Styles Of American Theatre

Mac Kenzie Mayo

Theatre 110 – Final Paper

Professor Kraszpulska

11/25/2014

Styles of theatre are essentially based upon different time periods and cultures. There are several different styles throughout the world ranging from as early as 700 BC to present day. The origins of theatre are not fully known but from ancient artifacts, journals, hieroglyphics have shown some history regarding theatre. Since computers and cell phones were unavailable during those time it shows that storytelling and passing down tradition was a big deal back in the day of no technology. Not only was storytelling a big practice among the people they often-exaggerating many of the events that had happened in the stories as well. By sharing these stories to younger

generations this gave young children a guide on how to live their lives. Styles such as Greek, Roman, Modern, and Musical are different but similar in the fact that they have been passed down and improved upon.
Many of the plays that are performed in the times of early theatre are clouded by myth.

Many of the playwrights were guided by social status and political opinion. Soon enough this turned into tradition and then ultimately ceremony. Because of the way things were being done and new traditions being formed this made theatre a much bigger deal.

According to the mythologist Joseph Campbell, Power was a major influence among theatre. Rituals were often done in order to gain glory from the gods. The rituals were mainly to glory something supernatural such as heroes. To represent heroes and their supernatural gifts the costumes and masks were exaggerated. Although the rituals were a duty to the people in order to please the gods they also entertained society. The rituals were based on myths and since the stories were passed down from generation to generation they became

tradition.
Greek theatre began very early, 700 B.C. to be exact. The theme of Greek theatre was to honor more than one god. Each god was worshiped and portrayed differently. The god, Dionysus, had his own festival. During the festival the people would get drunk and be dressed in goatskin due to the thought that goats were sexual beings. To welcome Dionysus the men would play and sing. There would be a contest among each group of people and winning the contest was a high honor. Between the four festivals in Athens, each during a different season of the year, the only festival that there were performances at was the City Dionysus Festival. Many believe that the festivals put on by the Greek honoring their gods were similar to those of Egyptian pageants they held for their own gods.
During the earlier times in Greek festivals, the actor was the director and the dramatists were the actor and the director, essentially being the same person. As time went on instead of each role being the same person they began to use three actors. Soon enough non-verbal characters were on the stage. Due to the lack of space on the stage the orchestra and chorus became a large part of the play itself. The number of people that participated in the chorus is unknown they were still granted the opportunity to have a total of half the lines that were spoken throughout the play. While the chorus spoke their lines, music generally followed.
There were not many tragedies written during this time period but the accomplishments of Greek tragedy are still understood by modern audiences. Since the Greeks believe that goats were sexually “potent” they use to term tragedy. It means "goat song." Many playwrights were based on mythology and have a main character in search of themselves through nature and the gods. After the climactic moment the chorus introduces a period called the paradox. When the chorus introduces this part of the play that is when the mood is established. When the play comes to a conclusion it is called an exodus and that is when the actors and chorus exit the stage.
Tragedy playwrights during ancient Greek theatre were Sophocles, and Euripides, and Aeschylus. Aeschylus had written the oldest tragedies not only in Greek theatre but also in the world. Only a few plays have survived which are The Persians and the Oresteia trilogy. Aeschylus is attributed with the introducing the second actor to the stage. Another Greek playwright was Sophocles, who wrote Antigone, Electra, and Oedipus Rex that of which are still read today. Sophocles competed in contests and never placed below second place. He contributed to Greek theatre in many ways such as having a third actor introduced to the stage, instead of an unknown amount of chorus member it was capped out to fifteen and he introduced scene painting. Euripides wrote 90 plays and today only 18 survive. Medea, Hercules and The Trojan Women are plays still read today. He was known for being a little untraditional on stage. Euripides was very into understanding a character further than their appearance and how they have motivations that can contribute to their actions. Shakespeare then adopted this mind-set in later years.
Comedy was important theme in ancient Greek theatre as well. There is no record about the origin of comedy in Greek theatre but is said to be based on imitation. Any comedy written during this period claimed to be written by Aristophanes. He is known to have competed in many festivals in Athens. He has a record of writing 40 plays. Aristophanes also wrote The Birds. Only 11 are still named today included his most controversial, Lysistrata, a tale about a females attempt to end war in Greece. Even though only 44 pieces of literature are well known from this time period, the ancient Greeks were known for drama in the Western world.
Roman theatre then came about but instead of rituals and myth it was based on religion.

Music, dance, and masks were essentially in Roman celebrations. The first Roman performance occurred in Rome around 364 B.C. the Romans are known to take strategies from other cultures and improve to make a bigger, better performance. Although the Romans used Greek strategies during their performances they had improved it so much that it was ultimately there own.

Compared to ancient Greece, comedy trumped tragedy in Rome. Titus Maccius Plautus was a Roman comedy writer. He has written 130 plays including The Braggart Warrior, The Casket and Pot of Gold. Publius Terentius Afer was another Roman comedy writer who only wrote six plays, including Mother-in-Law, Self-Tormentor and The Brother. Although they were both on different level based on entertainment terms Terrence’s writing is believe to be much deeper than Afer’s.

The god of Venus was Rome’s idol and the design of the performance area was built based on her. The design was much more elaborate than lead to be. The theaters had a designated orchestra area. The pulpitum or stage was raised and had a curtain. The scaenae frons was the method of scenery for Roman

theatre.
Because theatre was rapidly changing and becoming a large portion of the entertainment for people there was a need for someone to be in charge. Georg II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen was the first director. He generally enjoyed directing historical plays during the 19th century. He not only directed but also created a majority of the props, costumes and scenes. Instead of having fake light on directed on the stage he wanted realistic light, wanted the speech of the characters to be realistic, and stage mechanics and historically accurate. He adopted the practice of long rehearsal schedules and the idea of ensemble acting. He created blocked crowded scenes and groups, which made a small number of actors seem like a large gathering which is called “blocking.”
The United States' Belasco was another modern playwright that was big on realistic scenes. He created one of the most modern lighting instruments of that time. Other scenic designers were Edward Craig who featured drapery in his designs, and Appia, a Swiss designer who used three-dimensional scenery and used the stage floor as a part of his set (Columbia).
The playwright Heinrich Ibsen wrote 25 plays during the late 1800s, two of which are, A Doll's House and Hedda Gabler. Ibsen left Norway in 1862, eventually settling in Italy for a time. There he wrote Brand, a five-act tragedy about a clergyman whose devotion to his faith costs him his family and ultimately his life in 1865. Ibsen is remembered to be the father of modern realism. He is best known for his ability to show the audience the relationships and backgrounds associated with each character. Many of the themes throughout his plays were scandalous for the 19th century. Four other plays by Ibsen are Ghosts, Peergynt, The Wild Duck, and The Master Builder. Another well-known playwright along with Isben during this time was Russian writer Anton Chekhov, who wrote The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard. German playwrights included Gerhart Hauptmann who wrote The Weavers, which included more than one protagonist for the first time.
France, at the time was also very gifted in its ability to produce a good play. Playwrights such as Alexandre Dumas who wrote The Demi-Monde and The Lady of the Camellias, now usually referred to as Camille is about a prostitute with a golden heart. Dumas considered himself to be a realist. He mostly wrote about social and political issues.
Music has been a main element in theatre since the early times. Music can be argued to be the most important element of a play. Musical theatre as its own specific genre has developed dramatically over the last 150 years and has became a popular form of entertainment. By the late 19th century, black musical comedy and operas have expanded the ability to produce these types of plays.
The Golden Age of the American musical theatre spans the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, but contained two distinct phases. The first, lasting from 1900 to the late 1920s, was an age of musical comedy, emphasizing comedy, singing, romance, and spectacular dancing. They also featured extremely simple plots, characters that were strictly romantic or comedic, unchallenging themes, and cheerful singing and dancing with little or no connection to the plot. In Harlem, the black musical attracted mixed-race audiences with its catchy tunes and energetic dancing. The musical comedy form was highly entertaining, but the Golden Age's second phase, musical drama, would shift its features into the form with which many people are familiar today. Increasingly sophisticated musical treatments and serious plots, now carried by the music and dancing as well as the dialogue, characterized the new phase. Works like Show Boat, Porgy and Bess, Oklahoma!, The King and I, and Fiddler on the Roof would achieve a level of commercial success unparalleled in the theatre's previous history.
Stephen Sondheim has been the greatest influence on modern musical theatre. His work, characterized by a disturbing plot, ironic and sometimes cynical tone, skepticism about conventional morality, and sophisticated, adult, and intricately rhymed lyrics in a score with surprising rhythms has introduced new subject matter and form to the musical in works such as Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, and Assassins. Commonly these are sung-through musicals, such as Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats and Phantom of the Opera or Frenchmen Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg's Lés Miserables and Miss Siagon. Sung-through musicals feature lush musical scores and no spoken dialogue. The most spectacular Broadway success of a generation, however, has been Mel Brooks' The Producers, a return to classic musical comedy of the 1930s that won twelve Tony Awards and has had tickets sold-out up to a year in advance. The modern musical has increasingly undertaken serious subjects, such as homosexuality, race relations, and environmental degradation. Black musicals have explored African-American culture and cultural issues, while family musicals have been recently pioneered to attract new audiences. Rock and other forms of music have extended the musical vocabulary of the genre, which has become the dominant force in Broadway theatre.