Transcript Comedy - Literature Now

DRAMA
HISTORY OF WESTERN
DRAMA
DRAMA
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Fiction in performance
A prose or verse composition intended for
representation by actors impersonating the
characters and performing the dialogue and
action
the general term for performances in which
actors impersonate the actions and speech of
fictional or historical characters for the
entertainment of an audience, either on a stage
or by means of a broadcast
a particular example of this art, i.e. a play
Aristotle's Drama Elements
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PLOT – what happens in a play; the order of
events, the story as opposed to the theme; what
happens rather than what it means.
THEME – what the play means as opposed to
what happens (plot); the main idea within the
play.
CHARACTER – the personality or the part an
actor represents in a play; a role played by an
actor in a play.
Aristotle's Drama Elements
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DICTION/LANGUAGE/DIALOGUE – the word
choices made by the playwright and the
enunciation of the actors delivering the lines.
MUSIC/RHYTHM – by music Aristotle meant
the sound, rhythm and melody of the speeches.
SPECTACLE – the visual elements of the
production of a play; the scenery, costumes,
and special effects in a production.
Greek Drama
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Three types of drama were composed in Athens
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Satyr
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Was not taken seriously until greek Enlightenment
Tragedy
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A drama which concerns better than average people
(heroes, kings, gods) who suffer a transition from
good fortune to bad fortune, and who speak in an
elevated language
a fiction which is neither true nor believable
Purging of the soul (catharsis)
Character flaw
Greek Drama
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Three types of drama were composed in Athens
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Satyr
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Was not taken seriously until greek Enlightenment
Tragedy
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A drama which concerns better than average people
(heroes, kings, gods) who suffer a transition from
good fortune to bad fortune, and who speak in an
elevated language
a fiction which is neither true nor believable
Purging of the soul (catharsis)
Character flaw
Elizabethan Theater
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Part of the English Renaissance Theater
Plays perfomed in England during the reign of
Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603)
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Jacobean theater – King James I (1603 - 1625)
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Caroline theater – King Charkes I (1625-1642)
Elizabethan Theater
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Three venues
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Inn yards
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The early days of Elizabethan commercial theater
Performances held in private London Inns.
Inexpensive.
Held indoors or the yard.
Audience capacity up to 500
Open air amphitheaters
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Think of a public outdoor structure like the Coliseum or a
small football stadium with a capacity of between 1500
and 3000 people
Elizabethan Theater
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Three venues
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Indoor playhouses
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A small, private indoor hall.
Open to anyone who would pay but more expensive with
more select audiences.
Audience capacity up to 500
Elizabethan Theater
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William Shakespeare
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Christopher Marlowe (could have been much better
than Shakespeare: died young)
Theatre had an unsavory reputation. London
authorities refused to allow plays within the city,
so theatres outside the authority of the city
administration
Elizabethan Theater
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The first proper theatre as we know it was the
Theatre, built at Shoreditch in 1576. Before this
time plays were performed in the courtyard of
inns, or sometimes, in the houses of noblemen.
After the Theatre, further open air playhouses
opened in the London area, including the Rose
(1587), and the Hope (1613). The most famous
playhouse was the Globe (1599) built by the
company in which Shakespeare had a stake
Elizabethan Theater
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The Globe was only in use until 1613, when a
canon fired during a performance of Henry VIII
caught the roof on fire and the building burned
to the ground.
Theatre performances were held in the
afternoon, because, of course, there was no
artificial lighting. Women attended plays, though
often the prosperous woman would wear a
mask to disguise her identity. Further, no
women performed in the plays. Female roles
were generally performed by young boys.
Modern Drama
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Great influences
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19th-century Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen
the 20th-century German theater practitioner Bertolt
Brecht
each inspired a tradition of imitators, which
include many of the greatest playwrights of the
modern era
Different techniques but with the same effect
Modern Drama
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both modernist and realist and incorporates
formal experimentation, meta-theatricality, and
social critique
In terms of the traditional theoretical discourse
of genre
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Ibsen's work has been described as the culmination
of "liberal tragedy"
Brecht's has been aligned with an historicised
comedy
Modern Drama
Other important playwrights of the modern era
include
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August StrindbergAnton Chekhov, Frank Wedekind,
Maurice Maeterlinck, Federico García Lorca,
Eugene O'Neill, Luigi Pirandello, George Bernard
Shaw, Ernst Toller, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Arthur
Miller, Tennessee Williams, Jean Genet, Eugène
Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Friedrich
Dürrenmatt, Dario Fo, Heiner Müller, and Caryl
Churchill
FORMS
DIFFERENT FORMS
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Opera
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arose during the Renaissance
attempt to revive the classical Greek drama
tradition in which both music and theater were
combined
Undergone a lot of changes and has become an
important part of theater nowadays
DIFFERENT FORMS
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Pantomime
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follow in the tradition of fables and folk tales, usually
there is a lesson learned, and with some help from
the audience the hero/heroine saves the day.
uses stock characters seen in masque and again
commedia dell'arte (comedy of the art of
improvisation), these characters include the villain
(doctore), the clown/servant
(Arlechino/Harlequin/buttons), the lovers etc.
has an emphasis on moral dilemmas, and good
always triumphs over evil
very entertaining making it a very effective way of
reaching many people
DIFFERENT FORMS
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Creative Drama
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dramatic activities and games used primarily in
educational settings with children.
started in the United States in the early 1900s
Winifred Ward is considered to be the founder of
creative drama in education, establishing the first
academic use of drama in Evanston, Illinois.
Types of Drama or Plays
Types
Tragedy -- In general, tragedy involves the ruin of the
leading characters. To the Greeks, it meant the
destruction of some noble person through fate, To
the Elizabethans, it meant in the first place death
and in the second place the destruction of some
noble person through a flaw in his character. Today
it may not involve death so much as a dismal life,
Modern tragedy often shows the tragedy not of the
strong and noble but of the weak and mean,
Comedy -- is lighter drama in which the leading
characters overcome the difficulties which
temporarily beset them
Types
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Problem Play -- Drama of social criticism
discusses social, economic, or political
problems by means of a play.
Farce -- When comedy involves ridiculous or
hilarious complications without regard for
human values, it becomes farce.
Comedy of Manners -- Comedy which wittily
portrays fashionable life.
Types
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Fantasy -- A play sometimes, but not always, in
comic spirit in which the author gives free reign
to his fantasy, allowing things to happen without
regard to reality.
Melodrama -- Like farce, melodrama pays
almost no attention to human values, but its
object is to give a thrill instead of a laugh. Often
good entertainment, never any literary value.
Types (Historical Interest)
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Medieval mystery plays -- dealt with Bible
stories and allegorical mysteries.
Chronicle plays -- dealt directly with historical
scenes and characters.
Masques -- were slight plays involving much
singing and dancing and costuming. They were
usually allegorical.
Tragedy
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Origins
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"tragos" + "oide" -- goat song usually involves a
calamity (death, etc.), but attention is focused on
what reactions are to that calamity by the
characters and what those reactions can tell us
about life.
The "dithyramb" -- hymns sung and danced in
honor of Dionysus.
Usually about the struggles of the "protagonist",
moral issues, the effects of suffering
Tragedy
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Origins
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Struggle is ethical, spiritual -- protagonist's integrity is tested.
Tragedy raises questions about the meaning of human
existence, moral nature, and social / psychological
relationships.
Aristotle suggested a "certain magnitude."
Evil often shown along with good, which does not always
win.
Some tragedies (Greek) like Oedipus, suggest that the
protagonist has violated some moral order which must be
vindicated and reestablished.
Often seems inevitable and predetermined (we can look and
decide for ourselves later).
Tragedy
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Associated Terms
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Magnitude: characters have high stature -- ethically superior
but sufficiently imperfect
High seriousness: Tries to arouse (effect) proper purgation
of pity and fear -- [some have asked if the purgation is to be
in the audience or in the characters??]
"Catharsis" -- a purification -- the compassion accompanying
shared grief -- a humanizing force--we return to a state of
equilibrium after release of tensions -- Contradictory
reactions -- pessimistic, yet not willing to surrender
individuality -- a form of victory.
Tragedy
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Associated Terms
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The Tragic Hero (protagonist) has a flaw in character or
makes an error in judgment -- "tragic flaw" -- hamartia-literally "missing the mark.".
"hubris" -- a characteristic -- overweening pride or selfconfidence.
Aristotle suggests that the best plays (Oedipus) have the
hubris being too much of a good thing (what makes Oedipus
strong is his self-confidence and pride)
Universality -- Universal human values -- When a play
touches something that is human in all of us and has lasting
value through time
Comedy
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Kinds of Comedy
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Farce - “low comedy”
Burlesques - lampooning other works of art, including theater
pieces
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Satire
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Domestic comedy
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Comedy of manners
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Comedy of ideas
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Comedy of situation
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Comedy of character
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Romantic comedy struggles of love, sympathetic characters,
ludicrous devices lovers use (Shakespeare's Midsummer, 12th
Night)
Comedy
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High and Low
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High Comedy
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highly complex, embracing a wide range of
approaches--from intellectual wit to slapstick
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Satire -- biting humor -- criticism of life
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Incongruity -- surprise, out of place
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Verbal Wit
Low Comedy
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comedy that depends on action and situation,
usually involving trivial theme in all farce
inopportune arrivals
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embarrassing occurrences
Mixed Forms
Heroic Drama
Melodrama
Domestic / Bourgeois Drama
Tragi-Comedy