Chapter 12 Set B

Front 1

Symbolism

Back 1

Symbolist theater relied on the idea of the total work of art, while also emphasizing the importance of using suggestion to reach metaphysical concepts of "the enigma of life". The symbolists aimed to eliminate all traces of naturalistic or imitative acting, and all romance and melodrama. In theory, the actor was to be a depersonalized symbol pointing to a meaning beyond what was visible on the stage.

Front 2

Modernism

Back 2

Modernism was an international movement in literature and art that emphasized the sense of a radical break with the past and the possibility of a transformed world. Emerging at the end of the nineteenth century as a rejection of realism and populism, it experimented with new literary and artistic forms, often under the influence of photography, film, and new technologies.

Front 3

Expressionism

Back 3

Expressionist plays often dramatize the spiritual awakening and sufferings of their protagonists.The plays often dramatize the struggle against bourgeois values and established authority,

Front 4

Cubism

Back 4

Cubism is not really a school or movement like, say, Fauvism; it is more a style. Rather than replicating real perspective in the two dimensions of the canvas, Cubism multiplies perspectives and depths. Cubism influenced theater design more than the content of plays.

Front 5

Dadaism

Back 5

Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zürich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922.[1] The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a rejection of the prevailing standards in art through anti-art cultural works.

Front 6

Surrealism

Back 6

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members.

Surrealist works feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur; however, many Surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost, with the works being an artifact.

Front 7

Theater of Cruelty

Back 7

The Theatre of Cruelty is a concept in Antonin Artaud's book The Theatre and its Double. (Artaud, The Theatre and its Double). By cruelty, he meant not sadism or causing pain, but rather a violent, physical determination to shatter the false reality which, he said, "lies like a shroud over our perceptions."

Front 8

Epic Theater

Back 8

Epic theatre (German: episches Theater) is a theatrical movement arising in the early to mid-20th century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners, including Erwin Piscator, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold and, most famously, Bertolt Brecht.The epic form describes both a type of written drama and a methodological approach to the production of plays: "Its qualities of clear description and reporting and its use of choruses and projections as a means of commentary earned it the name 'epic'.

Front 9

Existentialism

Back 9

Existentialism is a concept that became popular during the
second World War in France.Existentialism proposes that man is full of anxiety and
despair with no meaning in his life, just simply existing, until he
made decisive choice about his own future.

Front 10

Absurdism

Back 10

The Theatre of the Absurd is a designation for particular plays written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, as well as to the style of theatre which has evolved from their work. It originated from the ideas of Albert Camus, the French existentialist philosopher.

The term was coined by the critic Martin Esslin, who made it the title of a book on the subject first published in 1961 and in two later revised editions; the third and final edition appeared in 2004, in paperback with a new foreword by the author. In the first edition of The Theatre of the Absurd, Esslin saw the work of these playwrights as giving artistic articulation to Albert Camus' philosophy that life is inherently without meaning as illustrated in his work The Myth of Sisyphus.

Front 11

Post-modernism

Back 11

Postmodern theatre is a recent phenomenon in world theatre, coming as it does out of the postmodern philosophy that originated in Europe in the 1960s. Postmodern theatre emerged as a reaction against modernist theatre. Most postmodern productions are centered around highlighting the fallibility of definite truth, instead encouraging the audience to reach their own individual understanding. Essentially, thus, postmodern theatre raises questions rather than attempting to supply answers.