Drama task 1 – Draft
Epic theatre literally means a piece of art derived from the ancient oral tradition, narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures or the history of a nation so as to create a relationship with the audience by making the audience play a part in the act of critically analyzing the scenes being performed. Bertolt Brecht elaborates and says “The one tribute we can pay the audience is to treat them as thoroughly intelligent…” (Roland, 2010). Epic theatre is able to change the way the society views the problems. This is done through a play and so everything being performed in front of the audience is open and they could see.
Bertolt explored theatre as a forum for political theatre. His perspectives for epic theatre were Marxist and his intention was to present moral problems and reflecting on the social realities. He wanted to do this by hiding the emotions of the character and instead empathizing with the characters and become caught up
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The audience gets a chance to laugh at the characters involved in the performance and ultimately condemn what they stand for. Use of spass as a technique is an excellent way to break the tension in the play which might make the audience follow the characters on their emotional journey. Bertolt used this type of technique because he realized that while the audience is laughing, they are also thinking and that is the whole point of epic theatre; to make them think. He also thought that comedy was an interesting way to engage with the audience and forcing them think about issues. Epic theatre also involves the use of multimedia to present a message. This is also joined up with spass sometimes because the message being put out could be parodic and so force the audience to laugh. Bertolt believed in using, music, dance, mask, signs, song, film projection is a way to break the monotony in the
An epic is an extended narrative poem in elevated or dignified language, celebrating the feats of a legendary or traditional hero. The main characteristics of an epic as a literary genre is that it is a long poem that tells a story, it contains an epic hero, its hero searches for immortality (but doesn't find it physically, only through fame), gods or other supernatural beings are interested and involved, and it delivers an historical message. The Epic of Gilgamesh is classified as an epic because it fits all the characteristics of an epic as a literary genre.
How Brecht achieves producing this state of consciousness is more subtle and elegant than the previous technique of having actors walk out with blatant placards to remind the audience that they are watching a play. One of the marks of Brecht’s epic theater is his alienation effect, or “a representation which allows [the audience] to recognize its subject, but at the same time makes it seem unfamiliar” (Brecht 1948, 8).
Qu1. – Theatre allows one to express emotions, escape from reality and fantasise over desired endings. Theatre re-enacts past events in an over-exaggerated, dramatic form. It is considered living art. Theatre performances require a scriptwriter, sound designer, costume designer, lighting designer, director, scenic designers, actors, technicians, dramaturges, historians and audiences. The performance can be entertaining and/or educational. For example theatrical performances are based on previous events (history), which is both visually pleasing and educational.
that theatre should make the audience think, and to do this, he used a range of
If no one views a play or story and observe the underlying themes and messages, for what reason was the play conceived? Theater is meant to utilize its factors to resonate with the audience and to leave an impact in the same way that works of literary use proper and figurative language and works of art use compelling and interesting visuals;
The play could be considered Epic Theatre because in this branch, the play is not supposed to cause the spectator to emotionally identify with the character. In this place, it is hard to identify with any of the characters. More over, it is about recognizing social injustice and exploitation. This play makes you open your eyes and asked yourself who is right and who isn’t. the accusations the girl described are things that we saw but it did not bother us when the play was occurring.
This meant that the old high culture, with its idealism and élitism, would have to be replaced with a specifically modern culture. Brecht demanded ‘the radical transformation of the theater’ which would ‘correspond to the whole radical transformation of the mentality of our time’. In the 1920s, he, along with Erwin Piscator, created an ‘epic’ theatre different from ‘dramatic’ or ‘Aristotelian’ theatre. Whereas the premise for dramatic theatre was that human nature could not be changed, ‘epic’ theatre assumed that it both could change and was already
In an interview with Belvoir Street Theatre in 2012 he quotes; “I found a deep sense of place (at once concrete and metaphoric), and silence as an invisible substance – the structuring principle which underpins all utterances”. Andrews feels these artists teach lessons about life and help him explore the depths of theatre as an art form. He is only interested in working on ‘great plays with great actors’ as he states in the same interview. Barry Kosky is a very influential director who is interested in adapting to the way he views a play, in 2000 at the National Circus Conference at the Powerhouse, he stated “I'm not interested in the likes and dislikes of the audience. I'm interested in my likes and dislikes…I need an audience, but I need an audience that want to come on my ride, not the other way around. I think a lot of people in this country are led by the notion that the audience is somehow indicative of the work that should be done.” For Kosky especially, the directorial strategies are very present and can sometimes change the story from the way the writers intended. He is very present within his works but that is his choice, it is not a mistake, instead of using the actors as characters he tends to use them as props, and instead of using the writers to produce scripts, he uses the scripts as more
When reading chapter 1, I found out what theatre is and how Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavshi express his passion for theatre. By reading this, I have a different view about the theatre and acting. As he talks about his passion for theatre, he makes people want to know about theatre and become actor/actress themselves. Chapter 1 discussed Stanislavski and his system. Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavshi is a Russian actor and director of the theater. He expressed that theater is an institution of cultural and more education. He believed that theatre should develop people’s taste and raise the level of their cultural. Stanislavski expresses that actors and actress love being on stage because theatre gives them the atmosphere of art. When
The name of the Bread and Puppet Theatre hails from the custom of sharing freshly baked bread with the theatre visitors to symbolise that art should be an everyday ritual for everyone just like eating bread.` We give you a piece of bread with the puppet show because our bread and theatre belong together. For a long time the theatre arts have been separated from the stomach. Theatre was entertainment.` (Peter Schumann, Bread & Puppet official website). The foremost goal of this theatre is to raise feelings of sensitivity in the viewer and to outline what the terms 'good' and 'evil' mean, especially in political spheres. This reflects the use of the audience as being used to create this form of
In ancient times, the Epic is developing. It is a long prose poem that carries major national values and that narrates the exploits and virtues of a male, a hero. The oldest epic develops in antiquity, it is entitled "The Epic of Gilgamesh". The Epic is a story narrating a great general action to symbolize and fix it in time. It also serves to highlight the interest of the people: religion, unity, patriotism, its territory, its culture. The action is major and central, despite many side events, its purpose is to narrate a main frame such as The Trojan War in the Iliad or the return of Ulysses in the Odyssey. The epic must tell of the exploits. They are called epic feats, they are extraordinary, they allow the belief, the pretext miracles and divine interventions. In Greek epics, the main virtue of man, or should I say function, is to be a hero.
The reason theatre rose in this age is also due to the different attitude which was displayed towards those involved in it: an adequate pay towards actors was introduced, elevating drama from where it had earlier found itself – that is, from what Eda Sagarra and Peter Skrine define “the opprobrium of society” : this behaviour was testified in written form by Goethe’s Regeln für Schauspieler, which he wrote for the Weimar Court Theatre and described how tragedy should be represented on stage, with attention to the formal demeanour required for the representation of noble feeling. These ‘Rules’, like the ideas of Weimar classicism, dominated the German theatre for much of the nineteenth century.
An epic is a long, episodic narrative poem that recounts the adventures of a historical or mystical hero. Episodic narratives have a larger story broken down into closely connected, but individual and separate sections. Some important qualities that distinguish an epic are unrealistic antagonists, the Gods and Goddesses playing important roles, and a story involving the re-establishment of a proper leader. “The Odyssey”, by Homer, is an epic because Odysseus (the hero) faces supernatural antagonists, the gods and goddesses play an important role, and Odysseus is being restored as a rightful leader.
As the idea of an audience appears and you begin to focus on that theme, it is not long before more references to theatre begin to stand out. For instance, as the situation of Josef K and his confusion with his arrest start to unfold, he takes the whole situation as a
Theatre is an art that transcends time and builds a new world for the audience atop the stage. A play is defined as “a dramatic composition” or “the stage representation of an action or story” (The Merriam-Webster Dictionary). This refers to drama being performed live by actors on a stage. Ancient Greece is accredited to inventing theatre and drama. In Greece during that time, at the height of popularity, were the stories of the well known flawed heroes and their journeys.