Theatre – a Multimedia Art Form

Routine, Conflict, Status Games

Drama

basis: our human instinct to play, to imitate “There seem to be two causes that give rise to

poetry in general, and they are both natural. The impulse to imitate is inherent in man from his childhood; he is distinguished among the animals by being the most imitative of them, and he takes the first steps of his education by imitating. Every one's enjoyment of imitation is also inborn. What happens with works of art demonstrates this.”

Aristotle, Poetics iv. tr. L.J. Potts (Cambridge 1959)

imitation

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvYBG72zT8E

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xxitrre298&feature=youtu.be

DRAMA IS NOT PRIMARILY A LITERARY ART FORM

MEDIUM: the theatre • immediacy of action• group effort for a group audience • multimedia form of presentation• succession and simultaneity: sequentiality &

juxtaposition • multimedia performances: circus, opera

DRAMA IS NOT PRIMARILY A LITERARY ART FORM

Improvisation (impro or improv) Keith Johnstone

The Royal Court Theatre 1956Calgary, Alberta, Canadahttp://www.keithjohnstone.com/

“Those who say Yes are rewarded by the adventures they have, and those who say No are rewarded by the safety they attain.”

Johnstone on improvisation

“We made a mistake. That’s good. We just learned something.”

“You may never know what the other person wants. You’ll be an expert at saying ‘yes’…but you’ll never know what inspires your partner. Can you please or inspire your partner?”

Johnstone on improvisation

“In life, most of us are highly skilled at suppressing action. All the improvisation teacher has to do is to reverse this skill and he creates very ‘gifted’ improvisers. Bad improvisers block action, often with a high degree of skill. Good improvisers develop action.”

New York: Routledge, 1981

New York: Routledge, 1999

Keith Johnstone

Budapest: Corvina,1978

Budapest: Corvina,2007

A brief history of the theatre(two different editions, bothIn Hungarian) by Katalin Honti

Keith Johnstone, Impro

“The improviser has to realize that the more obvious he is, the more original he appears. I constantly point out how much the audience like someone who is direct, and how they always laugh with pleasure at a really ‘obvious’ idea. Ordinary people asked to improvise will search for some ‘original’ idea because they want to be thought clever.

Keith Johnstone, Impro cont.

‘What’s for supper?’ a bad improviser will desperately try to think up something original. Whatever he says he’ll be too slow. He’ll finally drag up some idea like ‘fried mermaid’. If he’d just said ‘fish’ the audience would have been delighted. No two people are exactly alike, and the more obvious an improviser is, the more himself he appears.

Keith Johnstone, Impro cont.

An artist who is inspired is being obvious. He’s not making any decisions; he’s not weighing one idea against another. He’s accepting his first thoughts.”

Keith Johnstone, Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre © 1979, 1981

(See also: Impro for Storytellers, © 1994, 1999)

DRAMA IS NOT PRIMARILY A LITERARY ART FORM

• Shakespeare in translation• a good production even if you do not speak

the language• Shakespeare in contemporary English• film adaptations

William Shakespeare, Sonia Leong,Nádasdy Ádám: Rómeó és Júlia

Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing Act I, Scene 1.

BEATRICE I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick: nobody marks you.

BENEDICK What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?BEATRICE Is it possible disdain should die while she hath

such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you

come in her presence. BENEDICK Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I

am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard

heart; for, truly, I love none.

Much Ado About Nothing I. 1.

BEATRICE A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.

BENEDICK God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face.

BEATRICE Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such a face as yours were.

Much Ado About Nothing I. 1.

BENEDICK Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher. BEATRICE A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours. BENEDICK I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and

so good a continuer. But keep your way, i' God's name; I have done.

BEATRICE You always end with a jade's trick: I know you of old.

http://www.shakespeare-literature.com/Much_Ado_About_Nothing/1.html or:

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/much_ado/much_ado.1.1.html

Much Ado About Nothing

• http://youtu.be/gQHenB-Xv-g• http://youtu.be/yB3_OLaA56w• http://youtu.be/NqqDpY7R_Lc

Drama and theatre

Greek 'theory': of viewing, not doing — from Gk theoreo 'behold'

THEATRE: another mode of contemplation — from Gk theaomai 'behold'

the feeling of belonging to society - people with similar problems, conventions, belief, behaviour

Theatre

• presentation of conflicts in extremis & problem solving patterns

• identification, catharsis (Gk 'purgation') - social healing function

'Tragedy through pity and fear effects a purgation of such emotions‘

(Aristotle, Poetics. Ch VI) identification - deception - dramatic surprise:repeatable because of the richness of context

Levels of awareness in the dramatic figures and the audience

• 'willing suspension of disbelief ' (Coleridge, Biographia Literaria. Chapter XIV)

• stories are often familiar (Gk drama, new productions, seeing something again)

• 'alienation effect' (A-effect, Verfremdungseffekt, Bertolt Brecht)

• dramatic irony: when the internal and external communication systems interfere with each other (e.g., superior awareness of audience)

Aspects of a play: Plot

imitation of life, of action + probability, credibility• events are not dramatic in themselves presenting the story: succession, concentration,

segmentation, composition • story- purely chronologically arranged succession

of events & occurrences • plot - already contains important structural

elements, e.g., the presentation of time: order of scenes vs order of events in story fictional time vs actual performance time

Aspects of a play (continued)

• action - the intentionally chosen transition from one situation to the next

• event - condition for story are met, but not for action - no intention to change the situation

• character - types and individuals • dialogue - dramatic speech situations

Astonishment and suspensestories as routine: kissing the frog, killing dragon*break the routine just established: Little Red Riding

Hood (breaking routine on large scale: Shrek, Hoodwinked)

*keep action onstage: messenger in Greek drama: the effect

unity of plot, time and place (traced to Aristotle) 3 unities of action, time & place

(French Neoclassical critics)Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra (– Dr Johnson, 1765)

Astonishment and suspense cont.

*revolve around conflict – otherwise you cancel story -

e.g., Hamlet's quest for truth and revenge

must remain central NOTA BENE: Hitchcock: secret of suspense lay

not in what is withheld from an audience but in what the audience thought it knew

Conflict

opposition between a character and some other force

- protagonist and antagonist (Othello-Iago)- protagonist and society (Moliere's Misanthrope)- protagonists and external forces, e.g., Fate in

Sophocles' Oedipus Rex- opposition of forces within character (inner conflict)- opposition of ideas, values, ways of life, as

objectified in the conflicts

Status

sg characters DO: the status PLAYED vs social status• difference in the status you play and you think you

play (e.g., modesty as arrogance) see-saw principle: kings and their fools: raising your status = lowering the other person's status

e.g.: CUSTOMER: 'Ere, there's a cockroach in the loo! BARMAID: Well you'll have to wait till he's finished, won't you? (friends: when you AGREE to play status games

together – see Johnstone for details )

Status in comedy and tragedy

COMEDY: when character is losing status, if we do not have sympathy with him/her

TRAGEDY: see-saw principle: the ousting of a high-status animal from the pack

(persons to be executed: make a 'good end', i.e., play high status)

Tragedy and comedy

ideas about genre often made to conform with social ideas:

• tragedy: concerned with kings & princes • seen as fit entertainment for kings & princes

(who are capable of suffering it in life, who have further to fall than other man, which will affect many others) => significant tragic action

• comedy: even the harshest misfortunes of commoners

Roots of drama

preservation of pagan rites, prehistoric vegetation rituals

• England: sword dances, mummers' plays (Christmastide)

• Greek tragedy: from rites associated with death

• comedy: from celebration of fertility

Playing tragedy

special high-status style in English for playing tragedy:

• no fast movements, no fidgeting, nothing trivial or repetitive;

• vs 'normal consciousness' (tensing muscles, shifting position, scratching, sighing, yawning - see audiences when 'the spell is broken')

Status games

SPACE - status is territorial: man on a bench - beach scenes - view

• master-servant scenes: place belongs to master

PLAY - displays and reverses the status between the characters;

- status transactions in conflict