THEATER

theater
an art concerned almost exclusively with live
performances in which the action is precisely planned to
create a coherent and significant sense of drama
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History of Theater

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 1.
Greek Theater
from the 7th century B.C.E.

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 Greek Theater
● Greek theatre was created to celebrate religious festivals
● A chorus was used to either sing or chant the script
● Thespis has been credited for creating the first actor who broke away from the chorus and
would speak to the chorus as an individual character. This is why actors are also known as
"Thespians”
● Masks were used to allow the actors to play more than one character
● This led to the creation of character.
● The creation of character:
- Aeschylus introduced the idea of using a second and third actor which allowed for
interaction between characters.
- Sophocles continued the creation of character by using the chorus less, and creating more
dialogue between characters.

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 2.
Roman Theater
from the 4th century B.C.E.

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 Roman Theater

● The Romans were greatly influenced by Greek Theatre

● The word "play comes from the Latin word "ludus" which means recreation or play.
● The Roman playwright Terence introduced the concept of a subplot allowing the audience
to contrast the reactions of different characters to the same events or circumstances
● Roman Theatre was less influenced by religion than Greek theatre.
● The audience was often loud and rude
● The audience did not applaud, but rather were always shouting insults and booing
● Since the audience was so loud, much of the plays were pantomimed and repetitive
● The actors developed a code which would tell the audience about a character just by
looking at them.

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 3.
Medieval European Theater
from the 5th century

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 Medieval European Theater

● After the fall of the Roman Empire, cities were abandoned, and Europe became increasingly
more agricultural.
● After several hundred years, towns re-emerged.
● The Roman Catholic Church dominated religion, education and politics. It also had a strong
influence on theatre.
● Theatre was "reborn" as "liturgical dramas" which were written in Latin and performed by
priests or church members. The plots were taken from the Christian Bible.
● Performances also were held to celebrate religious festivals (as in Greek times).

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 4.
Commedia Dell'Arte Italy's
Contribution
from the 14th century

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 Commedia dell’Arte

● In Italy, a unique form of theatre was created for the common people
● Commedia dell'Arte required few props and no sets
● The plays did not come from scripts bulby "scenarios which were an outline of a plot. The
actors improvised the dialogue with comedic stunts
● Actors wore half masks which indicated to the audience which character they were playing
(Just like the Greeks)
● A Commedia troupe typically consisted of 10 to 12 members, a few of which were women
● Plays were based on stock characters

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 5.
Renaissance and Reformation
from the 15th century

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 Renaissance and Reformation

● Further contributions to Theatre were made by Italians through the development of the
proscenium, or "picture frame stage"

England's Contribution

● In England "apron stages" were used which created a more open" stage.
● Audience members surrounded the stage, and sometimes on the stage.
● The emphasis in plays were on the dialogue. Plays also continued to have moralistic
themes.
● Later religious themes were replaced by themes of loyalty to the government
● Performers were organized into troupes or companies who developed a repertory of plays
that they could perform

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 6.
Elizabethan Theater
from the 16th century

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 Elizabethan Theater

● William Shakespeare is the most notorious playwright in the history of theater

● During this period, there are other notable playwright including: Christopher Marlowe and
Ben Jonson.
● Shakespeare and his contemporaries encouraged a more natural style of speaking and
acting. They also explored the theme of “good government”
● Shakespeare’s characters were also more “human” with both positive and negative aspects
of their character being explored.
● During this time, plays were still presented in open-air theatres or a time, presented at
court.

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 7.
The Republican and the Restoration
from the 17th century

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 The Republican and the Restoration

● In 1642 the English Parliament closed all the theatres in England thus many English actors
led to France
● Theatre in France began to focus on scenery and creating spectacle
● Plays now included costume, dance and clever scenery which also required scene chances
● These aspects of theatre were more emphasized than acting or the plot
● Theatres aso used the proscenium style of stage, where the acting took place on the
forestage and the stage behind the proscenium was used to display the scenery
● The French also allowed women to perform on stage. (When Theatre returned to England in
1660 women were allowed on stage there too, this due to the French Tuence)

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 8.
The 18th Century Theater

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 The 18th Century Theater

● In the 18th Century, Theatre became a popular pastime.

● During the first half of the 18th century actors assumed poses and performed their lines in
a 'sing song manner
● Actors dressed in modern fashionable clothes
● There was a rivalry between actresses asto who would wear the finest dress.
● Pantomime was still popular and promoted the development of spectacular staging
slapstick and special effects

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 8.
The 19th-20th Century Theater

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 The 19th Century Theater
● Gas lighting was first introduced in 1817 in London's Drury Lane Theatre.
● By the end of the century, electrical lighting made its appearance on stage
● Elaborate mechanisms for changing scenery were developed, including fly-lofts, elevators,
and revolving stages

The 20th Century Theater

● During the 20th Century, the world changed forever (2 world wars, and much social and
political upheaval)
● The Realism movement in theatre and the creation a more naturalistic acting style
continued to flourish in the 20th Century

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Elements of Theater
Basic Elements

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 Basic Elements of Theater

Script, Scenario, Plan The Process

The starting point of the theatrical This is the coordination of efforts
performance. It is actually the usually by the director and where the
blueprint of the production. whole production brings into reality.

The Product The Audience

This is the output where the audience will Theater requires an audience. Audience have
witness the result of the all the labors to an impact on how the performance went, they
finish the script, scenario, and plan by the may affect actors as they are being inspired,
collaborations as they sit in the theater. and also can create expectations.

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 Other Elements of Theater

The Performers Director

People who acts dramatically The person who assigns and monitors the
accordingly by the assigned character actors and makes certain for the performer
by them. to deliver their assigned tasks accordingly.

Space Visual and Non-visual Aspect

It has an essential part whether on stage Visual Aspect: Costumes, lightning, and other
and on the seats of audience and may give form of scenic background
different values based on how the actors Non Visual Aspect: sound and background
maximize or minimize their work space. music

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Styles of Theater

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Realism

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 Realistic Theater
● It’s a general movement that started in France in the 1850s.
● Theorists in that time wanted realistic situations, characters and dialogue (even
grammatically incorrect dialogue)
● This style of theater is in line with observable reality.
● Realistic plays often see the protagonist rise up against the odds to assert him/herself
against an injustice of some kind.
● It quickly gained popularity because the everyday person in the audience could identify
with the situations and characters on stage
● Characters are usually in the middle class.
● Supposed to move away from the sensationalism and moralism of melodrama.

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 Alexandre Dumas fils
He is the first writer of realistic social problem plays.
“..the artist should discover and to reveal to us that which we do
not see in things we look at every day.”
La Dame Aux Camilles was his most famous play
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Naturalism

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 Naturalistic Theater
● It’s a movement in Europe that started in the late 19th and 20th centuries.
● It exposed the dark harshness of life, including poverty, racism, sex, prejudice, disease,
prostitution, and filth. As a result, Naturalistic writers were frequently criticized for being
too blunt.
● Characters in the play are shaped by their circumstances and controlled by external forces
such as hereditary or their social and economic environment (scientific determinism).
● Stage time equals real time – eg. three hours in the theatre equals three hours for the
characters in the world of the play.
● Characters are often working class/lower class.
● Supposed to move away from the sensationalism and moralism of melodrama.

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 Emile Zola
The big-time early adopter of evolution.
“Theater should be a lab of human life. experiments are on the inner
conflicts of a group of characters.”
Therese Raquin was one of his works.
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Expressionism

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 Expressionist Theater
● It’s a modernist movement that developed in Germany in the early 20th century.
● Its atmosphere was often vividly dreamlike and nightmarish. The mood was aided by
shadowy, unrealistic lighting and visual distortions in the set.
● Characters lost their individuality and were merely identified by nameless designations,
like The Man, The Father, The Son. Such characteristics were stereotypes and caricatures
rather than individual personalities. Their characteristics are emphasized by costume,
masks or make-up.
● The style of acting is intense and violent, and expressed tormented emotions. Actors might
erupt in sudden passion and attack each other physically. Speech was rapid, breathless and
staccato, with gestures and movement urgent and energetic–eyes rolling, teeth bared,
fingers and hands clutching like talons and claws.
● Avoiding the details of human behaviour, a player might appear to be overacting, and
adopting the broad, mechanical movements of a puppet.

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 Ernst Toller
A dramatist, poet, and political activist, who was a prominent
exponent of Marxism and pacifism in Germany in the 1920s. His
Expressionist plays embodied his spirit of social protest.
Hoppla, We’re Alive! was one of his works.

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Absurdism

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 Theater of the Absurd
● Centered in Paris in the 1950s.
● It’s largely based on the philosophy of existentialism where man starts life with nothing.
His life is made up of acts; through the process of acting man becomes conscious of his
original nothingness.
● Characterised by a deliberate absence of the cause and effect relationship between scenes
and loss of conflict.
● The characters are not consistent, mysteries don’t get solved, order is not restored.

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 Jean Genet
A French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist.
Early in his life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but he later
took to writing.
The Maids was one of his works.

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Classic

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 Classic Theater
● Centered in Paris in the 1950s.
● It’s origins lie with the Greek theater.
● A type of theater which relies upon imagination to convey the setting and atmosphere of
the play.
● Classical theater usually contains lofty, grand prose or free verse dialogue.
● Involves singing
● This is where masks and chorus was first used.
● On-screen characters were all male and performed in veils; there were couple of on-screen
characters accessible for the dramatist’s utilization (two or later three could be in front of
an audience at once).
● Classic Theaters were basically based on the religious contexts.
● Good examples are the Elizabethan dramatists such as William Shakespeare and
Christopher Marlowe.

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Commedia dell’Arte

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 Commedia dell’Arte Theater
● It’s also known as "Italian comedy," was a humorous theatrical presentation performed by
8-12 professional actors who traveled in troupes throughout Italy in the 16th century.
● This took place on temporary stages.
● The general outline, the characters and their relationships, as well as the outcome of the
situation were all decided before the performance began, using stock characters and tried
and true plots.
● The actors were required to employ their considerable talents in filling out the remaining
details of the story and keep the attention of the audience.
● The plots were mainly about love intrigues, with themes of adultery, jealousy, old age, and
young love.
● Involves rude physical comedies
● The characters involve masters, servants and lovers.

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Theater of Cruelty

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 Theater of Cruelty

● It’s a philosophy and a discipline developed by Antonin Artaud, aimed to shock audiences
through gesture, image, sound and lighting.
● The ‘cruelty’ in Artaud’s thesis was sensory, it exists in the work’s capacity to shock and
confront the audience, to go beyond words and connect with the emotions: to wake up the
nerves and the heart. He believed gesture and movement to be more powerful than text.
● The audience is surrounded by the play, placed at the center.

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Symbolism

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 Symbolist Theater

● It began with a group of French poets in the late 19th Century and soon spread to the visual
arts and theatre, finding its peak between about 1885 and 1910.
● It’s a reaction against the plays that embodied naturalism and realism at the turn of the
20th Century. The dialogue and style of acting in symbolist plays was highly stylised and
anti realistic/non-naturalistic.
● Primary symbolist playwrights included Belgian Maurice Maeterlinck and Frenchmen
Auguste Villiers de L’Isle-Adam and Paul Claudel.

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