Importan People/Contributions

Question 1

Stanislavski/Moscow Art Theatre

Answer 1

• rebelled against theatricality and star system (promoted ensemble acting)
• aimed for truth and honesty
• created technique for actor training and character analysis
• “An Actor Prepares”
• Realism
• MAT featured Chekhov’s works
• Founded by Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko

Question 2

Method Acting

Answer 2

Lee Strasberg (Actor’s Studio)

• his interpretaion of Stanislavski
• emotional recall
• sect of realistic acting

Question 3

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)

Answer 3

THE SEA GULL
UNCLE VANYA
THREE SISTERS
THE CHERRY ORCHARD (1904)
-elements of realism and symbolism
-focus on motivation over communication
-not well-mad play, static, not much happens
-Sought truth
-subtext is key
-Moscow Art Theatre, Stanislavski

Question 4

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

Answer 4

“Shavian Theatre”
-British
-wanted to change/perfect people
-comedic, witty dialogue, masking emotions and drama behind comedy (makes it even sadder)
-Shaw fest (devoted originally to his works alone)
MRS. WARREN’S PROFESSION, MJR BARB, HEARTBREAK HOUSE, SAINT JOAN, PYGMALION, MAN AND SUPERMAN, ARMS AND THE MAN

Question 5

Oscar Wilde

Answer 5

1854-1900 (British)
-art for art's sake
-aesthetic's movement=purpose of art was art not reform
-wanted to elevate people's decorum and fashion
-decorative theatre
-wrote aphorisms
IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST
AN IDEAL HUSBAN
SALOME
"picture of dorian grey"

Question 6

Bertolt Brecht

Answer 6

1898-1956 (German)

• theorist, director, playwright
• humanist, influenced by war draft and fleeing Germany, i exile
• Berliner Ensemble (government supported)
• Four Great Vices: military, capitalism, industrialization, imperialism
• Historificaiton: tales of past to change future
• borrowed styles/media (slideshows, projections, documentary style)
• de-mistifying theate (lighting, scaffolding)
• anti-Stanislavski an causality (“quote the character about the accident”)

Question 7

Alienation (Epic Theatre)

Answer 7

Brechtian concept of distacnit an actor and audience to avoid emotion and empathy for characters

• to make strange
• objetive not subjective
• social change

Question 8

Sam Beckett

Answer 8

Irish Playwright
-friend of James Joyce, joined French resistance when Nazis invaded Poland
-Nobel prize for explaining destitution of man
-Theatre of the Absurd
GODOT, ENDGAME, HAPPY DAYS, PLAY, etc.

Question 9

Antonin Artaud

Answer 9

1896-1945 (French surrealist)

• Theatre of Cruelty, wroth “The Theatre and its Double”
• revealed source of inner cruelty, power f language (shrill sounds), theatre as a plague (revelation)
• chaotic, disturbing, scary
• change people’ inclination to violence
• ritualistic, sensory

Question 10

Jerzy Grotowski

Answer 10

1933-1999 (Polish)
“Towards a Poor Theatre” (his book)
-Polish Laboratory Theatre
-idealistic, loved Artaud
-main way=demonstration of suffering actors
-actor training based on physical to free body from resistance, and phsycic penetration so that impulse is action
-actor/audience relationships
-Enviornmental Theatre
-Poor Theatre: strip away all unnecessary elements of Rich Thr and you are left with actor and audience, that’s all you need

Question 11

Enviornmental Theatre

Answer 11

Grotowski

• Dr. Faustus set as a dining room table, peering over a fence to see space
• must choose a diff actor audience relationship or configuration based not the play

Question 12

Paratheatre

Answer 12

1970’s (ritual participation)

• Happennings
• Grotowski and Peter Brook, performance sin the woods, rituals

Question 13

Henrik Ibsen Plays

Answer 13

-symbolist/realist
-man is superior
-societal issues/rise of borguois
A DOLL’S HOUSE
GHOSTS
PEER GYNT
HEDDA GABBLER