In the genre of theatre, there are multiple plays and playwrights that touch on controversial topics found throughout society. These playwrights utilize their own personal styles and theatrical elements to convey a certain message or theme to their audience.
Issues such as the social structure of society, poverty, political matters, and many more are addressed by the plot of these works, with the playwright portraying their thoughts on the subject through the use of dramatic form. Playwrights structure their creations with varying aspects of this structures in the best possible manner to connect with the audience. Some may prefer to focus on a deep plot with realistic characters, while others may pay more attention to how the characters interact
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Wilson uses the word “nigger” multiple times creating racial discomfort in the audience, while Churchill utilizes knowledge such as “fuck”, “bitch” and multiple others, creating sexual discomfort. These playwrights use this language to not make the plot more interesting or jarring, but instead to provided a realistic situation. They break the wall that the audience may put up about some certain themes in the plays by using language that they are not accustomed to hearing. For Wilson, the use of the word “nigger” makes the play as whole realistic and gives insight into the family dynamics of African Americans. The word is known to have two contexts, one being more friendly while the other has a more abusive origin. Troy constantly uses the word in abusive context in regard to Cory, adding on to the abusive paternal figure that Wilson wishes to portray. Instead of having Martin use language to demean Victoria and Lin, Churchill instead makes his dialogue about sex more vulgar. This blatant vulgarity is a satire on the idea that one of a man’s main goals is to have sexual dominance. In one scene, Martin uses the word “fuck” ad nauseam after accidentally being asked to become a part of an orgy. This speech about “fucking” gives light to the sexually explicit and dominant nature of his masculinity. Both Wilson and …show more content…
Both plays include dialogue between the couples where the husband speaks as though he has the dominance over the conversation. In Fences its Troy explaining the reason why he cheated and did what he did ( seemingly without strong remorse), or in Cloud Nine where Clive forgives Betty for her infidelity and blaming her gender as the reason. Both of these men are seen as completely rude and irrational at this point, a quality that both Playwrights believed that hyper masculine individuals have. These situations also show the absurd aspects found in both plays and how the absurdity parallels those involved in the
The title of the work, Fences, acts as an extended metaphor throughout the play. Troy builds fences between himself and virtually everyone in the play, isolating himself further and further as he clings to the past and refuses to adapt to a world changing around him. He builds a fence between himself and his friend Bono when he takes a promotion at work, and then puts a fence between he and Rose when he goes outside of the confines of their marriage with Alberta. He also builds a fence between himself and Cory by his refusal to acknowledge his son's dreams. As Bogumil states, "By drawing a strict boundary around himself regarding familial relations, Troy loses virtually every sense of affection and bond between himself and his son, causing Cory to conclude that his father does not even like him" (48). When Cory alludes to the question of his father liking him, Troy responds, "....cause I like you? You about the biggest fool I ever saw." He continues with, "You my flesh and blood. Not 'cause I like you! Cause it's my duty to take care of you. I owe a responsibility to you! (Wilson, 38). Later in the play, in the end of Act Two, Scene Four, Troy and
The Union enjoyed overall success in the Western Theater in 1862, but the year also brought defeat and setbacks between the times of Grant’s River War and the Battle at Stones River during the Civil War. These events contradicted the Unions success with strategic embarrassments that demonstrated the Union’s youth in military strategy in handling two separate theaters and management of men and goods.
August Wilson is a well-known playwright from the 1980s, in which he wrote and published the “Pittsburg Cycle”, a series of plays about struggling black families in the city. In Wilson’s 1983 play, “Fences”, the topics of oppression and betrayal are discussed through the trials of a family living in Pittsburg whom the odds are seemingly stacked against. This play was made into a movie, where the trials and tribulations of this family are brought to life. Troy and Rose, husband and wife of eighteen years, share one climatic scene in which all the issues they face bubble to the surface. In this scene, Wilson utilizes rhetorical strategies to enhance the emotional appeal for the audience.
Going into Act II Troy is cheating on Rose, and Troy begins losing all the respect from the ones who loved him. I believe that as a result of Troy’s actions in August Wilson’s play Fences, Rose and Cory lose respect and love for Troy. Troy’s actions push Rose away, creating a lack of respect and love for her husband. Troy comes clean about seeing another woman when he finds out she’s pregnant with his child.
The history of African-Americans in theatre in performing arts and how they evolved is absolutely outstanding. African-Americans been entertaining audiences since the 1800s until this very day. It has made a colossal impact on the black theater community in today. The history of this topic is a combination of legendary years leading up to this very day. It’s mostly about how blacks, in the 1820s, finally got to take their theatre and performance name from the whites. Then took it upon themselves to stride for greatness.
June 1st, 1921 will forever be remembered as a day of great loss and devastation. It was on this day that America experienced the deadliest race riot in the small town of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Ninety-four years later, that neighborhood is still recognized as one of the most prosperous African American neighborhoods to date. With hundreds of successful black-owned businesses lining Greenwood Avenue, it became a standard that African Americans are still trying to rebuild. The attack that took place in 1921 tore the community apart, claiming hundreds of lives and sending the once prosperous neighborhood up in smoke.
Players in Los Angeles the most. The theater has introduced to the world over one hundred interesting plays and musicals that talk about the Asian American stories. From the early days of development, Asian American actors were very interested in playing roles of well-known characters in the history such as Shakespeare in traditional way, but Asian American writers couldn’t create a suitable program that worked best for actors in expressing the truly Asian American culture until the 1970s. As the result, nowadays plays and musicals produced by East West Players Company are all written in an Asian sense. The one thing that I like about the theater is that they work not only in favor of any specific Asian culture, not only about Chinese, Vietnamese
The National Black Theater (NBT) is one of the few surviving black theaters created during the Black Arts Movement. The theater was founded in 1968 in Harlem, New York by the late Dr. Barbara Ann Teer. Dr. Teer was known as an award winning artist and entrepreneur. She worked for the community sending out a message of positivity through hardships. Dr.Teer used the theater to uplift the community through black arts. Fortunately, she accomplished her goal because the theater has been serving the community for 46 years. NBT works through three top core programs such as Theatre Arts Program (TAP), Entrepreneurial Arts Program (EAP) and the Communication Arts Program (CAP). Each program brings in different elements that contributes to the success
A play serves as the author's tool for critiquing society. One rarely encounters the ability to transcend accepted social beliefs. These plays reflect controversial issues that the audience can relate to because they interact in the same situations every day. As late nineteenth century playwrights point out the flaws of mankind they also provide an answer to the controversy. Unknowingly the hero or heroine solves the problem at the end of the play and indirectly sends a message to the audience on how to solve their own problem. <br><br>Henrik Ibsen and Anton Chekov both provide unique analysis on issues their culture never thought as wrong. In the play A Doll's House Ibsen tackles women's rights as a matter of importance being neglected.
Over the course of approximately one-hundred years there has been a discernible metamorphosis within the realm of African-American cinema. African-Americans have overcome the heavy weight of oppression in forms such as of politics, citizenship and most importantly equal human rights. One of the most evident forms that were withheld from African-Americans came in the structure of the performing arts; specifically film. The common population did not allow blacks to drink from the same water fountain let alone share the same television waves or stage. But over time the strength of the expectant black actors and actresses overwhelmed the majority force to stop blacks from appearing on film. For the longest time the performing arts were
Finding the core of something as broad as black theatre is an ultimate task for one to take on. Black theatre is very complex in nature and structure and not everyone agrees on the exact components of what black theatre really is. How does anyone decide what black theatre is? Who has the right to decide what black theatre is? What are these decisions based on? It has been my privilege to explore these aspects of black theatre. Through extensive research and discovery, I plan to evaluate the perceptions of what black theatre is and develop a refined definition of black theatre.
Fences took place in the 1950’s, during that time the role of women in the 1950 was repressive and constrictive in a lot of ways. The 1950s is often viewed as a period of conformity, when both men and women observed strict gender roles and complied with society’s expectations (Women in 1950’s). Society placed a very high significance on different expectations on behavior in public as well as at home. Women were to be homemakers, caring mothers, and to be an obedient wife to their husbands. A wife was only considered a “good wife” if she did anything and everything her husband asked for and agreed with everything the man would say. This was the type of way Troy treated Rose in fences and how he thought of women and their
In our lives, we are surrounded by moments of tragedy that drives our will to keep moving forward. Our daily lifestyles are no different from the famous stories that playwrights have written throughout history. Playwrights are masters at combining theatre elements of tragedy, religion, violence, and numerous relative elements that the audience embrace faithfully. Today, Greek and Roman influence is the main topic since they have inspired the famous plays Desire under the Elms and The Glass Menagerie.
Schools use Shakespeare as a tool to educate and thus stimulate a widespread familiarly in his works. Schools believe that by performing and reading Shakespeare, students are equipped with extensive language skills as well being able to explore their imagination and ideas through drama. 8 Similarly, stage and film productions reuse Shakespeare’s scripts as this allows room for creativity for each new performance. Since his scripts are used, this means that there is a standard story for the audience to make comparisons on the casts and characters played over various performances. Hence the performers will have to inject new and creatively interesting ways of bringing Shakespeare’s works into life, lest they lose their audience. In addition, although each audience will view every performance with varied interpretations as Shakespeare's plays bring the audience into real life situations. Due to the differing personal experiences of each member of the audience, emotions and thoughts will be provoked. This keeps the thinking and feeling person wanting to come back for more of Shakespeare’s works to discover more about him or herself.
Drama and dramatic performances have consistently been present throughout human society, both as a medium for entertainment as well as a forum for education and critique. Aristophanes, the “father of modern drama”, was the first to really successfully amalgamate these two ideas together within his dramatic pieces, as can be seen in his works Wasps and Frogs. Shakespeare was the next great dramatist, and arguably the great dramatist, and he has evolved Aristophanes’ ideas and methods and developed them to greater extent. These can be seen in works such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear and Hamlet, but are present in the large majority of his works. And with