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22 views23 pages

Chapter 4 PP-1

Presentation for threatre

Uploaded by

cristians6510
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© © All Rights Reserved
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THEATRICAL GENRES

What are our favorite kinds of movies,


tv shows or plays? Why do you like
them?
• Share with the person next to you
WHAT IS GENRE?

• A French word meaning “category’ or


“type”
• Discussion on pg. 102 – some debate
over the categorization of plays based
on genre
• Some things are a mix of types – every
piece of art is unique in some way
• Helps us when we are learning to get a
sense of what type of work it out there,
even if its imperfect.
ORIGINAL GENRES

• Oldest and most well-known genres are:


Tragedy and Comedy
• Defined in ancient Greece.
• Aristotle creates his rules of Tragedy.
• Comedy is rejection of those rules.
TRAGEDY

• Tragedy is epic and only for kings and queens.


• They stand as symbols of an entire culture and society.
• Tragic Circumstances– Death, war, scorned lovers. Stakes are high and the situation
has enormous magnitude.
• Tragic hero has a tragic flaw…their “Achilles Heel”.
• Tragic Hero neither villainous or virtuous.
• Tragic hero experiences catharsis/recognition.
• Accepts responsibility for situation.
• The Effect of Tragedy– meant to arouse pity or fear in the spectator and for them
experience the purging of those emotions with the protagonist.
• Written in verse.
ANTIGONE BY SOPHOCLES (Tragedy)

• BBC Adaptation from 1986


• Pay attention to the cues that tell
us as an audience this a tragedy
• Be prepared to share with a
neighbor
MODERN TRAGEDY

• No queens or kings as central figures


• Written in prose rather than poetry
• Probe the same depths and ask the same questions
HEROIC DRAMA

• Popular during the Restoration era in England and modeled


after French Neoclassical Tragedy.
• Serious drama that has heroic or noble characters and
certain other traits of classic tragedy
• Has a happy ending
• Assumes a basically optimistic worldview even if the hero
or heroine dies at the end
• Written in rhyming pentameter couplets
DOMESTIC DRAMA

• Deals with people from everyday life instead of kings, queens, and nobility

• Common themes are:


• Problems of society
• Struggles within a family
• Dashed hopes
• Renewed determination

• Playwright, Arthur Miller, wrote a famous essay called “Tragedy and the Common
Man” in which he says tragedy is not just the genre for aristocracy but for
everyone. His play Death of a Salesman is an example of that.

“If the exaltation of tragic action were truly a property of the highbred character alone, it is
inconceivable that the mass of mankind should cherish tragedy above all other forms, let
alone be capable of understanding it.”
~ Arthur Miller
A RAISIN IN THE SUN BY LORRAINE
HANSBERRY
• Film adaptation from 1989
• What does this seem to
have in common with the
tragedy we watched? What
makes it different?
• How do we know this is a
domestic drama?
MELODRAMA

• Means “song drama” or “music drama”


• Originally comes from the Greek
• Made popular by the French
• “Music” refers to the background music that accompanied these plays
• Strives to create suspense, fear, nostalgia, etc.
• Heroes and heroines are clearly delineated from villains
• Has easily recognizable stock characters: hero, villain, heroine, clown,
damsel in distress
• Virtue is always victorious
• Has a suspenseful plot
• Emphasizes spectacle
UNDER THE GASLIGHT
Example of Melodrama described in Crash Course
Comedy

Characteristics of Comedy
• Suspension of Natural Laws – Cause, effect, and logic

• The Comic Premise – comic reality vs. real reality


TECHNIQUES OF COMEDY

Incongruity Verbal Humor Comedy of Character Plot Complications


• Pun - a joke exploiting • Jim Carrey, Sasha Baron • A surprise character
• Situation doesn’t fit the different possible Cohen, Andy Kaufman, appears.
social norms or mores. meanings of a word or Robin Williams
the fact that there are • An item is lost or found.
• Contrasting things words which sound • Highlights
alike but have different idiosyncrasies of • New information is
replace logic and
meanings. people. Highly odd and
familiarity. given to complicate
exaggerated. matters.
• Malaprop - the
• Things don’t make
mistaken use of a word • Creates new rules for
sense
in place of a similar- the character.
sounding one, often
with unintentionally
amusing effect

• Epigram – a pithy
saying or remark
expressing an idea in a
clever and amusing
FARCE

• Thrives on exaggeration

• Has no intellectual pretensions

• Aims are entertainment and laughter

• Has excessive plot complications

• Humor results from ridiculous situations as well


as pratfalls and horseplay

• A high level of absurdity

• Examples: Noises Off, Bedroom Farce, Boeing


Boeing, Rumors, etc.
The Play that Goes Wrong
(2015)

• What elements
of farce do we
see in this clip?
BURLESQUE

• Relies on knockabout physical


humor, gross exaggeration, and
occasional vulgarity

• Historically, it was a ludicrous


imitation of other forms of drama

• Overlaps with caricature and


parody.

• Origins of modern-day Burlesque


MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL
(Has elements of Burlesque comedy and Parodies King Arthur
tales)
OTHER FORMS OF COMEDY

Satire Comedy of Manners


• Uses wit, especially sophisticated • Concerned with pointing up the
language; irony; and exaggeration foibles and peculiarities of the
to expose or attack evil and upper class
foolishness • Uses verbal wit

Domestic Comedy Comedy of Ideas


• Usually deals with family • Uses comic techniques to debate
situations intellectual propositions such as
• Found in TV situation comedies the nature of war, cowardice, and
romance
TRAGICOMEDY

Tragicomedy
• Point of view is mixed
• Prevailing attitude is a synthesis, or fusion, of the serious and the comic

Shakespeare Tragicomedy
• Measure for Measure, All’s Well That Ends Well, Merchant of Venice,
The Winter’s Tale

Modern Tragicomedy
• August; Osage County, The Caretaker, Waiting for Godot
Illustrates humanity’s alienation

Serious viewpoint with


considerable humor
THEATRE OF
THE Illogical plots
ABSURD
Nonsense or non sequitur
language

Existential characters
ENDGAME BY SAMUEL BECKETT
(Example of Theatre of the Absurd)
WAITING FOR GODOT BY SAMUEL
BECKETT
(Example of Theatre of the Absurd)

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