Plays and musicals often use costumes to portray certain characteristics or aspects of a character to give the audience insight and depth into the characters personality or life. Many popular productions in the United States have clear purpose for costume and makeup when it comes to the main characters. Musicals and plays like Heathers, Hamilton, Next to Normal use costume design in order to portray the characters wearing them through various mediums. Heathers is a musical written by Kevin…
Traditional and shocking sometimes is not promising; Spike Lee’s 2015 film, Chiraq, is a hit or miss for audiences based on background knowledge of the Aristophanes’ Greek classic, Lysistrata. Although Lee keeps the same plot structure of classic comedy and adds new male characters, his lack of Lysistrata’s original famous wool metaphor has left the film fall flat. Lee’s views on the importance of the upcoming presidential are just lost in translation. In ancient Greece, the point of comedy was…
Aristotle was a greek philosopher who proposed a set of characteristics or traits which are to be used as criteria when evaluating characters and their status as tragic heroes. Put in a condensed manner, they are as follows: a tragic hero must have noble stature, be a victim of hamartia, be responsible for his own downfall, be admirable and pitiable, gain wisdom and repent before death, and conjure a cathartic release of emotions from the reader. These traits will be used to evaluate, by form of…
“I am not a dime a dozen! I am Willy Loman, and you are Biff Loman! (Miller 1902). Arthur Miller, a successful American playwright who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1949 and former alumni from the University of Michigan, in his play, Death of Salesman, published in 1949, describes the unsettling story of a hero of tragedy whose own fragile mental state unfortunately presents his downfall. Willy Loman seems like an ordinary man who attempts to embody the American dream of success, however, behavioral…
In the play, “The Death of a Salesman,” by Arthur Miller, the characters exhibit a dichotomy to one another through their morals, actions, and ethics. An example would be Biff and Happy Loman, two brothers who are nearly opposites of one another. As the story progresses, we can perceive the numerous differences— rather than similarities—between the two brothers through their aspirations, relationship with Willy, and their perspective of life. First of all, their aspirations for their future…
In Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, Willy Loman is trapped by both himself and when meeting the strict standards of their society. Willy Loman is an older gentleman in his sixties who lives in a house with his wife and two sons. He is first presented with the standards of society when he is supporting his family with his job. Willy was getting to old to travel for his job and wanted to ask his boss, Howard, if he could a job close to home. He was very confident that he would get the job and…
The definition of a tragedy is a play dealing with tragic events and an unhappy ending. Julius Caesar is a tragedy written by Shakespeare. This play is about the history assassination of Julius Caesar and how it lead to the downfall of the Roman Empire. Shortly after the assassination of Caesar, Brutus and Antony separately make a public announcement to the Roman citizens. Brutus first explains to the public why Caesar had to be killed and the citizens agree with him, but then Antony makes a…
Script Analysis: The Given Circumstances and Background Story In the well-made play Better Living by George F Walker, the world of the play is shaped around the effect of Tom, the family’s absent Father returning after many years of financial and emotional despair. Through the mechanical analysis the background story shows the struggle of working class families and how the background story shapes the characters prior to the curtains opening that also later affects their decisions in the play.…
gather different perspectives of process drama and assess the efficacy of using this as a teaching strategy for secondary school drama classes. I have attained research from various authors, including Research in Drama Education as well as other sources. My hypothesis prior to analysing and synthesising is that process drama is an effective teaching strategy, but it is not the only effective teaching strategy. This paper will not only explain what process drama as a teaching strategy involves,…
In Poetics, Aristotle defines the genre of tragedy, which has long been respected as the only efficient and effective model for attaining true tragic effect. Despite this tradition, Shakespeare’s plays deviate from this framework, but are still revered as respected Renaissance tragedies. By Aristotelian definitions, neither King Lear nor Othello are ideal tragedies, but nonetheless they both adeptly accomplish the aim of tragedy. Both plays still arouse feelings of pity and fear, despite varying…