©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. The Art of Being Human, 7/e Chapter 7 – THE THEATER PowerPoint by Julie Rodakowski

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. CONVENTIONS OF THE THEATER Classical Conventions Elizabethan Conventions Neoclassical Conventions Victorian Conventions Early Modern Conventions Contemporary Conventions

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. TRAGEDY Classical Tragedy Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex, Euripides's Medea Shakespearean Tragedy Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear Neoclassical Tragedy Racine’s Phaedra Modern Tragedy Miller’s Death of a Salesman, A View from the Bridge Melodrama and Tragedy: a contrast

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. COMEDY Farce (commedia dell’arte) Moliere’s The Would-Be Gentleman, Weycherley’s The Country Wife Satire Aristophanes’s Lysistrata, Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest The Comedy of Character Shakespeare’s character of Falstaff

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. NATURALISM A reflection of life the way it really was, without the artificiality of the stage dialogue of the past or well- constructed, tight plots. Chekhov’s Three Sisters Williams’s The Glass Menagerie O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. THEATER OF IDEAS Plays that focus on ideas rather than characters, challenging notions of marriage, business, government, the clergy, education, and so on. Ibsen’s A Doll’s House Shaw’s Pygmalion Shaw’s Major Barbara

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. A THEATRICAL CENTURY OF DYNAMIC CHANGE THEATER OF ALIENATION Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle THEATER OF CRUELTY Weiss’s Marat / Sade Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. DYNAMIC CHANGE RACIAL THEMES Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun Fugard’s Sizwe Bansi Is Dead Wilson’s Fences, The Piano Lesson GAY RIGHTS Hellman’s The Children’s Hour Kushner’s Angels in America EASTERN INFLUENCES Hwang’s M. Butterfly Noh theater of Japan

©2003 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. BEHIND THE SCENES chooses the cast works on setting, lighting, sounds, and costumes learns to achieve illusions so the audience believes knows different interpretations and chooses (or creates) his/her interpretation recognizes the importance of blocking, done in conjunction with the cast decides if s/he will modernize a play THE DIRECTOR