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162 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Akropolis
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The fortress that houses the treasury of Athens. It is held hostage by the women in Lysistrata.
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“dran”
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to act
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Allegory
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Allegory is a form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative, are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. The underlying meaning has moral, social, religious, or political significance, and characters are often personifications of abstract ideas as charity, greed, or envy.
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Amphitheatre
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Outdoor space with tiered seating that was used for performances of Greek drama. The audience sat in the theatron. Orchestra was situated at the center of amphitheatre with a small building placed at the back called the skene.
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Anarchic Comedy
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Aims to shake up the audience. Brings into question things that are considered acceptable.
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Apollo
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Aristotle
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Wrote Poetics which described the elements of poetics.
Plot Character Thought (Theme) Diction (Language) Music (Acting) Spectacle (Stagecraft) |
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aside
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A piece of dialogue intended for the audience and supposedly not heard by the other actors on stage.
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Athena
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The Greek goddess of wisdom, war, the arts, industry, justice and skill. She was the favorite child of Zeus. She sprung fully grown from his head. Her mother was Metis, goddess of wisdom and Zeus' first wife.
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autos sacrementales
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A dramatic representation of the mystery of the Eucharist. This is the definition that would apply to the auto of the time of Calderón.
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blank verse
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A type of poetry, distinguished by having a regular meter, but no rhyme. In English, the meter most commonly used with blank verse has been iambic pentameter which is used in Shakespearean plays.
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carros
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catharsis
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A release of emotion which helps people to reach a state of inner harmony and balance. A common theme in Greek Tragedy.
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champ/chump
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The champ is the character that is intelligent and gets away with a lot because of their intelligence. The chump is the character that is more of a buffoon.
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City Dionysia
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Huge show of supremacy by Athens through a large party. The beginning of drama in Athens.
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climax
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The turning point of the action in the plot of a play or story. The climax represents the point of greatest tension in the work.
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Collaboration
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Many actors/crew get involved in the creations of a work.
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Comedia
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Ancient Greek word for comedy meaning "song of the revelers".
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Convention
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An accepted artistic practice in any given period of theatrical history.
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corrales
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demos
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Name for men in Lysistrata.
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deus ex machina
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A god who resolves the entanglements of a play by supernatural intervention. The Latin phrase means, literally, "a god from the machine." The phrase refers to the use of artificial means to resolve the plot of a play.
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Dionysus
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The great Olympian god of wine, vegetation, pleasure and festivity. Also referred to as the God of theatre.
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dithyramb
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Singing to worship a god.
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dramaturgy
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The art of dramatic composition and the representation of the main elements of drama on the stage
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ephemera
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Ephemera is transitory written and printed matter not intended to be retained or preserved.
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epic poetry
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An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation.
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Eros
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Passionate love, with sensual desire and longing.
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exposition
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A dramatic structure in which plots that aren't depicted are conveyed in dialogue, description, flashback or narrative.
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exposure/deflation
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hamartia
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A term developed by Aristotle in his work Poetics. The term can simply be seen as a character’s flaw or error.
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Homer
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A legendary ancient Greek epic poet, traditionally said to be the author of the epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. Created the oral narrative tradition during the 8th century BC.
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Humanism
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Humanism is a broad category of ethical philosophies that affirm the dignity and worth of all people, based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appealing to universal human qualities, particularly rationality.
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inversion
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Irony
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A contrast or discrepancy between what is said and what is meant or between what happens and what is expected to happen in life and in literature.
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Komoidia
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Ancient Greek word from which we derive “comedy”
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licensed theatres
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Liminality
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threshold
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Metatheatre
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Play within a play, which provides an onstage microcosm of the theatrical situation, and such techniques as the use of parody and burlesque to draw attention to literary or theatrical conventions.
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Mimesis
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Imitation, representation, or mimicry. A technique used in ancient Greek theatre.
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morality play
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a type of theatrical allegory in which the protagonist is met by personifications of various moral attributes who try to prompt him to choose a godly life over one of evil
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normative comedy
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Humorous, but not focused on changing things.
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objectivity
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oikos
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old comedy
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comedy practiced at the city Dionysia
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Orchestra
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The term orchestra derives from the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus.
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Parthenon
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Temple of the Greek goddess Athena, built in the 5th century BC on the Athenian Acropolis
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Pathos
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Pathos appeals to the audience's emotions. It is of the three modes of persuasion in rhetoric (along with ethos and logos).
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Peloponnesian War
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The Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) was an Ancient Greek military conflict, fought by Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta
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Plato
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A Classical Greek philosopher, who, together with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy
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Poetics
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Refers generally to the theory of literary discourse and specifically to the theory of poetry
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Polis
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Greek term meaning “city”
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recognition
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Renaissance
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Was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe.
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reversal
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satyr play
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Satyr plays were an ancient Greek form of tragicomedy, similar to the modern-day burlesque style. They always featured a chorus of satyrs and were based in Greek mythology and contained themes of, among other things, drinking, overt sexuality.
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Semiotics
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The study of sign processes (semiosis), or signification and communication, signs and symbols, both individually and grouped into sign systems. It includes the study of how meaning is constructed and understood.
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shareholding companies
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Skene
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The background building which connected the platform stage, in which costumes were stored and to which the periaktoi (painted panels serving as the background) were connected.
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Soliloquy
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A speech made to the audience where the actor is the only one on stage
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Sophists
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A group of teachers of philosophy and rhetoric.
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Spanish Golden Age
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A period of flourishing in arts and literature in Spain. The last great writer of the period, Pedro Calderon de la Barca, died in 1681 and his death is usually considered as the end of the Spanish Golden "Century" in the arts and literature.
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Sticomythia
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When speakers alternate lines and repeat words or ideas that they pick up from each other
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surprise
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The Globe
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The octagonal theatre used by Shakespeare for his works.
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Theatron
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The theatron was where the audience of a Greek tragedy sat to view the performance
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Thespis
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Is claimed to be the first person ever to appear on stage as an actor in a play, although the reality is undoubtedly more complex.
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Thucydides
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Was a Greek historian and author of the History of the Peloponnesian War, which recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC.
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Tragedy
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A form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure.
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tragic hero(ine)
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Is a literary character who makes errors in judgment, in his or her actions, that inevitably leads to his or her own downfall.
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Utopia
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An ideal community
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Verisimilitude
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In its literary context is defined as the fact or quality of being verisimilar, the appearance of being true or real; likeness or resemblance of the truth, reality or a fact’s probability
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Zeus
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King of gods on Mount Olympus.
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Theatre of the Absurd
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Theatre that occurred during the mid 20th century that totally rejected realism, naturalism, and epic theatre. The term was coined by Esslin. Commonly contains broad comedy, often similar to Vaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or dismissal of realism and the concept of the "well-made play".
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box set
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A set with a proscenium arch stage and three walls. The proscenium opening represents the fourth wall. Creates the illusion of the interior of a room. They were commonly used by Realist playwrights: Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw, or Anton Chekhov.
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Camus
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A French philosopher that is often associated with Existentialism. Wrote the Myth of Sisyphus which illustrated his belief that life is inherently without meaning.
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climactic structure
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The plot begins late in the story and is very tighly constructed with no loose ends; the scenes, locales, and characters are limited. A common style used in WMPs by Sarte as well as in the works of Ibsen and Strindberg.
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comedy of manners
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Realistic often satiric comedy concerned with the manners and conventions of high society. Usually refers to the Restoration comedies of the late seventeenth century England which featured witty dialogue or repartee.
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Darwin
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heredity, strong concern of the impact on the present, idea of evolution, exposition bleeds throughout the whole play
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dialectics
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Tries to show us the multiple dimensions of individual characters so we may see what good and what is bad in them. We see how much they understand of themselves and how much they are blind to their problems and how their culture effects them.
Marxist perspective on history - history is always a result of human agency so when we understand the history we can understand the cause of people’s actions. This was used by Bertolt Brecht. |
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director
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The person responsible for a play's interpretation and staging and for the guidance of the actors.
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dramatic closure
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All the questions are answered in a play, all the conflicts are resolved, Ibsen does not have dramatic closure so we are left with questions in order to make it more life like rather than neatly packaged and tied up with a ribbon at the end.
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empathy
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The sense of feeling with a character. It is distinct from sympathy which is feeling for a character.
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ensemble
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Performance by a group of actors, usually members of a repertory company in which the integrated acting of all members is emphasized over individual star performances.
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epic theatre
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A term used by Bertol Brecht to distinguish his own theater from the dramatic theatre that created the illusion of reality and invited the audience to identify and empathize with the characters. Brecht criticized the dramatic theater for encouraging the audience to believe that social conditions were natural and therefore unalterable.
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epigram
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a brief, clever, and usually memorable statement
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episodic structure
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A play in which the plot begins early in story and the action is expanded, not compressed. It may even have a subplot or parallel plot. Juxtaposition and contrast occur.
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Esslin
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Coined the term Theatre of the Absurd which strives to express its sense of the senselessness of the human condition and the inadequacy of the rational approach by the open abandonment of rational devices and discursive thought.
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existentialism
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Belief that there is no God or any other guiding force, and even if there is we could never prove it. It challenges scientific thinking of western culture, big split between the individual and society and between the individual and themselves, even if there is no God we can still behave as if there were.
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expressionism
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Early twentieth century literary movement in Germany that taught that art should represent powerful emotional states and moods. Expressionists abandon realism and verisimilitude, producing distorted, nightmarish images of the individual unconscious.
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farce
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a comedy written for the stage or film which aims to entertain the audience by means of unlikely, extravagant, and improbable situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include sexual innuendo and word play, and a fast-paced plot whose speed usually increases, culminating in an ending which often involves an elaborate chase scene. Farce is also characterized by physical humour, the use of deliberate absurdity or nonsense, and broadly stylized performances.
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Freud
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A type of drama intended to interest and amuse rather than to concern the audience deeply. Although characters experience various discomfitures, the audience feels confident that they will overcome their ill fortune and find happiness at the end.
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Independent Theatre Movement
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A shift in theatre practice related to the school of realistic art. Small theatres in every European city and capital, with 50 - 100 seats, shorter number of performances, allowed writers who are writing more challenging works a place to show their plays, not subject to as much censorship b/c they were private, enables realism, expressionism to mature and evolve, playwrights took more risks.
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Marx
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individual human will, human contradictions, human conflicts cause everything in the world to happen; nothing happens just because
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melodrama
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A suspenseful play filled with situations that appeal to the audience's emotions. Justice triumphs in a happy ending: the good characters are rewarded and the bad characters are punished.
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modernism
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Wide term that breaks off from the old ways, finds a new way to express the contemporary ways, starting gun for contemporary dramatic landscape in the late 19th century (Ibsen)
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naturalism
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Literary philosophy popularized during the nineteenth century that casts art's role as the scientifically accurate reflection of a "slice of life". Naturalism is aligned with the belief that each person is a product of their heredity and environment driven by internal and external forces beyond his or her control. Miss Julie is an example of naturalism.
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paradox
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A true statement or group of statements that leads to a contradiction or a situation which defies intuition.
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proscenium stage
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Named for what looks like a picture frame arch around the outside of performance area (facing the audience), keeps the division between world of the play and audience, increased illusionism, allows audience to sit back and study the audience and observe their lives and draw conclusions from it
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realism
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The literary philosophy holding that art should accurately reproduce an image of life. Avoiding the use of dramatic conventions such as asides and soliloquies, it depicts ordinary people in ordinary situations. Ibsen's A Doll House is an example of realism in drama.
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Sartre
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A Nobel Prize winning playwright and and exestentialist.
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Scribe
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Created the Well Made Play.
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Sisyphus
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A character from Greek mythology that was made to push a boulder up a hill for eternity in the afterlife, only to watch it roll down the hill again. The subject in Albert Camus' essay, the Myth of Sisyphus.
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situational structure
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In absurdist plays of the 1950s, situation, not plot or arrangement of incidents, shapes the play. The situation has its own inner rythms. Repetition is common.
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Stanislavsky
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Initiates modern acting and modern acting training, taught actors how to break out of broad performances. Focused on esemble performances.
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subtext
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A level of meaning implicit in or underlying the surface meaning of a text.
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verfremdungseffekt
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German term coined by Bertolt Brecht to mean alienation.
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verisimilitude
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The degree to which a dramatic representation approximates an appearance of reality.
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well-made play
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Drama that relies for effect on the suspense generated by its logical, cleverly constructed plot rather than on characterization. Plots often involve a withheld secret, a battle of wits between hero and villain, and a resolution in which the secret is revealed and the protagonist saved. The plays of Eugene Scribe define the Well-Made Play.
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Zola
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The father of Naturalism.
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Actors Studio
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Known for it's work with method acting. Came to worldwide recognition under Lee Strasburg.
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anti-hero
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a protagonist whose character and goals are antithetical to classical heroism.
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Ballad Opera
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Used existing melodies and rewrites the lyrics to fit the action of the play
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The Beggar’s Opera
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John Gay (1728) - satirical, cynical story of the English upper class being criminals, temporarily knocked traditional high opera off the stage. Based on Ballad Opera.
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The Black Crook
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Charles M. Barras (1866) - First American musical, combination of operetta and vaudeville, accident that it was musical theatre, was originally a melodrama so in rehearsal they recruited the ballerinas from across the street and they integrated song and dance into it, very successful
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character
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choreographer
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The person in charge of coming up with the dance and movement in the play.
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coherence
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composer
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The person in charge of coming up with the musical score and singing in a play.
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Dyer
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“Entertainment and Utopia” (1992) - Entertainment provides us with a Utopia away from the ills of our everyday lives.
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integration
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libretto/librettist
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Means "little book". A libretto contains all of the words of the play as well as the stage direction. A librettist is usually different from the composer and is traditionally a poet however, they were still considered a musical contributer.
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lyricist
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The person that specialized in writing the actual lyrics of the play.
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method acting
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Stanislavsky’s system in the US brought by Russian actors, still dominant in the movies today, transform from role to role, never seem to be the same person, submerge their own personality into the character they play.
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modernism
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Comes from Latin word “modo”- “just now”, artists assume they can stand outside society and critique it
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musical comedy
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Has a plot, characters, and a narrative but does not work to weave them together. It has random stops for a dance number, or slow down for a song, vaudeville, “Good News". Found in the 20th century.
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musical revue
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Loose collection of songs and dances, no traditional story line or characterization, vaudeville. Found in the 20th century.
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musical play
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Move story line forward, deepen characters, not just there for entertainment, serious content or subject matter, operetta. “West Side Story”, “The Wiz”, “Brand New Day”. Found in the 20th century.
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operetta
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Comic opera, breaks away from traditional opera, elements work together. “Rose Marie”
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performative spectacle
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postmodernism
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“after just now”, challenges some of the assumptions behind modernism. Artists themselves are just as much a part of the crazy life and thus don't have the ability to stand outside society and critique it. It is concerned with the fragments of a broken whole, everything has already been discovered; the best we can do is combine it in a different way. It is concerned with the role of art and often quotes other works of art. It constantly blends realism. Different perceptions of reality all fused in to one, reality itself has become so submerged in technology that our very idea of reality has been altered- lost our ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy, fractured plot, identity crisis- ground beneath us and world around us seems to be constantly changing so we cannot create a firm identity, no traditional story line, everything in the past is discredited and challenged in the contemporary world, stability is overturned, meta- narratives- big way we explain the world to ourselves, dissolves illusions about something permanent.
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What are the principles of postmodernism?
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Quotation/ Recycling
Reflexivity/Intertextuality Simulation/Virtual Reality |
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realism
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A form of modernism in which life like characters are in a life like situation. This allows us to apply it to our world, creating empathy and increasing illusionism.
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reflexivity
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Art that draws attention to itself as art.
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Stanislavsky
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The first actor and director to systematically create a new school of acting in which actors really get into their characters, work from the inside out. They supress their own personalities to become the characters they are playing.
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Lee Strasberg
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American student who was taught by the Stanislavsky and tried to carry what he learned into his own school of Method Acting called the Actors' Studio
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subtext
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What can be inferred from the words in the play. What is occuring, but not directly spoken of. Stanislavsky made particular use of this and believed that the actor was the one that brought in the subtext.
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through-sung musical
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A musical or opera with little to no spoken dialogue. Rent and The Phantom of the Opera are examples of through-sung musicals.
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Utopia
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The name of a work by Sir Thomas More describing a fictional island with an ideal society. Uptopia actually means "no place" in Greek.
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vaudeville
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A series of completely unrelated skits and acts. Provides something for everyone, “Make ‘Em Laugh” from Singing in the Rain. No obligation towards traditional forms of music, movement, and story line (doesn't exist). Creates its own individual dynamic.
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Who wrote Medea?
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Euripides
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Who wrote Lysistrata
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Aristophanes
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Who wrote A Midsummer Night's Dream?
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William Shakespeare
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Who wrote Life is a Dream and what period was it written in?
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Pedro Calderon de la Barca during the Spanish Golden Age.
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Who wrote A Doll's House and what style is it written in?
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Henrik Ibsen, Realism
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Who wrote Miss Julie and in what style is it written?
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August Strindberg, Supernaturalism
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Who wrote The Importance of Being Ernest and in what style is it written?
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Oscar Wilde, farce
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Who wrote Mother Courage and Her Children and in what style is it written?
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Bertolt Brecht, Epic Theatre
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Author of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
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Tennessee Williams
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Author of True West
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Sam Shepard
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Author of Fences
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August Wilson
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Describe Euripides' dramaturgy.
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Shifted theatrical focus from gods to humans.
Focus on women (Medea was first thoroughly developed female character in Greek drama) |
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Describe Aristophanes' dramaturgy
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Democratic plays
Appeal to sophisticated and unsophisticated theatergoers alike. Skilled at complex wordplay Very comedic Satirical, especially concerning political matters. |
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Describe Shakespeare's dramaturgy
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Language; blank verse (as well as prose).
Rapid, continuous action Parallels and contrasts Soliloquy and asides Metatheatricality/reflexivity |
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Describe Eugene Scribe's dramaturgy.
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Careful exposition of plot
Surprises such as letters, etc. Suspense that steadily builds The climax develops late (that's what she said) in the play A denouement occurs that draws all loose ends together |
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Describe Ibsen's dramaturgy
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Ibsen used elements from the WMP to undermine its techniques
Unmakes the values of WMP, by incorporating many of the ideas of WMP in his play Challenges conventional thought Does away with classic melodrama theatre. More realistic approach to drama. |
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Describe August Strindberg's dramaturgy.
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Supernaturalism-combines naturalism and expressionism
Breaks fluid texture of conventional realism "Characterless" characters Highly compressed, concentrated action Non-verbal vocabularies of stage rival text A theatre of relativity |
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Describe Oscar Wilde's dramaturgy.
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Farce
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Describe Bertolt Brecht's dramaturgy
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Only what's necessary to present events
Dialectics: contradictions and inconsistencies Effects:prologues, interludes, poems, songs Demystification: mutually alienating elements Focus on theatre as a force in social change. |
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Describe Tennessee William's dramaturgy.
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Deeply poetic realism
Focus on character and psychological revelation. Plots frame inner conflicts between ideal and real. Plight of sensitive individual in corrupt modern world. Symbolic settings, objects, production elements in realistic framework. The focus was a call for compassion and recognition of human dignity. |
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Sam Shepard's dramaturgy.
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Anti-realistic drama.
Characters blend, combine ,explode myth of integrated self. Plots are a fracture image of stable reality. The language becomes a vehicle for competition, aggression, violence. Identity crisis repeated in demolition of civilized world. The focus is the duplicity of experience and combustible human nature. |
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Describe August Wilson's Dramaturgy
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Interested in values and relations.
Particularly interested in black sufferings for his father was white and his mother was black. Writings reflect struggles. |
