12.11.2020 - Historical Context of Performance - Mrs Williams

 GREEK THEATRE

• Used to celebrate religious festivals
• Used in parliament to announce big political changes
• Chorus used 
• Thespis - unknown if playwright, actor or priest - created "first actor" who broke away from chorus to speak as individual character
• Masks used

CREATION OF CHARACTER

• Aeschylus - using second & third actor which allowed interaction between characters
• Sophocles - created character by using chorus less and creating more dialogue between characters.

ROMAN THEATRE

• Influenced by Greek theatre
• The word "play" comes from the Latin word "ludus" 
• Terence - Roman playwright - introduced subplot
• Less influenced by religion than Greek theatre
• Loud and rude audience - didn't applaud and would shout insults and boo
• Audience was so loud they would repeat a lot
• Actors developed a code to tell audience about a character just by looking at them
• Black wig - young man
• Red wig - slave
• Yellow robe - woman
• Yellow tassel - a God

MEDIEVAL EUROPEAN THEATRE 

• Europe became more agricultural after fall of the Roman Empire
• Roman Catholic Church dominated religion, education and politics - had a strong influence on theatre
• Theatre "reborn" as "liturgical dramas" - written in Latin and performed by priests or church members
• Plots taken from the Christian Bible
• Performances held to celebrate religious festivals
• Later "vernacular dramas" written in common language
• Plays performed in town squares on wagon stages
• Three types of "vernacular dramas"
• Mystery plays - based on Old and New Testament
• Miracle plays - based on lives of the saints
• Morality plays - taught lesson through symbolic characters representing virtues or faults

COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE

ITALY

• Unique form of theatre for common people
• Required few props and no set
• Did not come from scripts but by "scenarios" which were an outline of plot
• Improvised the dialogue with comedic stunts "lazzi"
• Wore half masks - indicated to the character which character they were playing
• Worked in troupes (10-12) - few were women
• Plays based on stock characters
• Pantalone - elderly Venetian merchant
• Arlecchino - servant who was trouble maker

RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION

ITALY

• Development of the proscenium or "picture frame stage"

ENGLAND

• "Apron stages" - more open
• Audience surrounded stage and sometimes on stage
• Emphasis on dialogue 
• Continued to have moralistic themes
• Later religious themes were replaced by themes of loyalty to the government
• Performers were organised into troupes or companies who developed a repertory of plays that they could perform
• 16th Century - England's government swung back and forth between Catholics and Protestants
• Playwrights believed to support Catholic Church by reviving plays written in Latin
• Playwrights believed to be Protestants by reviving Greek plays
• Could be put to death for reviving the "wrong" play based on who was in power
• Many avoided reviving classical plays and wrote non-political and non-religious plays
• Theatre dangerous through political problems
• Civil unrest inspired by performances
• Theatres associated with temptation to spend time watching plays than working
• Associated with prostitution so women were banned from theatres
• Plague closed theatres
• Lead to licensing of acting companies - more control of theatre by state

ELIZABETHAN THEATRE

• William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson
• Encouraged more natural style of speaking and acting
• Theme of "good government"
• Shakespeares characters more "human" - positive and negative aspects explored
• Plays still presented in open-air theatre - sometimes at court

THE REPUBLIC AND THE RESTORATION

FRANCE

• 1642 - English Parliament closed theatres in England
• English actors went to France
• Theatres in France focused on scenery & creating spectacle
• Included costumes, dance, clever scenery requiring scene changes - more emphasised than acting
• Used proscenium style of stage
• Allowed women to perform - French influence on England in 1660 for women to perform

18TH CENTURY THEATRE

• Became popular pastime
• Actors assumed poses and performed their lines in a "sing-song" manner
• Dressed in modern fashionable clothes
• Rivalry between actresses on who would wear the finest dress
• Pantomime popular and promoted the development of spectacular staging, slapstick and special effects

DAVID GARRICK 

• Successful actor, producer and theatre manager 
• Wrote more than 20 plays 
• Emphasised a more natural form of speaking and acting that mimicked life
• Inspired movement towards realism and naturalism
• Banished the audience from stage - actors performed among furnishing and scenery
• More commercial 

LIGHTING AND STAGE ADVANCEMENTS

• Gas lighting introduced in 1817 in London's Drury Lane Theatre
• By end of century - electrical lighting on stage
• Mechanisms for changing scenery developed - fly-lofts, elevators, revolving stages

19TH CENTURY THEATRE 

MELODRAMA

• Poor quality of lighting - emphasised action and spectacle not acting
• Melodrama created
• Comes from "music drama" - increase emotion or signify characters
• Performed through gestures and body poses
• Simplified moral universe - good and evil
• Special effects - fires, explosions, earthquakes
• Traditional form - villain poses threat, hero or heroine escapes - ends with happy ending
• Playwrights poorly paid

"THE ERA OF THEATRE GREATS"

• Began the movement of realism
• Audience watching through "fourth wall" spying on characters
• Henrik Ibsen - wrote in Norwegian
• George Bernard Shaw - wrote in English
• Anton Chekhov - wrote in Russian
• Konstantin Stanislvaski wrote several works on the arts of acting
• Method still used today and considered the best training for actors
• Jack Nicholson, James Dean, Marlon Brando, Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Benicio Del Toro, Johnny Depp

20TH CENTURY - MODERN THEATRE

• 2 world wars - social and politixal upheaval
• Realism movement and naturalistic acting style
• Other theatre movements - Theatre of the Absurd
• Grew out of the post-modern movement - life had no meaning and there is no God 
• Style grew out of Europe in the late 1940s

THE END

• Constantly changing in reaction to audience's tastes, political and social movements and advances in technology
• Musical Theatre, Theatre of the Oppressed, Improv Theatre, Children's Theatre, Cabaret etc.