Ch. 5: Theatre
I. Origins in Ancient Greece.
A. The ritual worship of Dionysus (“the twice born;” he is both divine and mortal, just as an actor is both him/herself and the role that he/she is portraying).
1. Agricultural rituals to ensure a good crop/harvest are not unlike the rituals of theatrical performance, as each is attempting to resurrect/recreate something “that has happened before.”
a.theatron: “a seeing place.”
b.orchestra: “a dancing place.”
c.dromedon: “a thing done.”
d. chorus: the voice of the community, the conscience.
II. Aristotle's Poesis.
A. Six basic elements of the play: Plot, Character, Thought (Theme), Diction (Language), Music (Melody), Spectacle (Visual whole): “Peter Cotton Tail Drank My Scotch.”
1. Plot is the most important.
a. A plot must have a beginning (exposition), middle (complication), and an end (denouement).
B. The tragic hero: one with a tragic flaw that leads to his/her downfall through the making of a grave error that is a result of that flaw; neither a “good” person nor a “bad” person, but an ordinary human being.
1. More often than not, the flaw is related in some way to hubris, or human pride/arrogance.
C. The viewing of tragic drama is beneficial to the audience because they experience “catharsis,” a purging of the emotions, a deep-felt realization that the tragedy that has befallen this character could just as easily happen to oneself, as each of us is flawed in some manner, a condition that, under the appropriate circumstances, could result in our downfalls as well.
D. Some Excerpts from Aristotle's Poetics
Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and possessing magnitude; in embellished language, each kind of which is used separately in the different parts; in the mode of action and not narrated; and effecting through pity and fear the catharsis of such emotions.
The imitation of the action is the plot.
Necessarily, therefore, there are in tragedy six constituent elements: Plot, Characters, Thought, Diction, Melody, and Spectacle . . . but the most important of them is the organization of the events [the Plot].
[Thought refers to the thematic ideas presented in the performance; Spectacle refers to the visual elements-- staging, lighting, costumes, etc.; Melody refers to the rhythms and textures of all the sounds that occur, not just language but inanimate physical sounds, pauses, music, etc.]
Tragedy is not an imitation of [humankind] but of actions and of life . . . Consequently, it is not for the purpose of presenting their characters that the agents engage in action, but rather it is for the sake of their actions that they take on the characters they have . . . What is more, without action there could not be a tragedy, but there could be without characterization.
Now a thing must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. A well-constructed plot . . will neither begin at some chance point nor end at some chance point.
The poet's [playwright's] function is not to report things that have happened, but rather to tell of such things as might happen . . Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and higher thing than history, in that poetry tends rather to express the universal, history rather the particular fact.
Among plots and actions of the simple type, the episodic form is the worst. I call episodic a plot in which the episodes follow one another in no probable or inevitable sequence . . . there is a vast difference between following from and merely following after [cf.the logical fallacy of “post hoc, ergo propter hoc”].
A good [person] ought not to be shown passing from prosperity to misfortune . . . nor an evil [person] rising from ill fortune to prosperity [for neither of these inspire both pity and fear] . . . We are left with the [person] whose place is between these two extremes. Such is the [person] who . . . does not fall into misfortune through vice or depravity, but falls because of some mistake . . .
It follows that the plot which achieves excellence will necessarily be single in outcome . . . and will consist in a change of fortune, not from misfortune to prosperity, but the opposite from prosperity to misfortune, occasioned not by depravity but by some great mistake . . .
III. Important terms and concepts.
A. Important distinctions.
1. Theatre - Drama.
2. Stage - Page.
3. Performance - Literature.
4. External - Internal.
B. Virtual Experience: We are seeing ourselves via ritual enactment.
C. Performance space styles.
1. Arena.
2. Thrust.
3. Proscenium (“4th wall”).
D. Dramatic styles.
1. Tragedy.
a. Tragedy is emotional.
2. Comedy.
b. Comedy is intellectual.
3. Tragi-comedy.
4. Melodrama.
a. Very two-dimensional characterization, easy to follow.
b. Melodrama is the common form utilized in popular media.
5. Perfomance art.
E. Stage directions.
1. Always from the perspective of the performer.
a. Upstage.
b. Downstage.
c. Stage left.
d. Stage right.
2. From where/what do the terms "upstage" and "downstage" originate?
F. All-too-often, we think of theatrical performance in terms of its stars/principal performers. Theatre is a collaborative artform on a variety of levels.
1.Mise-en-scene: similar to Aristotle's “spectacle;” the overall visual effect/experience of the theatrical production.
2. Actor and audience (“here and now” vs. “there and then”).
3. Actor and role: an actor is never “either-or” but “both-and.” This ambiguity of relation is the aesthetic key to all art.