Theatrical productions require the audience to invest themselves into the story onstage. However, there is always a presence of an aesthetic distance, or the physical and psychological detachment of the audience from dramatic action needed for artistic solution, either very little or to a great extent. The different aspects and elements present in the production can have a large effect on the aesthetic distance, and such is the case with the use of the stage or the stage space. If the performance occurs mostly downstage, edging towards the apron of the stage, the audience is able to literally bring themselves closer to the performance and watch with less of an detachment. On the other hand, if the performer takes place mostly upstage, the audience …show more content…
In other words, the audience realizes that, at the end of the day, the characters onstage are fictional and the story is not real. However, there are times when the characters onstage or in the production will realize that their story is being watched. This realization by the characters or character in a production is called the “breaking of the fourth-wall”. The fourth-wall is the idea that, in any performance, there is an wall that is invisible to the actors in which the audience looks into the performance through; thus, when the fourth-wall is broken, the audience is visible to the characters. The presence of the fourth-wall is most prevalent when an audience member acts obnoxiously and distracts the other people present in the auditorium, but the characters onstage are not affected at all by this person, as if they are in a separate room. On the other hand, the absence of the fourth-wall can be noted when a character onstage directly looks at and speaks to audience, as if they were in the same …show more content…
A proscenium stage is a stage in which the audience, seated in the orchestra, faces the stage in one direction as the layout of a proscenium stage resembles that of the traditional movie theater. Proscenium stages are ideal for a spectacle as “cloud machines brought angels; … a banquet hall was changed to a forest; [and] smoke, fire, twinkling lights and every imaginable effect appeared … by magic” (Wilson, 140). The large-scale musical, such is the case with Wicked, Hairspray, and The Lion King, would be enhanced by the use of this theatre stage as the design team can add necessary and extraordinary effects that contribute to the “wow” factor that these musicals
Throughout the piece, we see the use of audience as active participants to amplify the didactic message of the play. In the literature we see many instances where the author uses this cognitive distancing as a way to disrupt the stage illusion and make the audience active members of the play. Forcing the audience into an analytical standpoint as opposed to passively accepting whats happening in their conscious minds. This occurs time and time again in the fourth act of the play. The characters repeatedly break down the fourth wall and engage the audience with open participation. We see this in the quotation from the end of the fourth Act of the play:
Every theatergoer may consider the question: What is it about performance that draws people to sit and listen attentively in a theater, watching other people labor on stage and hoping to be moved and provoked, challenged and comforted? In Utopia in Performance, Jill Dolan “argues that live performance provides a place where people come together, embodied and passionate, to share experiences of meaning making and imagination that can describe or capture fleeting intimations of a better world (p.2)”. She traces the sense of visceral, emotional, and social connection that we experience at such times, connections that allow audience members to sense a better world, and the hopeful utopic sentiment might become motivation for civic engagement
It follows a routinized and learned social script shaped by cultural norms. Waiting in line for something, boarding a bus and flashing a transit pass, and exchanging pleasantries about the weekend with colleagues are all examples of routinized and scripted front stage performances. The routines of our daily lives that take place outside of our homes like traveling to and from work, shopping, dining out or going to a cultural exhibit. The performances we put together with those around us follow familiar rules and expectations for what we do, what we talk about, and how we interact with each other in each setting” (n.d.) while the back region is “what we do when no one is looking. Being at home instead of out in public, or at work or school, is the clearest demarcation of the difference between front and backstage in social life. We are often more relaxed and comfortable when backstage, we let our guard down, and be what our uninhibited or true selves. Often when we are backstage we rehearse certain behaviors or interactions and otherwise prepare ourselves for upcoming front stage
...re as same as the audience use in their everyday life. Easily connecting to the audience, with visual, audio and performer’s performance” one can imagine himself/herself in performer’s shoes.
In the 1960’s, culture and society saw great upheavals and changes, changes that would affect every aspect of life in America. Naturally, theatre came to be affected in due time, as could be seen in the new subject matter found in the plots of new plays. One of the aspects that came to be affected was scenery of the time. Theater is a diverse and complex art. It requires collaboration among many artists, craftspeople, and managers in order to create a performance for audiences. Since the time of the ancient Greeks, theatrical events have included such production elements as costumes, scenery, properties, music, and choreography. Lighting and sound are more recent additions. Each element in today's theater has its own designer, composer, or choreographer, who collaborates with the director to focus the audience's attention on the actor in the special environment or seeing place. In addition to the actor and the audience in a space, other elements of theater include a written or improvised text, costumes, scenery, lights, sound, and properties (props). Most theatrical performances require the collaborative efforts of many creative people working toward a common goal: the production. Fundamental to the theater experience is the act of seeing and being seen; in fact, the word theater comes from the Greek word theatron, meaning "seeing place." Throughout the history of world cultures, actors have used a variety of locations for theater, including amphitheaters, churches, marketplaces, garages, street corners, warehouses, and formal buildings. It is not the building that makes theater but rather the use of space for actors to imitate human experience before audiences.
This essay will investigate a variety of different approaches to using film by both Forced Entertainment and Frantic Assembly. Both companies claim to produce energetic, memorable and contemporary theatre and have both incorporated the use of film in their works. Although Frantic Assembly and Forced Entertainment both produce work that is placed under the umbrella of physical theatre, their ways of working and the work they produce differs from other theatre companies which also adopt this title. The two companies I will discuss have differences and similarities in their approaches to using film and have both incorporated it into their practices in groundbreaking ways. From the use of actual moving film in their stage performance, to exploring the different elements of film and exploring ways in which those same principles can be adapted unto the stage. Frantic Assembly and Forced Entertainment make claims of creating innovative theatre that offers to lure and shock spectators. Their works demonstrate that they are both in constant exploration to push and break the boundaries of how theatre is viewed today. Both Frantic Assembly and Forced Entertainment have always created theatre that is influential and relevant with the times, so it comes as no surprise that the use of film has been a big influence on the their works.
In each and every culture theater exists. However, they are not always portrayed in the same way and could take up many different forms. What differ them from others is influenced by the convention of what governs them. What happen on stage depends on the conventions of the theater. Convention is define as “Rules governing a given style of theater, such as fourth-wall verisimilitude or bare stage. These rule should not be violated, but often are, as when actors “break” the fourth wall by delivering a line directly toward the audience” (Altshuler and Janaro 208). The condition governing the staging and performance are known as theatrical conventions, in which what the audiences agree to accept as what is real (Altshuler and Janaro 173). In comparing an Elizabethan and a modern theater to each other there are many differences and similarities between the two. By comparing William Shakespeare “Hamlet” to Lorraine Hansberry “A Raisin in the Sun”, we can see that there is a major difference between the two
Breaking the fourth wall, or, penetrating the audience’s suspension of disbelief, demonstrates the way that actors and playwrights throughout the ages have honed the power of literature. Speaking directly to the audience as a way to encourage a realistic interpretation, despite physical accuracy or on stage representation, creates a mindset that transforms the play into an objective work of art, and a lens through which the audience can view themselves and the world around them. The specific rhetorical strategies that Shakespeare uses in both Puck’s epilogue in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the Chorus’ speeches in Henry V, act to place the imaginative labor of realistic interpretation onto the audience, while encouraging appreciation for both
The play Our Town written by Thornton Wilder is considered a modern piece of literature. One way this is considered an unique piece of literature is by breaking the fourth wall. The breaking of the fourth wall is done by the stage manager in this play. The breaking of the fourth wall is someone from the play interacting with the audience. If just one character interacts in this way is considered breaking of the fourth wall. The stage manager interacts as if he is in the play, but yet he still talks and relates somewhat to the audience. The playwright Thornton Wilder forces the audience to use their own imaginations to “see” his imaginary image of the New England town of Grover’s Corners because of the lack of props. The effect of the stage
In a recent performance of the two-man murder mystery at the Geffen playhouse entitled, Murder For Two, the show actively breaks the illusion of the fourth wall by addressing the audience throughout the performance. For example, one of the two actors, who plays multiple characters, breaks character and the fourth wall in order to address the audience when sound effects for a ringing phone are played. In the plays world, its simply the phone of the second actor’s character who is trying to receive a phone call to advance the plot, but in the audience’s world for a split second it seems like the noise is embarrassingly coming from a member of the house. This created some of the funniest moments of the show because of how separate the moment was from the play’s reality. It had such an effective response from the audience simply put, because it was more poignant about the world’s infatuation with cell phone usage than the content of the play, which was purposefully implausible and unbelievable. A choice like this could not be made without directly addressing the audience’s world politically; otherwise it simply would not get a laugh. Whether or not the audience continues to use their phone in public places, the audience, in that moment, took a critical look at their societal state and laughed at it. True Brechtian Theater encapsulates all genres and emotions with the political and
According to Erving Goffman’s performances theory, the way we interpret ourselves is similar to a theater in which we are all actors on a stage playing a variety of roles. The way in which we act in front of a group of observers or audience is our performance. Goffman introduces the idea that we are always performing for our observers like actors performing on a stage. The impression that we give off to an audience in a scenario is the actor’s front. You can compare an actor’s front to a script. Certain scenarios have scripts that suggest the actor how he or she should behave in every situation. The setting for the performances includes the location and scenery in which the acing takes place.
The shape of the theatre allows each spectator to see some of his fellow spectators as well... so they could see and respond to their collective reaction t...
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht, (b.1898-d.1956), known commonly as Bertolt Brecht, was a German poet and playwright. One of his major contributions to theatre history was the “alienation effect” (From the German, “Verfremdungseffekt”). Brechtian alienation requires the removal of the “fourth wall.” This is a term that describes the “suspension of disbelief” by the audience that takes place during a performance. It is often thought that the audience looks in on the play’s action through an invisible wall, just as the audience during a performance is focused upon a procenium stage. This is a literal and figurative term. The audience pretends that the characters in the story are actually alive, living in their own world instead of actors performing on a stage. In order for the fourth wall to remain intact, the actors must also, in effect, pretend that the audience does not exist, by staying in character at all times and by not addressing the audience members directly.
A mere mention of the term theatre acts as a relief to many people. It is in this place that a m...
Nevertheless, the question at hand is whether theatre will have a role in the society of the future, where cinema, digital television, and computers will continue to expand and grow. The answer to this question is yes. Heading into the 21st century, theatre will only be a fraction in a solid media industry. However, despite all the excitement technology brings with it, they will never replace theatre because it has something that can not be recreated or offered anywhere else. The cinema and its larger than life world appeals as an affordable alternative. Digital television provides digital interaction between the viewer and the producer. Theatre on the other hand, and its contents may take on a larger dimension, but we receive it directly in flesh and blood – one to one. The magical atmosphere between an actor and spectator who are constantly aware of each other and the theatre’s level of engagement is fundamentally more human and far more intimate.