Emma Murphy – Aoife Smyth – Classic AntiquityJames Marry – Christina Smith – Shakespeare’s

Tragedies

Theatre and the EmotionsHY283

Emotions in TheatreEmotions were an integral part of

theatre as far back as classical antiquity up to modern times.

The way in which a play was preformed or written could have a lasting emotional effect on the audience or reader of the text.

Importance of masks in Greek plays.Greek plays were preformed in open

air theatres and so many of the audience members would be sitting very far away from the stage.

This meant that masks were extremely important as they would feature exaggerated facial expressions and features.

The masks would also work as an aid to amplify the voice of the actors so the audience could hear them

A disinvite mask was made fro each character and the masks also allowed the actors to play multiple characters

Masks Masks were made of

linen or cork so this meant that not many have survived.

The masks were colour coded. Brown mask would indicate a man and a white mask would indicate a woman.

PropsVery few props used in Greek tragedy.When a prop was used, it was significant

E.g. Red carped in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, symbolise the blood that Agamamnon would shed at the hand of his wife.

E.g. Dress and coronet Medea gifts the princess, which bring about both her and her fathers demise.

Sculpture of Medea’s children sending gifts of the poisoned dress and coronet to Glauce, the princess in Euripides’ Medea.

PerformancePerformed in open air amphitheatres.Stage on the ground with tiered seating rising around it

(imagine layout of the Coliseum),which helped project actors voices.

Company made up of main characters, with each actor playing multiple, and a chorus.

Chorus do not meddle with course of play, offer a listening ear

About TragedyTragedy was oriented to all people of GreeceBased off well known myths and legendsIn honour of the Dionysus, god of theatre,

wine, fertility and madness.Three most famous tragedians were

Sophocles (Oedipus The King), Euripides (Medea) and Aeschylus (Prometheus Bound, among others).

Tragedies would have been written as a trilogy.

The only full trilogy surviving today is Aeschylus’ Orestia.

A Fixed Expression

•Actors performed wearing masks.

•Small cast play multiple characters, just change mask.

•Characters easily recognisable to audience.

•Masks would be in a fixed expression.

•Actors could not rely on their own faces to portray emotions.

•Characters mask tells a lot of who the character is or what they will go through.

•E.g. Character of Oedipus has a crown to signify being the king of Thebes, gaping downturned mouth to symbolise his sorrow, and blood coming from his eyes to represent him blinding himself.

Example of mask used to represent character of Oedipus in Sophocles’ play

Hall Hath No FuryMedea betrayed by her husband.Foreigner, gave up everything to be with him.Plots her revenge.Medea known to have a innate knowledge of

poisons and herbs.Anger evident in her first confrontation, or

agon, with Jason, her adulterous husband.Guilt over the thought of killing her children.Her pride would of being embarrassed by her

peers spurs her into action.

As A Woman ScornedMEDEA:

 As a man you're the worst there is—that's all      I'll say about you, no trace of manhood.      You come to me now, you come at this point,                              [550]      when you've turned into the worst enemy      of the gods and me and the whole human race?      It isn't courage or firm resolution      to hurt your family and then confront them,                                        [470]      face to face, but a total lack of shame,      the greatest of all human sicknesses.      But you did well to come, for I will speak.      I'll unload my heart, describe your evil.      You listen. I hope you're hurt by what I say.

Greek Comedy Origins.The origins of Greek comedy are

unknown but men have been dressing up and mimicking others since long before records were written.

The Greek word for comedy derives from the work revel and song and Comic drama actually developed from song according to Aristotle.

First activity of this happening in Greek history can be seen on pottery from the 6th century which saw many people dressed in exaggerated costumes.

The first comedies were satirical and mocking of men in powerful positions for their vanity and foolishness.

Greek ComedyAristophanes is known as the father of Greek

Comedy.His plays go beyond the artistic function and

give us an insight into social and political life in Classical Athens.

Many of his plays have been lost and only eleven of his thirty plays survive today.

Some of his plays are ‘The Knights’, ‘The Birds’, ‘The Clouds’ and ‘The Babylonians’.

LysistrataPlot summary:Lysistrata plans a meeting with the women of Greece to

discuss a plan to end the Peloponnesian War ( war between Athens and Sprata)

She asks the women to withhold sex from husbands until the peace treaty is signed.

There is a chorus of old men and old women who descend on Akropolis.

Lysistrata is like a leader and go between of the Men and the Women and she tries to get them to sign a peace treaty.

The Play ends in a song sung in unison be the chorus of the old Men and chorus of the Old women.

Asritsophanes was commenting on the foolish nature of the war and where foolish creature must to tell the men what to do. He suggests that women were very intelligent and should be listened to.

Audiences and readers of Shakespeare's work all come to the agreement that he is the master of emotions

A writer who can fully understand human emotions and promote such invigorating emotional responses within readers and audiences

Shakespeare neither ‘editorialised judged or eliminated emotions rather he studied the duality of emotions their depth and personified them in his characters

Introduction to Shakespeare

Macbeth is a play written by William Shakespeare. It is considered one of his darkest and most powerful tragedies. Set in Scotland, the play

dramatizes the corrosive psychological and political effects produced when evil is chosen as a way to

fulfil the ambition for power.

Macbeth –1603 and 1607

As we know Macbeth can be seen as one of the classic tragedies of the time period

Through his work shakespeare portrays an array of emotions but none more than Macbeth

In his quest for power the character of Macbeth and His wife Lady Macbeth descend into a inescapable madness

Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia, and he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler as he is forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion. The bloodbath and consequent civil war swiftly take Macbeth and Lady Macbeth into the realms of arrogance, madness, and death.

When we first meet Lady Macbeth she is already plotting Duncan’s murder, and she is stronger, more ruthless, and more ambitious than her husband

At one point, she wishes that she were not a woman so that she could do it herself.

Afterward, however, she begins a slow slide into madness—just as ambition affects her more strongly than Macbeth before the crime, so does guilt plague her more strongly afterward. By the close of the play, she has been reduced to sleepwalking through the castle, desperately trying to wash away an invisible bloodstain

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she feels shame, sorrow, and a lot of fear. Which eventually leads to her suicide from the guilt she feels.

Macbeth on the contrary can be seen as a man not as evil and twisted as he is made out to be but someone who is constantly henpecked by his ambitious wife who has a thirst for power which can also be seen in her husband .

At the end of the play we see that the character of macbeth is almost happy to die and it can be seen and interpreted as an escape from the life of shame and misery that he has been living in . He is almost relieved when he is killed by McDuff

The RSC and Stanislavki’s system Stanislavski's system is a progression of

techniques used to train actors and actresses to draw believable emotions to their performances. The method that was originally created and used by Constantin Stanislavski from 1911 to 1916 was based on the concept of emotional memory for which an actor focuses internally to portray a character's emotions onstage. Later, between 1934 and 1938, this technique evolved to a method of physical actions in which emotions are produced through the use of actions

This was later developed into method acting .

Hamlet

Hamlet is evidently a tragedy, filled with foreboding emotions which Shakespeare cleverly portrays through the main character.

The play deals with the central character Hamlet, a calculated, rational-thinking, and intelligent individual and perhaps the most paradoxical character in all of English literature. The play explores how this Prince, is asked to do an action that is beyond his beliefs and morals. The ghost of his beloved and most mourned father, the old King of Denmark appears to him and challenges him to carry out the gruelling task of avenging his murder. This call of action is something that the morally good Hamlet finds difficult to carry out. He uses rational thinking to gloss over and hide behind excuses instead of seeking ruthless revenge and killing King Claudius. Hamlet’s tragic flaw is outlined by his inability to take action and make final decisions on his desired goal.

The character of Prince Hamlet displays many strong yet justified emotions, mainly Despair, Sadness, Anger. Such boiling emotions which churn in young Hamlet's soul.

Plot Summary

A dramatic device used by Shakespeare This is a speech by a character which is

addressed to the audience. Shakespeare cleverly uses this to develop the

plot of Hamlet and the character’s emotions. The soliloquies in this play give us a deep and

clear insight into Hamlet’s psyche which in itself is very dramatic and complex.

It helps us understand the various emotions and conflicts within the Prince through three aspects : Imagery, Punctuation and Visual effect

Soliloquies

IMAGERY:The use of imagery helps create an insight to the morbid

thoughts and emotions experienced by Hamlet. He uses this to make his point more vivid and emotional to the reader.

In the beginning of the speech, Hamlet lets his emotions loose and vibrantly describes his wish of suicide, symbolising the role of emotion in his thoughts.

Hamlet firstly uses images to express his depressed state of mind: "O that this too, too solid flesh would melt/ Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!"

Shakespeare establishes a pattern which characterizes the emotions of despair, anger and sadness.

First Soliloquy (Act 1 Scene 2)

To express his dissatisfaction with life, Hamlet compares life to an unkempt garden; it is ‘flat’, ‘frail’ and ‘unprofitable’.

We see how Hamlet is filled with rage and bitterness towards his mother, and how he evidently is disgusted with the hasty remarriage to Claudius who according to the Prince is a lesser man than his father “no more like my father than I to Hercules”.

Thus, Hamlet criticises emotionally about how polluted matters corrupt his life.

Hamlet's emotionally-charged initial rant shows how his suspicions and frustrations have strong emotional roots and evidently, he is incapable of restraining his feelings of rage and despair from bursting within him.

PUNCTUATIONS:

Shakespeare use of punctuations also highlights the strength of the emotions felt by Hamlet.

Hamlet inner struggles are marked by hyphens and exclamation marks in this soliloquy “And yet, within a month, -/ Let me not think on't, - Frailty, thy name is woman! -/ A little month…" "Like Niobe, all tears; - why she, even she; -/ O God!" This use of punctuation indicates how emotions have seemed to get the better of Hamlet, and his struggle of reason against these emotions.

VISUAL IMPACT (SCREEN PLAY): Here we can see how Kenneth Brannagh visually portrays the morbid and

depressive emotions in Hamlet and also gives us an insight into his extreme state of mind.

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