How familiar must the audience of Stoppard’s The Invention of Love be with classical literature and with classics as a field of study? How does this affect the play’s potential audience, and why did Stoppard choose to do this? The potential audience of the Invention of Love is limited in the first instance by the fact that it is a play for the stage. By proxy, the audience will be likely to have some knowledge of classical literature, as they will have more of a culture of theatre going. There is more of a tradition of classics amongst those that would have seen the play when it was first shown. Stoppard was a long established playwright by this time ; hence classical references will be more understood and even expected in a play about a classicist. With its star writer and subject matter the audience of the play is therefore going to be made up of a number of certain types, from Scholars, poets, and members of society that frequently use the theatres. However, Stoppard does take time to eloquently explain certain principles and scholarly¬ cruxes to a layman audience. The fact that he is a popular playwright would have also attracted the audience to attend the play. To open this play to an audience that is more interested in the writer than the subject, as well as non-classicists, Stoppard uses characters of Houseman’s life to be ignorant for the audience, so they can ask questions for them; such as, in Jacksons dual role as Loved One of Houseman and mouthpiece of the audience. At the start of the play (first staged in 1998 ) is a good place to see how classical literature is treated, when Charon makes his reference to Aristophanes quite clear . Stoppard does not spell it out, but gives enough information to allow the audienc... ... middle of paper ... ...Play Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Winter, 2000-2001), pp. 197-204 Barbara Mackey : The Invention of Love by Tom Stoppard Source: Theatre Journal, Vol. 51, No. 4, Theatre and Technology (Dec., 1999), pp. 459-460 Reckford,K. Stoppard's Housman Arion, Third Series, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Fall, 2001), pp. 108-149 Nadel ,I. Writing the Life of "Tom Stoppard" : Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 27, No. 3, Writing Life/Writing Fiction (Winter, 2004), pp. 19-29 The National theatre, Old events at the Old Vic Archive,Past Events,Past productions 1996-2000 date accessed 20/03/10 http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/8209/past-events/past-productions-19962000.html Hercules the legendary journeys TV history http://amazon.imdb.com/title/tt0111999/ date accessed 22/03/10 Hercules: Disney film history http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119282/ date accessed 22/03/10
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a play commonly viewed and known as a true love story; however, after analyzing several hints portrayed by the protagonists, it is evident that Shakespeare did not intend to make Romeo and Juliet seem like a true love story but a criticism of how superficial society’s view on love is.
Shakespeare's first tragedy has been a topic of discussion since the day it was written. Titus Andronicus "was staged on 24 January 1594 by the Earl of Sussex's Men at the Rose Theatre" (Welsh 1). Though this tidbit of information seems somewhat irrelevant to Titus, we must note that there are certain standards and practices established by a play from its first performance. It is also important to establish the general attributes that audiences attribute to Shakespearean performance.
Roche, Paul. The Oedipus Plays of Sophocles. The New English Library Limited, London. New York and Scarborough, Ontario. 1958.
Communication is a vital component of everyday relationships in all of mankind. In plays, there are many usual staging and dialogue techniques that directors use to achieve the attention of the audience. However, in the play, “Post-its (Notes on a Marriage)”, the authors Paul Dooley and Winnie Holzman use both staging and conversation in order to convey the struggles of modern relationships. The play is unconventional in how it attempts to have the audience react in a unique way. The authors use staging and conversation to portray to the audience that there are complex problems with communication in modern relationships.
Aristophanes’ original work was meant to entertain an audience of ancient Greece, but the translations allow for the play to remain a timeless part of history. Although the works of different translators in different time periods make all the translations dissimilar; they all share a common theme and a root of the same language. These translations are the reason the play can continue to be told throughout time. Translations make ancient stories accessible to the people of the modern world. Aristophanes’ work is not being shredded or forgotten; instead it remains to be a part of the literary world. Lysistatra can continue to affect the lives of the masses because of our ability to alter the wording to make the play both informative and amusing. Authors write to entertain or express their ...
“The most filmed of all plays, ‘Romeo and Juliet’, with its universal themes… remains uniquely adaptable for any time period,” (Botnick, 2002). Directors Franco Zeffirelli (1968) and Baz Luhrman (1996) provide examples of the plays adaption to suit the teenage generation of their time. Identifying the key elements of each version: the directors intentions, time/place, pace, symbols, language and human context is one way to clearly show how each director clearly reaches their target audience. Overall however Luhrman’s adaptation would be more effective for capturing the teenage audience.
Through this, he satisfies the qualities of melodrama. Romeo and Juliet wrings a good cry out of audience members probably every time it is performed. That is because it is easy to identify with the "star-crossed lovers" and the fact they are kept from what they want most. Empathy plays a major role, as much as any of the characters. It almost makes the audience part of the play. The spectator is part of the action in essence, rooting for the good guys, for "us," and not "them," the bad guys.
The play, because of the absurdities contained in it, provide for the comic element and the protagonists engage in senseless pursuits without giving any rational thought to why they have been assigned to the task or what may be the outcome. To these absurd games, where they pose questions and provide answers to it themselves, sometimes as more questions, Stoppard brings a sense of inevitable. This inevitable is the death for which the men are destined.
Influenced by the Renaissance, Shakespeare wrote in the tradition of the revenge tragedy. Stoppard however, who was living in a time of disillusionment due to the tragedies of two world wars, was influenced by the existential movement. Disregarding the past and future due to a lack of trust, Stoppard wrote in a tradition known as the Theatre of the Absurd incorporating existentialism. He uses various processes to adapt and transform the values and ideas influenced by the sixteenth century Elizabethan context in Hamlet to reflect the twentieth century evasion of reality unless it is in a reflexive and directionless present. In Hamlet, the value of truth incorporates the theme of appearance as opposed to reality and it links ... ...
...relies on this basis, to establish a greater awareness and comprehension of 1960s society. Without this assumed knowledge of Hamlet, one cannot truly appreciate Stoppard’s play, which informs society about their nature and shortcomings.
William Shakespeare has provided some of the most brilliant plays to ever be performed on the stage. He is also the author of numerous sonnets and poems, but he is best known for his plays such as Hamlet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Romeo and Juliet. In this essay I would like to discuss the play and movie, "Romeo and Juliet", and also the movie, Shakespeare in Love. The play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare is set in the fictional city of Verona. Within the city lives two families, the Capulets and the Montegues, who have been feuding for generations.
Aristotle. Poetics. Trans. Gerald F. Else. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1967. Dorsch, T. R., trans. and ed. Aristotle Horace Longinus: Classical Literary Criticism. New York: Penguin, 1965. Ley, Graham. The Ancient Greek Theater. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1991. Reinhold, Meyer. Classical Drama, Greek and Roman. New York: Barrons, 1959.
...ler’s own personal ideals ad beliefs on modernism despite it being his first staged play.
The “Love.” Dictionary.com. 25 Feb. 2005 http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=love Millay, Edna St. Vincent. “Love Is Not All.” Making Arguments about Literature: A Compact Guide And Anthology. Ed. John Schilb and John Clifford.
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