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Essay on theory of drama
Essay on theory of drama
Essay on theory of drama
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Introduction Over the years, the essence of theatre has not only been to entertain, but to also allow the build up of a culture in a quickly growing uncultured generation. Regardless of the existence of so many other forms of entertainment, theatre has always established a commanding niche in most people’s hearts, and is undoubtedly the most realistic form of entertainment (Bruce 12). The acting bit of theatre performances makes things real and in their immediate contexts, allowing the audience to draw conclusions based on what they see. In a majority of cases, also, the play’s setting is such that there is description of definite subjects without which the play cannot make meaning. The above research takes into account A Number by Caryl Churchill. A great deal of issues and aspects can be learnt from the above play with diverse moral lessons, as well. It has long been proved that expression via acting is more direct than when the audience accesses literature in other means. This direct approach gives a broader meaning to a variety of issues in the play, which were not understood, say in videos. Additionally, the play A Number is full of theatrical ideologies with clear depiction and expression of every event. Theatricality and empowerment set this play different from other plays because of clarity in events’ sequence. The author also strives to express the idea of cloning in society as one main means of families’ downfall. This further comes with what literature calls the ‘fate of tragic heroes’, an indication of what is at stake when a person does things out of the ordinary to please him or herself. The overall Essence of Theatre A mere mention of the term theatre acts as a relief to many people. It is in this place that a m... ... middle of paper ... ...be. Bibliography Aparna, Bhargava. Theatres of Independence: Drama, Theory, and Urban Performance in India Since 1947. New York: University of Iowa Press, 2009. Aston, Elaine. The Cambridge Companion to Caryl Churchill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Bruce, Wilshire. Role Playing and Identity: The Limits of Theatre as Metaphor. Indiana: Indiana University, Folklore Institute, 1991. Churchill, Caryl. A Number. London: Nick Hern, 2002. Inchbald, Mrs. The British Theatre: Or, A Collection of Plays. New York: Hurst, Robinson, 1824. Kritzer, Amelia. The Plays of Caryl Churchill: Theatre of Empowerment. London: Macmillan, 1991. Melissa, Bell. Empowerment Through Play: The Role of Theatre in Maintaining the Female Voice. New York: ProQuest, 2008. Somers, John. Drama and Theatre in Education: Contemporary Research. London: Captus Press, 1996.
Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is a comedy that has been interpreted in different ways, enabling one to receive multiple experiences of the same story. Due to the content and themes of the play, it can be creatively challenging to producers and their casting strategies. Instead of being a hindrance, I find the ability for one to experiment exciting as people try to discover strategies that best represent entertainment for the audience, as well as the best ways to interpret Shakespeare’s work.
Butler, Judith. "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory." Theatre Journal 40.4 (1988): 519-31. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Web. 11 May 2011.
My work proposes a broader view of the theatre-film interface, one that relies on intertextuality as its interpretive method. I believe it is valuable-both pedagogically and theoretically-to ask broad questions about the aesthetic, narrative, and ideological exchanges between the history of theatre and contemporary film and television. For example, this paper will study how the "Chinese Restaurant" episode of the sitcom, Seinfeld, intertextually reworks Samuel Beckett's modernist play, Waiting for Godot. In each text, characters encounter an existential plight as they are forced to wait interminably, and thus confront their powerlessness at the hands of larger social forces. As a pedagogical matter, this connection encourages the students to see academic culture in the guise of having to read Beckett's play for my course, not as foreign and alienating, but instead as continuous with their understanding of leisure activities like watching sitcoms. As a theoretical matter, this intertextual connection allows important ideological matters to come into bold relie...
Theatre is an art form that has been shared across cultures for hundreds of years. This art form is extremely versatile in the types of plays, such as comedic, tragedy, and many other genres. Although theatre is thought of a form of entertainment, playwrights have seized the opportunity to inject political opinions into the play to inform the audience about present issues in their lives. Issues that playwrights have incorporated into plays have included stories that people may not be ready to hear but it encourages the audience to look inside themselves and assess their moral standing on certain issues. One subject that has been incorporated into many plays throughout the last century is women’s issues. These plays have challenged the way women
little theater group, the Hull House players” (Laura Jane Addams World of Sociology, 2001). In
Kenrick, John. Musical Theatre A History. New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group, 2008. Print.
The use of epic theater, the gestus, and the alienation effect are techniques that enable the audience, as spectators, to look beyond dialogue, action, and emotion in order to obtain a glimpse of what is not so easily conveyed. Churchill has utilized each technique to its fullest extent, and has achieved the Brechtian ideal of producing a work of political theater that incites thought, social criticism, and action. She has, in the same sense, exceeded this ideal by extending the Brechtian discourse to reflect the struggles and importance of the lives of women.
Stacy Wolf, a Professor of Theatre in the Lewis Centre for the Arts wrote the book ‘Changed for Good’. This book observes the roles of women in Broadway and how musical theatre’s history has changed massively from the 1950’s to the twenty first century by analysing, inspecting and listening to what women actually did on the Broadway stage through every chapter. It argues that ‘gender and genre are inseparable’ (Wolf. S. 2011. P. 20) the representations and performances by women radically changed in the musical from the 1950’s; from Anita in West Side Story to Adalaide in Guys and Dolls, Wolf demonstrates a centrality toward women in the form of ‘friends, girlfriends and wives as journalists, students and maids, and also as singers and dancers’ (Wolf. S. 2011. P. 4)
The Broadway musical has been entertaining a wide variety of Americans for generations. It is not always clear what exactly draws millions of people across the country to these shows each year, some scholars, including Stacy Wolf, argue that the spectacular costumes, grandiose music, and exciting story lines, offer Americans an escape from their reality. It has been argued that Broadway musicals do not promote positive or progressive views of women, but only depict them in roles that are stereotypically associated with women. While this may be the case in some shows, it is more common for a female character to have depth and defy traditional stereotypes. From the twentieth century on, Broadway became
Lazarus, Joan. "On the Verge of Change: New Directions in Secondary Theatre Education." Applied Theatre Research 3.2 (July 2015): 149-161. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1386/atr.3.2.149_1.
Stephens, Judith L. “Gender Ideology and Dramatic Convention in Progressive Era Plays, 1890-1920.” Theatre Journal 41.1 (1989): 45-55. Print.
[8] Brown, Frederick. Theater and Revolution: The Culture of the French Stage. New York: Viking, 1980. Print.
Theatre as we know it now was born more than two thousand years ago and has gone through many streams until it reached the current modernity. Among these streams is the avant-garde theatre. This theatre achieved a break in the traditional theatre and became the forefront of a new experimental theatre. Therefore it is necessary to ask how this theatre started, what impact it had on society and if this type of theatre is still common in our modern era.
For thousands of years, people have been arguing that theatre is a dying art form. Many people think theatre is all just cheesy singing and dancing or just boring old Shakespeare, but there is much more to theatre than those two extremes. Theatre is important to our society because it teaches us more about real life than recorded media. Theatre has been around for thousands of years and began as a religious ceremony that evolved into an art form that teaches about the true essence of life. Theatre can incorporate profound, and provocative, observations of the human condition that can transcend time; lessons found in Greek plays can still be relevant to the modern world. People argue that the very essence of theatre is being snuffed out by modern