit,
Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
Why have my sisters husbands, if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty.
Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all.

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
Be not her maid, since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.
It is my lady, O, it is my love!
O, that she knew she were!

THE REPUBLIC AND
THE RESTORATION
 1642-Civil War in England. Parliament closed theaters in England (Republic)
 Restoration (Charles II to throne in 1660) started again
 Between 1642 and 1660 little theatre done in England
 Italy and France

 Italian: architecture
 France: mechanics of scenery and spectacle ( costume, dance,
clever scenery and scene changes were emphasized not acting and plot
 Louis XIV (“Sun King”) danced himself Ballet Nuit
Proscenium: forestage (apron) used for action, behind the proscenium displayed scenery (panels on tracks)
THEATRE SPECIFICALLY FOR ROYALTY

 Jean Racine: tragedy
• Bajazet, Mithridate, Iphigenie, Phedre
 Moliere: author of some of the best comedies in
European history
• Tartuffe (script)
• La Misanthrope
• Le Femmes Savantes
• Le Malade Imaginarie

RESTORATION OF CROWN
ENGLAND
 Women first began to appear on stage
(already happened in France)
 Theaters licensed and controlled by state
 But…18 th century brings theatre back to everyone

18 TH , 19 TH AND 20 TH CENTURIES




IN YOUR OPINION, ARE
CRITICS (THEATRE/FILM)
IMPORTANT? WHY OR
WHY NOT?

TH
 ACTOR: David Garrick
• Manager and playwright
• Natural form of acting (realism and naturalism)
• Used sets (tables, chairs, etc.)
Theatre began to appear in North America, mostly English Plays

TH
 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
 Theatre changes
• Gas lighting (1817)
• Arc-lighting followed
• Electrical lighting following that
• Lighting controls
Poor quality of lighting probably contributed to the development of the melodrama

TH
 Exaggerated, spectacle, heightened drama, physical comedy
 The mid-19th century, a more naturalistic (more real and like people are in real life)
 Subject matter: contemporary social life, such as marriage and domestic issues and issues of social class and social problems.

MELODRAMA
(THINK SOAP OPERAS)
 What type of acting do you think they did in melodrama?
 Are there other styles or performances that are like this today?
 I’ve come for the rent! (ONE PERSON
MELODRAMA)

 Stock Characters
 Damsel in distress
 Hero
 Villain

What else have we learned about in theatre wonderment of the past that used stock characters?





12

 George Bernard Shaw (Pygmalion…My Fair Lady)
 Henry Ibsen
 Anton Chekov
 More serious (dramatic) plays

KONSTANTIN
STANISLAVSKY 1880-1930
 Actor/director
 Created realistic acting as we know it
 Wrote books
 Influenced American theatre

 Mostly east coast, later toured the country
(first permanent building in Utah was a theater)
 Entertainment
 Became a business

 Gas lighting replaced by limelight
 Limelight consisted of a block of lime (rock) heated to incandescence by means of an oxyhydrogen flame torch.
The light could then be focused with mirrors and produced a quite powerful light.




TH

 Vaudville: the SNL of it’s time
• Magicians
• Musical numbers
• Melodramas continued
 Beginning film
• Silent Film acting
• Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton

 Vaudeville
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZo4imTt4Og&noredirect=1
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsVQ9e8nWx0
 Charlie Chaplin
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79i84xYelZI

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkyvstNrkHo
 3 Stooges
 Musicals
 Plays made into movies

 Political movements
• "proletariat" were manifested in theatre by such movements as
• realism, naturalism,
• symbolism,
• impressionism
• highly stylized anti-realism

MOVEMENTS AND
MEDIUMS
 Dada
• World War I
• Nonsense, reject reason and logic, irrational
• Da da means yes, yes in Romanian
 Broadway
 Film
 Musicals
 High School/Educational Theatre
 Staged Chaos
 Invisible theatre
 Improv Everywhere
 Hip Hop Theatre

 Established 1850s, though theatre started in the 1750s
 First “modern” musical 1866, The Black Crook
 1910s started Broadway as we know it today
 40 professional theatres, 500 or more seating
 $1.081 Billion in 2012

 Popular http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs
KH2tqoFJ8
 Gravity http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g
4ekwTd6Ig
 Hamelt http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K
E3OB1rpbVc
 Show off http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLDq
-2e2JC0
 War Horse 1 http://www.ted.com/talks/handpring_pu ppet_co_the_genius_puppetry_behind_w ar_horse.html
 War Horse http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbni4QqSv4

 Hip Hop Theatre http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K
Zb4hh_FLaE
 Will Power http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m
1B_HLJsVQM
 Thriller http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv
0uAur3N1Y
 RSC Comedy of Errors http://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=-hie-ks6gD8
 Subway http:// improveverywhere.com/2010/0
7/14/star-wars-subway-car /

OTHER PERFORMANCES
CONT.
 Dance http://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=SQeqpcg_WHs&feature=yo utu.be
 Visual http://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=7vldw0qs3A8
 Poetry http://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=mdJ6aUB2K4g
 Roof Top http://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=mdJ6aUB2K4g