Transcript wilson13_ppt_ch08

Theatrical Genres
8
© T Charles Erickson
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08-2
Genre
Wherever theatre has appeared, there has been a
tendency to divide it into categories or types, often
referred to by the French term genre (JAHN-ruh).
The English author Horace Walpole wrote: “This
world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to
those that feel.”
Additional genres have developed: farce,
melodrama, tragicomedy, and a number of others.
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08-3
Serious Drama
• What characterizes serious drama?
– Thoughtful, sober attitude toward its subject
– Audience intended to consider the material carefully
– Emotional involvement in the passion and suffering of
the characters
• Serious dramatic forms include:
–
–
–
–
Tragedy
Heroic drama
Domestic drama
Melodrama
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08-4
Tragedy
• Asks what are the basic questions of human
existence?
• Assumes the universe is indifferent—even cruel
and malevolent—to human concerns.
• Two types of tragedy:
– Traditional tragedy
• Periods of the past such as ancient Greece and
Renaissance England
– Modern tragedy
• Late nineteenth century to present day
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08-5
Traditional Tragedy
• Three major periods of tragedy:
– Greece, fifth century B.C.
• Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides
– England, late sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries
• Shakespeare, Marlowe, Kyd, Webster
– France, seventeenth century
• Racine, Corneille
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08-6
Characteristics of Traditional
Tragedy
• Tragic heroes and heroines
– Extraordinary people—kings, queens, nobles
• Tragic circumstances
– Universe determined to trap hero or heroine in a fateful web
• Tragic irretrievability
– The point at which there is no turning back—the character
must face his/her fate
• Acceptance of responsibility
– The capacity and willingness to suffer for actions
• Tragic verse
– High language to address lofty concerns
– Considered the only means by which such heights and
depths of emotion can adequately be expressed
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08-7
The Effect of Tragedy
• The contradictory responses to tragedy:
– The cruelty and corruption of the world
versus
– The dignity of life and the beauty of art
– The world is in chaos, but the creation of
perfectly shaped art.
– Pessimism versus optimism – the hero
meeting fate with courage
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08-8
Modern Tragedy
• Characteristics:
– Written in prose
– Dealing with the
common man
– The new tragic view
based on modern society
• Major Playwrights:
Zane Williams/Madison Repertory Theatre
– Ibsen, Strindberg, Lorca, Arthur Miller, Tennessee
Williams, Eugene O’Neill
• But is this new approach still tragedy in the
purest sense?
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08-9
Heroic Drama
• Serious drama with the characteristics of
traditional tragedy, with two exceptions:
– A happy ending
– An optimistic world view
• Eastern traditions employ this style often
e.g. The Ramayana
• Sometimes known as romantic drama
• Western examples include:
– Electra (Sophocles)
– Saint Joan (George Bernard Shaw)
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08-10
Domestic Drama
• The replacement of heroic drama, domestic
(bourgeois) drama reflects modern society.
– Domestic—indicates plays dealing with the family
or the home
– Bourgeois—indicates plays dealing with
characters of the middle or lower classes
• The power of domestic drama lies in its ability
to present the audience with characters that
are easily recognizable and identifiable.
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08-11
Melodrama
• Eighteenth and nineteenth century popular
theatre from greek“Music drama” or “song drama”
• Characteristics:
– Audience is drawn into the action
– Issues are clear-cut; there is a strong delineation of
right and wrong
– Characters are clearly good or bad
– Exaggerated action—living in danger on the edge of
calamity
– Strong emphasis on suspense
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08-12
Melodrama Today
• Connections to film and television genres:
– Westerns
– Soap operas
– Science fiction
– Horror
– Detective or spy stories
• Melodrama can also reflect the moral or
political base of society.
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08-13
Comedy
• Approaches to dramatic material:
– Comedy
• Humorous look at the world
– Tragicomedy
• Blends comic and tragic together
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08-14
Comedy
• Why do we laugh?
• How many types of laughter exist?
• Comedy uses laughter to illuminate the
problems of men, women, and the world.
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08-15
Characteristics of Comedy
• Suspension of natural laws
– The evolution of the “slapstick”
– Silent movies / cartoons / commedia dell’arte
• The comic premise
– Turning accepted notions “upside down”
– Lysistrata
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08-16
Techniques of Comedy
• Verbal humor
– Pun—humorous use of words with the same sounds but
different meanings
– Malaprop—word that sounds like the correct word but
actually means something quite different
– Examples: the plays of Richard Sheridan and Oscar Wilde
• Comedy of character
– Discrepancy or incongruity in the way characters see
themselves or pretend to be, as opposed to the way they
actually are
– Examples: the plays of Molière
• Plot complications
– Coincidences / mistaken identities
– Examples: the plays of William Shakespeare
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08-17
Forms of Comedy
• Farce
– Uses exaggeration on multiple levels
– Qualities of mock violence, rapid movement, accelerating pace
• Burlesque
– Focuses on physical humor, exaggeration, and vulgarity
– Connections to variety theatre
• Satire
– Focuses on intellect and moral issues
– Use of wit, irony, and exaggeration to expose evil and foolishness
• Domestic comedy
– Addresses family situations—similar to the “sitcom” form
• Comedy of manners
– Focus on the foibles and peculiarities of the upper classes
• Comedy of ideas
– Uses comedy to debate intellectual propositions
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08-18
Tragicomedy
The relationship of tragicomedy to
comedy and tragedy:
Comedy
Tragicomedy
Tragedy
The view of the audience is a synthesis of tragic
and comic—intermingled views of joy and
sorrow…
Example: Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure
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08-19
Modern Tragicomedy
• Major playwright of the tragicomic genre:
– Anton Chekhov
• Uncle Vanya / The Seagull / The Cherry Orchard
• If we agree that the twentieth-century
viewpoint is shaped by a tragicomedy
sensibility, then:
– What does this indicate about the world and
our society?
– What viewpoints will shape the twenty-first
century?
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08-20
The Theatre of the Absurd
• Movement developed after WWII
• Critic Martin Esslin coined the phrase:
theatre of the absurd
– Plays focused on the alienation of man and
his plight within an illogical, unjust, ridiculous
world
• Samuel Beckett:
Waiting for Godot
– Absurdity located in
both structure and
ideas
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© Joan Marcus
08-21
Characteristics of Absurdism
• Absurdist plots: illogicality
– Cyclical structures
– Lack of concrete beginning, middle, and end
• Absurdist language: nonsense and non sequitur
– Irrational or debased language
• Absurdist characters: existential beings
– Element of the ridiculous
– Lack of history and specificity in the development of characters
Major Playwrights:
Samuel Beckett / Eugène Ionesco
Edward Albee / Friedrich Dürrenmatt
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