Styles, Stages, and More Greek Structure and Tragedy

 Absence of narrator/mediator (usually): we have to construct meaning directly.  Stagecraft: lighting & other elements to create setting/mood on stage.  Collaborative effort: director & actors must interpret the playwright’s words.  Every production of a play is different.  Theatre is a group experience: actors affected by audience response; audience members affect each other.

 Greeks, beginning around 500 B.C. : Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides: tragedy; Aristophanes, Menander: comedy.  Romans a couple of centuries later: Terence, Plautus: comedies. Seneca: tragedy.  Long dry spell; a few in medieval times, passion plays  Renaissance: Shakespeare et al. Restoration plays. Spanish, French golden ages.  British greatness, beginning with G. B. Shaw (1890) and continuing into 20th century.  American drama: begins in 1787 with Tyler’s The Contrast. Becomes great with O’Neill (1915) and continues to present day.

 Plot: action of drama—what happens  Character: revealed in time; motivation  Thought  Theme  Issues addressed  Statement on society  Diction: dialogue & soliloquy  Music: song  Spectacle  Extravagant  Grotesque  Minimalist

 Arena Style theatre in Amphitheatre.  All seats get to view.  Actors wear masks, project, “overact.”  Plays performed in daylight.  Men play all roles.

 Greek drama begins with the Prologue.  The Prologue’s purpose is to give background information to situate the conflict.  Often, the Chorus – a group of actors who comment on the action in the play and provide exposition – give the Prologue.

 Choral song chanted by the Chorus as they enter the area in front of the stage.  Parados literally means passage.

 Serves to separate one scene from another (since there were no curtains in Greek theaters).  Also allowed the Chorus’s response to the preceding scene.

 Strophe – part of the ode that the chorus chants as it moves from right to left across the stage.  Antistrophe – part of the ode chanted as the chorus moves back across the stage from left to right.

 Following the Parados, the first scene presents the conflict of the play.

 A hymn in praise of a god.

 Final scene of the play.

 Compression and Contrast – tightening the action to get the most bang from the buck.  Starting close to the action.  Cutting out scenes that don’t move the story along.  Symbols that clue readers/viewers into meaning.  A foil – a dramatic contrast for the hero. Dramatic Structure

 Aristotle: tragedy evokes fear and pity in audience, causing catharsis.  The Tragic Spirit is…  More or less pessimistic… suffering is required.  Essentially humanistic, centered on the interest and claims of humans, the emotional reaction to the events not the horror seen on stage.  not cynical.  an affirmation of positive values; great tragedies do not end in sheer terror, horror, or despair even if they end unhappily. A General Definition of Tragedy

 Tragedy enriches our experience by:  Deepening  Widening,  Refining our consciousness of the possibilities of life.  Tragedy examines the problem of human fate:  Relations to his total environment,  Position in the universe,  The ultimate meaning of his life.  Greek tragedy promoted life by promoting wisdom.  The old stories were told to be more philosophical than historical.

 Is not all good or bad  Is of the noble class or highly renowned and prosperous  Has a tragic flaw  Recognizes his error and accepts the consequences  Arouses the audience’s pity and fear  Is from a well-known myth

 Delphic Oracle – The Prophecy and Apollo  Corinth  The Riddle of the Sphinx  Self-punishment  Children:  Eteocles  Polyneices  Ismene  Antigone