German playwright Bertolt Brecht denounced the dramatic rubric of Aristotle,who theorized the framework of drama in his seminal text Poetics, since he replaced plot with narration. However, being more radical than Brecht, August Boal a chemical engineer by profession, conceptualizedthe framework of Theatre of the Oppressed;it was based on the pedagogy of Oppressed by Paul Fieire. In the Arena theatre of Sao Paulo, Boal never called himself a dramatist rather a practitioner of the Theatre of Oppressed, and it is an umbrella like dramatic practice, comprising of Invisible Theatre, Forum Theatre, Newspaper Theatre, and Legislative Theatre. Boal, in his book Theatre of the Oppressed, clarifies the very creed of his theater as he says: …show more content…
It is true that this learning this apprenticeship, utilizes the prevailing social structures and ethical values of each society as it is there Theatre of the Oppressed. “(Boal117)
As a trend setter Boal incorporates various innovative techniques, concepts and even forms with neologism in Theatre of the Oppressed. In Greek tragedy chorus played an important role in bringing out necessary information, even protagonist had to rely on it; American dramatists in twentieth century introduced the concept of narrators in their respective plays. In Theatre of the Oppressed, August Boal familiarized us with a new dramatic technique known as, Joker System, originating from the game of card in which joker plays a temporal role by substituting for other, misguiding players purposefully and even facilitating the tempo of the game. For Boal, appearance of new system does not arise out of vacuum rather social impetuses and prerequisites demand of such innovation, performed by dramatists. The appearance of three witches in Macbeth, a mass protest in Coriolanus, and the appearance of a ghost in Hamlet, were the needs of time, since it was essential to pacify the frenzies of Elizabethan audience; Shakespeare craft fully succeeded in inventing so. The role of
Plays at this time were a representation of life. People, at this time, did not have modern visual luxuries upon which to garner entertainment. Plays, as well as playwrights, were supposed to bring life to the people and life to the story,
Hamlet makes extensive use of the idea of theatrical performance; from revealing characters to not be what they seem - as they act to be - to Hamlet’s play The Mousetrap and his instruction of acting to the players. The extensive use of the stage in the stage directions, as well as numerous monologues and asides, have Hamlet itself acting as a literary device for the motif of theatrical performance.
It is difficult to imagine a play which is completely successful in portraying drama as Bertolt Brecht envisioned it to be. For many years before and since Brecht proposed his theory of “Epic Theatre”, writers, directors and actors have been focused on the vitality of entertaining the audience, and creating characters with which the spectator can empathize. ‘Epic Theatre’ believes that the actor-spectator relationship should be one of distinct separation, and that the spectator should learn from the actor rather than relate to him. Two contemporary plays that have been written in the last thirty years which examine and work with Brechtian ideals are ‘Fanshen’ by David Hare, and ‘The Laramie Project’ by Moises Kaufman. The question to be examined is whether either of these two plays are entirely successful in achieving what was later called, ‘The Alienation Effect”.
Bertolt Brecht was a German playwright, theatre critic, and director. He created and developed epic theatre with the belief that theatre is not solely for entertainment but also tools for politics and social activism. Previous theatre performances offered a form of escapism. The audience would become emotionally invested in the performance. In contrast to the suspension of disbelief, Brecht never wanted the audience to fall into the performance. He wanted the audience to make judgments on the argument dealt in the play. The aim of epic theatre is to detach the audience from any emotional connection in order for them to critically review the story. The ultimate goal of this theatre is creating awareness of social surroundings and encouraging the audience to take initiative on changing the society.
William Shakespeare’s dramatic and poetic techniques and his use of hyperbole are used to describe the characters emotions and weaknesses. The use of dramatic irony is used to create personal conflict. This is done throughout the play to describe the characters concerns and their situations.
In Euripides’ tragic play, Medea, the playwright creates an undercurrent of chaos in the play upon asserting that, “the world’s great order [is being] reversed.” (Lawall, 651, line 408). The manipulation of the spectators’ emotions, which instills in them a sentiment of drama, is relative to this undertone of disorder, as opposed to being absolute. The central thesis suggests drama in the play as relative to the method of theatrical production. The three concepts of set, costumes, and acting, are tools which accentuate the drama of the play. Respectively, these three notions represent the appearance of drama on political, social, and moral levels. This essay will compare three different productions of Euripides’ melodrama, namely, the play as presented by the Jazzart Dance Theatre¹; the Culver City (California) Public Theatre²; and finally, the original ancient Greek production of the play, as it was scripted by Euripides.
The play within a play has been used for a long time in stories ; scholars have traced it’s use back to the Arabic, Persian and Indian storytelling traditions (Bonnie Irwin, 1995). It can also be identified in Homer’s Odyssey but the first time it was probably used for drama, was in Thomas Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy. By reusing this emerging literary organ, Shakespeare is sure of his success with the presentation of his work and demonstrates to what degree drama is powerful so as to make ones self see the truth in ones acts. It is with it that Hamlet manages to surface Claudius’ guilt and to be sure that the ghost’s truthfulness. Additionally, he uses all the conventions and themes of a revenge tragedy that where extremely popular in the Elizabethan and Jacobean era and present in The Spanish Tragedy. But Shakespeare moves well beyond the usual revenge tragedy form in this play. Hamlet became a play were the themes are complicates and the psychology of its models is deepened. This is done by Hamlet’s complex characterization were he is in conflict between the Roman values of blood-right and martial valor, and Christian values of humility a...
...ving a serious impact on the audience invoking fear and terror. These supernatural elements, combined with Shakespeare’s use of language and possible stagecraft, will have a dramatic effect on the audience as Shakespeare intended.
At least six or seven years pass after the writing of Midsummer Night’s Dream before we find Shakespeare engaged in Hamlet, the second of the great plays with an important Supernatural element, and, in the opinion of many, the greatest tragedy ever penned. (99) There is no more exalted ranking than the above. Richard A. Lanham in the essay “Superposed Plays” maintains that no other English tragedy has generated the literary comment which this play has produced: “Hamlet is one of the great tragedies. It has generated more comment than any other written document in English literature, one would guess, reverent, serious comment on it as a serious play” (91).
The epic actors must be be able narrate and demonstrate simultaneously as well as to follows Brecht’s rule on being detached from their character. The actor must always remember that they are an actor on stage expressing another’s emo...
While the genre of some works of literature can be debated, Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare, seems to fit into a perfect mold. Aristotle’s definition of a tragedy, combining seven elements that he believes make the genre of a work a tragedy, is that mold. Displaying all seven aspects, Macbeth fits the definition precisely. Key elements in the play substantiate the fact that Macbeth is a serious story, the first elements of Aristotle’s definition. From the first lines of the play, the mood is set featuring witches who speak of witchcraft, potions and apparitions.
Hamlet is not only a representation of the world, but it is a presentation of the theatricality of the world, and it aims to acquire the detachment that allows self-reflection. According to Catherine Jo Dixon, the word “meta-theatre” is derived from the Greek prefix meta, which signifies a “level beyond the subject that it qualifies” (1). Arguably one of the most memorable examples of meta-theatricality is from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet in Act III, Scene II, where Hamlet stages a play in an attempt to “catch the conscience of the King” (2.2.526). However, while this is one instance of meta-theatre in Hamlet, Shakespeare created an entire work infused with meta-theatre, either through the direct use of theatre or theatrical metaphors and imagery. Others include Polonius’ praise and report on the Players (Ham. 2.2.325-29), Hamlet’s advice to the Players (Ham. 3.2.1-39), and Hamlet’s antic disposition. The effect of this was that it allowed the emphasis of the contrast between truth and pretence, reality and illusion.
William Shakespeare’s usage of stage techniques and language effects in Macbeth are extraordinarily used in creating gradual tension from the moment King Duncan is killed by Macbeth, followed by a short relaxation period and then increasing it again until the climax point of the act of regicide. The reader and the audience are kept in suspense right from the beginning of the play until the final scene.
The ideas of Bertolt Brecht (1898-1965) changed the theatre in many ways. Brecht along with Erwin Piscator developed the style of Epic theatre style contrasting to previous accepted styles. Presentational in form, Epic theatre is a vehicle for social comment through techniques such as: alienation, historification, eclectic influences (highly Asian), constructivism in scenery, disjointed and illogical scene placement, ordinary clothing and lighting, the use of music to detach the audience from emotion, placards and signs and projected images. Didactic in nature Brecht’s works aim to challenge the audience to assess socially accepted norms and educate them to injustices often overlooked by the public. The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Brecht, 1944) written during the time of Nazi Germany occupation has a clearly political and social focus.
Theatre as we know it now was born more than two thousand years ago and has gone through many streams until it reached the current modernity. Among these streams is the avant-garde theatre. This theatre achieved a break in the traditional theatre and became the forefront of a new experimental theatre. Therefore it is necessary to ask how this theatre started, what impact it had on society and if this type of theatre is still common in our modern era.