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Quiz 3 Flashcards

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1
Q

August Comte

A

(1798-1857)

  • -“father of sociology”
  • -encouraged the study of nature through precise observation
    • important towards emergence of realism
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2
Q

Karl Marx

A

(1818-1883)

    • wrote on class conflict and economics
    • important towards emergence of realism
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3
Q

George Brandes

A

(1842 - 1927)

    • Danish literary critic – “literature should be an organ of the great thoughts of liberty and the progress of humanity”
    • important towards emergence of realism
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4
Q

Factors that led to the emergence of realism

A
    • Darwin
    • August Comte
    • Karl Marx
    • George Brandes
    • big shift in the idea of the purpose of art:
    • questioning religious, political, economic beliefs
    • questioning man’s place in and responsibility to the world
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5
Q

Realism

A
    • Characters who look and act like real people
    • relatable characters, NOT stereotypes or stock characters
    • complicated impulses and motivations
    • real life speech (not verse))
    • still dominant today (20th Century is realism or a reaction against it)
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6
Q

Realism vs. Naturalism

A

In realism, the stories were shaped, often using the classical Greek dramatic structure

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7
Q

Henrik Ibsen

A

(1828 - 1906)

    • “Father of Realistic, Contemporary Drama”
    • A Norwegian who wrote in Danish
    • A Doll’s House
    • Hedda Gabler
    • Ghosts
    • The Wild Duck
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8
Q

Anton Chekhov

A

(1860 - 1904)

    • [HS] one of the first great modern ironists” tragic comedy
    • Good relationship with The Moscow Art theater and Konstantin Stanislavsky
    • The Seagull (1896)
    • Uncle Vanya (1899)
    • The Three Sisters (1901)
    • The Cherry Orchard (1904)
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9
Q

The Seagull

A
    • by Anton Chekhov
    • Opened December 17, 1898
    • Starred (among others) Konstantin Stanislavski
    • Critically acclaimed, so led to more collaborations between Chekov and Stanislavski

– Stanislavsky thought it was a tragedy, but Checkhov thought it was a comedy

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10
Q

Stansislavksy Method Acting

A
    • Conscious and professional approach to acting
    • acting can be learnt and create a system, which enables a person to train as an actor step by step.
    • an actor with great talent and subtle means and nuances needs more technique than others
    • teaches actors how to bring themselves into a natural, alive state on the stage.
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11
Q

Important 19th Century Historical Trends

A
    • Industrial Revolution
    • factories
    • steam engine => increased mobility
    • agrarian to urban societies
    • more social mobility and literacy
    • rise of the middle class
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12
Q

Minstrel Show

A
    • form of entertainment in the 19th century
    • the white people in black face
    • comic and sentimental songs, dramatic and farcical skits, jigs and shuffle dances, dialect jokes
    • Black troupes in the 1870s
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13
Q

Burlesques

A
    • form of entertainment in the 19th century
    • Concert hall, saloon, playhouse varieties
    • P.T. Barnum’s museum, then circus
    • Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show
    • Medicine Shows
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14
Q

Types of Entertainment in the 19th Century

A
    • minstrel shows
    • burlesques
    • variety
    • vaudeville
    • circus
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15
Q

Audiences in the 19th century

A
    • more playhouses
    • better transportation
    • writers of other genres wrote drama
    • think like today TV, movies, and rock concerts
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16
Q

19th Century Touring companies

A
    • result of urbanization
    • they built international reputations
    • local repertory companies and combination companies
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17
Q

Madame Vestris

A

(1797 - 1856)

    • British Actress, opera singer, manager
    • Managed Olympic Theater, Covent Garden and Lyceum
    • [HS] produced play with the first “Box Set”
    • High production standards for sets, costumes, and backstage
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18
Q

Ira Aldridge

A

(1807 - 1867)

    • First African-American actor to become International Superstar
    • Preeminent Shakespearean actor of his age
    • born in NYC, but left because of Racism
    • Toured internationally, especially Europe, and the people loved him
    • Memorial plaque to him @ RSC
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19
Q

Edwin Booth

A

(1833 - 1893)

    • Most famous American actor of the 19th century
    • Toured nationally and internationally, most famous as HAMLET
    • also a theater manager
    • founded The Players Club
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20
Q

Sarah Bernhardt

A

(1844 - 1923)

    • Most famous actress of the 19th century
    • legendary eccentricities and temperament (aka a diva)
    • Master of stage technique
    • Golden voice
    • Also a theater manager, sculptor, and poetry/play writer
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21
Q

Edmund Kean

A

(1789 - 1833)

    • Mercurial, romantic style
    • Shylock, “The Merchant of Venice”
    • Turbulent, energized portraits of Shakespeare’s villains and tragic heroes
    • Highly emotional transitions, explosive highs and lows
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22
Q

Charles Kean

A

(1811 - 1868)

    • Managed the Princess Theater
    • Artistic unity of scenery and lighting based on extensive historical research for each play
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23
Q

Francois Delsarte

A

(1811 - 1871)

    • A ‘scientific’ approach to acting
    • Pre-established gestures and body movements
    • vocal inflections
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24
Q

The role of Actor-Managers and Playwright-Managers

A
    • Unified stage picture
    • more rehearsal time
    • more attention to production details
    • basically production managers?
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25
Q

Romanticism

A

19th century drama form

    • inflluenced by “storm and stress”
    • rejection of neoclassical (and all) rules
    • Episodic and epic
    • no purity of genre
    • supernatural elements
    • social outcast hero
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26
Q

Melodrama

A

19th century dramatic form

    • most popular form of drama in 19th century
    • “Song drama” or “music drama”
    • Popularized by French
    • Moral battle between good and evil,, where good would triumph and bring morality or justice in society
    • Ex. Uncle Tom’s Cabin
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27
Q

Hero (Melodrama)

A
    • moral, handsome, and manly.
    • acts on intuiting
    • in-tune to nature
    • believes in justice, but does not always follow the less-important rules of society
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28
Q

Heroine (Melodrama)

A
    • moral in that she is innocent

- - beautiful and courageous, but likely needs saving

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29
Q

Villain (Melodrama)

A
    • dishonest, greedy, vengeful, corrupt, evil character

- - has an accomplice, who is usually rather idiotic and serves as comic relief.

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30
Q

Faithful Servant (Melodrama)

A
    • helps the hero uncover needed information about the villain.
    • Comic relief, but is not idiotic
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31
Q

Maidservant (Melodrama)

A

Flirty, fun, and loyal to the heroine

32
Q

Well-Made Play (19th century)

A
    • More realistic and socially relevant matter

- - usually a bit more realistic (per the era)

33
Q

The Box Set

A
    • Stage action all takes places behind the proscenium “fourth wall”
    • flats are hinged together to represent a room
34
Q

Theater of Unrest

A
    • Theater mirrored general unrest of the pre-war times
    • Some artists rebelled against commercial theater
    • Many rebelled against realism
    • New forms of theater
    • Plays about specific political concerns
35
Q

Bertolt Brecht

A

(1898 - 1956)

    • German poet, playwright, director, and Marxist
    • Produced and wrote 3 Penny Opera
    • Founded the Berliner Ensemble
    • a founder of Epic Theater
  • Had kids with like 6 different women
36
Q

Expressionism

A
    • represents a distorted reality to communicate inner feelings
    • Dramatic action seen through the eyes of the protagonist
    • opposed to society and the family
    • characters as representative types
37
Q

Jurgen Fehling

A

(1890 - 1968)
Expressionistic Director
– Man and the Masses

38
Q

Leopold Jessner

A

(1878 - 1945)
Expressionistic Director
– Changed lighting and costumes to reflect emotions

39
Q

Futurism

A

Dramatic Innocation in the Theater of Unrest

    • “Synthetic” theater of short, seemingly illogical dramatic pieces
    • No separation of performers and audience
    • Wanted to incorporate new electronic media, puppetry, and visual arts into theatre
    • Idealized war and machines
    • originatied in Italy in 1909
40
Q

Filippo Marinetti

A

(1876 - 1944)

Founder of the futurist movement

41
Q

Dada

A

Dramatic Innovation during Theater of Unrest

    • Goal is to confuse and antagonize audiences with Nonsense and the irrational
    • Questioned conventional definitions of art; almost anything could be art.
    • Artistic reaction to World War I
    • originated in Switzerland in 1916
42
Q

Tristan Tzara

A

(1896 - 1963)

A founder of Dada

43
Q

Surrealism

A

Dramatic Innovation During Theater of Unrest

    • Subconscious highest plane of reality; attempted to recreate its workings dramatically
    • Dream world, mixing recognizeable events with fantastic happenings
44
Q

Erwin Piscator

A
    • German Playwright and director,
  • -a contemporary of Brecht
    • pioneer of epic theater and documentary drama
    • plays full of political and social commentary (he had leftist views)
    • used projectors and mechanized sets in his productions
45
Q

Documentary Drama

A

used preexisting documentary material in order to tell a story, blurring the lines between nonfiction and fiction

46
Q

Epic Theater

A
    • employ a large narrative, spanning many locations and time frames
    • non-linear fractured plots
    • usually ends up creating a more critical audience
47
Q

Verfremdung

A

The process/effect of alienating your characters from your audience.

The exact opposite of trying to transport / draw you in to a fantastical world.

48
Q

Gestus

A

A display of emotion from a character that also displays social commentary, and is usually jarring because it is not an every day reaction

(e.g. Mother Courage’s silent scream)

49
Q

Existensialism

A
    • existence precedes essence
    • man defines his reality
    • life is meaningless except I choose ___ meaning

– Individual human beings are understood as having full responsibility for creating the meanings of their own lives

50
Q

Theater of Cruelty

A

Language is insufficient to convey emotions or trauma, replace some text with sounds

– Allowed audiences to purge destructive feelings and allowed them to expereince joy that society forces them to repress

51
Q

Antonin Artaud

A

Key figure in Theater of Cruelty
wrote “The Theater and its Double” about a man who suffered from mental illness and heroin addiction

    • Les Censi
    • Spurt of Blood or Jet of Blood
52
Q

Absurdism

A
    • purpose is to convince us that some abstraction or another is absurd / meaningless
    • idea is that much of what happens in life cannot be explained logically
    • The play then becomes “the objective correlative of their argument”
53
Q

Samuel Beckett

A

(1906 - 1989)

    • Dramas deal with dullness of routine
    • futility of human action
    • inability of humans to communicate
    • Waiting for Godot (1953)
    • Endgame (1957)
    • Krapp’s Last Tape (1958)
    • Play (1963)
54
Q

Eugene Ionesco

A

(1912 - 1994)

    • Concerned with the futility of communication
    • Often turned his characters into caricatures and presented comic characters who lose control of their own existence
    • The Bald Soprano
    • The Lesson
    • The Chairs
    • The Rhinoceros
55
Q

The Lesson

A

1951 play by Eugene Ionesco

– woman is good at addition and multiplication but not subtraction, so her male teacher kills her

56
Q

The Bald Soprano

A

1949 play by Eugene Ionesco

    • continuous loop of people having parties with pointless banter
    • everyone is too frantic trying to say their thing to hear anyone else
57
Q

Harold Pinter

A

(1930 - )
Popularized the comedy of menace

    • The Dumb-waiter
    • The Birthday Party
    • The Homecoming
58
Q

Happenings

A

Non-structured events that occurred with a minimum of planning and organization

–Idea is that art should not be restricted to museums, galleries, or concert halls

59
Q

Selective Realism

A

–A form of realism that heightens certain details of the play while omitting others.

– Set in a realistic world but with unrealistic elements

Arthur Miller
Tennessee Williams

60
Q

Arthur Miller

A

(1915 - 2005)
Focuses on failure, guilt, responsibility for one’s own actions, and the effects of society on the individual

    • Death of a Salesman (1949)
    • The Crucible (1953)
61
Q

Tennessee Williams

A

(1911 - 1983)

    • Common theme is plight of society’s outcasts
    • Lyrical and poetic language and symbolism to create compassion for characters
    • The Glass Menagerie (1945)
    • A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)
    • Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1954)
62
Q

Comedy of Menace

A

Dramatic form popularized by Harold Pinter

    • Feels no need to explain why something happens or who a character is
    • Characters lack explanation of backgrounds or motives
    • Introduction of menacing outside forces
63
Q

Pinter Pause

A

A long pause in dialogue that, when played correctly, can be just as eloquent as dialogue

Named after Harold Pinter

(think Obama Pause)

64
Q

Edward Albee

A

(1928 - 2016)

    • Similar to absurdist writers of Europe
    • mixed selective realism and symbolism
    • Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?
    • Three Tall Women, The Play about the Baby
65
Q

Sam Shepard

A

Plays blend images of the American West, pop, sci fi, and other pop culture

    • Buried Child (1978)
    • True West (1980)
    • A Lie of the Mind (1985)
66
Q

David Mamet

A
    • plays question humans’ ability to communicate and interact honestly
    • naturalistic language and settings
    • down and out characters who struggles are easily recognizeable
    • The Cryptogram (1994)
    • The Anarchist (2012)
    • China Doll (2015)
    • Oleanna
67
Q

Lorraine Hansberry

A

(1930 - 1965)
– first black female writer to win NY Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play of the Year

    • A Raisin in the Sun
    • To Be Young, Gifted, and Black
68
Q

Amiri Baraka

A

(1934 - 2014)
– Allegory and lyricism into black protest drama

    • A Good Girl is Hard to Find
    • Dante
    • Dutchman
69
Q

August Wilson

A

(1945 - 2005)

    • Richly poetic texts
    • The Coldest Day of the Year
    • The Homecoming
70
Q

Federal Theater Project

A
    • created in 1935 as part of the New Deal
    • produced wide variety of genres
    • suffered from some federal overreach and caused concern for propaganda and censorship
    • House Un-American Activities Committee didn’t like them.
71
Q

John Dryden

A

1631-1700;
graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge
– Dominant literary figure of the Restoration; poet, tranaslator, playwright, essaysist
– 1668 (Poet Laureate)

–All For Love (1678); a tragedy based on Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra

– Marriage a la Mode (1672) ; comedy

72
Q

Comedies of Intrigue

A

Restoration Comedy with daring exploits of romance and adventure, and complicated plots.

– Aphra Behn (1640 - 1689)

73
Q

Comedies of Manners

A

Restoration Comedy with focus on the fashions and foibles of the upper class

(influenced by Moiliere)

74
Q

Rakes

A

Restoration Comedy trope:

    • opportunistic young men, attractive to women and on the prowl;
    • selfish, witty, used people
    • initiated the action
75
Q

Fops

A

Restoration Comedy trope:

    • fools, would-be rakes, had a penchant for fashion and silliness
    • source of humor, but oblivious to their own silliness
76
Q

William Congreve

A
    • Love for Love (1695) [biggest hit]

- - The Way of the World (1700) [considered quintessential Restoration Comedy]

Theater History (3 decks)

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