Noted theatre producer Sudhir Bhat, who died of a heart attack late last night in Hinduja hospital, was a man with a mission. His mission was to produce commercially successful Marathi plays and show case them for a Marathi diaspora, settled in the United States of America. He continued with this single motivational project for around three decades in which he produced over 80 plays, which accounted for 17,000 shows. Eight of his plays crossed the 1000 show mark,. He perfected theatre economics into an art and lived true to his notion of entertainment. His drama company Suyog (1985) produced some noteworthy plays like Char Divas Premache, Shree Tashi Sau, Eka Lagnachi Goshta, Hich Tar Premachi Gammat Aahe, Diwasa Tu Ratri Me, Moruchi Maushi, Ti Phulrani.
Bhat was a builder by profession though he devoted considerable time for the theatre business. Some fellow producers teased him as "contractor-producer.' They also criticized his repertoire of commercially successful actors, particularly faces that he usually banked on (Prashant Damle, Vikram Gokhale, Kavita Lad, Dilip Prabhaval...
Leon Bakst, originally with the name of Lev Samuilovich, was born in Belarus on April 27,1866, into bourgeois Jewish family. He was the youngest of four children making him very overindulged with attention; he also always had his parent’s devotion due to his severe mood-sings and fragile state, the same ones that later play a major role in his life. Soon after Leon was born, him and his family moved to Russia’s capital, St. Petersburg and this would remain as Bakst’s home for nearly 30 years. Bakst was exposed to the theatre as soon as he was old enough to attend, which is what began his interest in addition to his constant exposure and encouragement to read. Bakst was known for incorporating the characters and ideas from the fantasies he read with the theatrical life his experienced in the theatres and created shows along with his sisters for his family.
The duration and cost of the production have been compared to other media which provide entertainment, such as television and film. A theatre performance is more expensive to attend than cinema. The play only lasted for 85 minutes, a film can go on for two hours or even more. This can have a big influence on why people would choose one medium over the other. Accessibility has also to be taken into account when investigating the relevance of theatre in the 21st century. Television is a medium which can be accessed from home, and usually doesn’t cost a lot of money, whereas theatre costs money and is harder to access. Although the production was Australian, the actors talked with an American accent. Bearing in mind that the play was written in America, which could make it harder for an Australian audience to familiarise with the dilemmas going on, on stage, while the themes discussed seem to be more relevant there than in Australia. Overall this play doesn’t contribute to the relevance of Australian theatre in the 21st century, due to the many other sources people can access for entertainment, and because the play seems to be more relevant for an American audience rather than an
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”.
Theatre Journal 57.4 (2005): 598-600. Print.
Kershaw, Baz. The Politics of Performance. Radical Theatre as Cultural Intervention. New York: Routledge, 1992.
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.
In most college theatrical studies, the focus of history remains primarily on Western theatre and familiar cultures. In Eastern studies, the culture is so incredibly different from our Western world that it takes an enormous amount of studying to even begin to comprehend their theatre. Kabuki theatre in Japan is one of the most complex and historically rich theatre types of the Eastern world, with possibly the most controversial and interesting beginning. Upon entering a modern kabuki production, the atmosphere is completely different from anything Western-made, with symbolism prevalent in everything from costumes to makeup to music. The stock characters are a familiar tool, but these characters are nothing like the typical archetypes we see in movies or even play productions. The theatre housing the entire production is beyond anything like the proscenium stages we see today, and even the actors themselves seem larger than life. Though these kabuki productions may seem like high class entertainment for the educated and wealthy, the origins of kabuki theatre were anything but classy. (Lecture notes from Claire McDonald)
Brecht argues that the ultimate purpose of play is to induce pleasure and to entertain, and that--because of this purpose--play needs no justification. Plays should not be simply copied from or seen through older performances, but need to develop on their own to better relate to a new audience. Through the use of alienation which aims to make the familiar unfamiliar, play and theatre can be seen under a new perspective, and the actor can feel more free to perform under a new guise.
First of all, I’m going to start with musical comedy murder of 1940. Before the play started I was skeptical about watching a play because I thought it was going to be boring. I had a long time not attending to a theatrical play so; I kind of forgot how it felt to be watching a live play. When I arrived to the theater I felted welcome pleasant from the people who welcomed everyone to come inside the theatre. The play turns out to be amazing through the whole play I was laughing, excited it really caught my attention because the actors did a terrific job playing each scene and lines. The setting and lights of the play was plan very well for example; in of the scene actors and actress talked
Varma, Rahul, et al. "Change the World, One Play at a Time: Teesri Duniya Theatre and the Aesthetics of Social Action." Canadian Theatre Review 125 (Winter 2006): 69-74. EBSCOhost,
Rao, S. (2007). The globalization of bollywood: An ethnography of non-elite audiences in india. The communication Review, 10(1), 57-76. doi: 10.1080/10714420601168491
Willett, John, trans. and ed. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. New York: Hill and Wang, 1986.
The changes in technology gave lighting to the theatres. The change in theatre brought around a new group of audiences. Its change from Neoclassicism to Romanticism paved the way for plays such as Hernani. It’s understandable that nineteenth century theatre has changed dramatically.
In this paper, I will be focusing briefly on my knowledge and understanding of the concept of Applied theatre and one of its theatre form, which is Theatre in Education. The term Applied Theatre is a broad range of dramatic activity carried out by a crowd of diverse bodies and groups.
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.