During the 17th and 18th century, drama played a huge role in impacting the urban environment of Beijing and Edo, and its citizens. Drama, transcended through the virtuality of fictional play and characters that come to parallel the everyday life of locals. Although Beijing and Edo are two different cultural regions in the East, their similarity could be accounted for in their inclusiveness of the local commoners through applying the worldview of lower rank members of society to execute the play. However, their differences lie in the Edo culture instilling a certain sentiment within the urban people to act on social injustice or issues. Though drama in Beijing remains to be an instrumental tool for members of society to relay messages, and act a means to communicate their true thoughts that could not otherwise be outspoken in a conservative and authoritarian era. In Beijing, the two most prominent types of drama are known as Peking Opera and Chinese Shadow Theatre. In Peking Opera, troupes are usually invited to enter the palace to perform their plays. However, the play that gets to be staged and performed very much gets decided by the audience in the case that it is performed in the palace. Since misconduct and outspokenness is highly frowned upon in the palace and court, Peking drama is often used to relay implicit messages that the person selecting the drama wants the audience to comprehend. For example, Empress Dowager “Cixi often ordered a Peking Opera called
Answer with reference to at least one stage drama that you have seen or studied.
Theatre and Musical Theatre has been a form of entertainment since before North America was “discovered”. Broadway shows have been dated back to the early 1920’s and 1930’s. By 2016, over 25,000 tickets are sold to Broadway shows in a week. Thousands of people enjoy the shows that are featured on Broadway but have no idea the work and process that brought it to life. The process of getting a show on to Broadway can be broken down into three phases: pre-production, staging, and performance/promotion.
"A Philosophy of Theater « " East of Mina. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2011.
This weekend I decided to go to a play that I have hear people talking about as I walked the streets. Many people were discussing the drama that goes behind this play and as much as I wanted to join the conversation, I had to find out for myself since no one will talk to me. I have much to say about this play so let’s get started shall we.
Theatre has been a prevalent form of entertainment for centuries. As time has progressed, the meaning behind theater has shifted to adapt with society appropriately. Different genres of theater have been emerging all throughout history and continue to emerge even today. There are so many different genres of theatre that any individual can relate to it. One can easily recall the major genres of theatre: drama, comedy, musicals. However, it is the sub-divisions within these major genres that evoke unique performances and experiences.
“Theatre makes us think about power and the way our society works and it does this with a clear purpose, to make a change.”
As I took the course of “Introduction to Theatre”, our class has explored the enduring question of “what is the place of theater in the world and why?” To answer this question, we learned about the different time periods, including the BC time period all the way to the present time period. As we learned about the history of that period, we saw some reasons and answers to the question of what the function of theater is in the world. Our first step in analyzing plays was that we first examined the time periods of that play, and then how the events and lifestyles influenced the writers of the plays. For an example, through theater, the plays Fences and Angles in America were both meant to bring awareness about the social issues in society. During
In the words of Gay McAuley, “for an activity to be regarded as a performance, it must involve the live presence of the performers and those witnessing it…” (McAuley, 2009, cited in Schechner, 2013, pp.38). This statement recognises the importance of both the actor and the audience for something to truly function as a performance. In addition, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones highlights the significance of the theatrical space and how it can influence an audience stating that “on entering a theatre of any kind, a spectator walks into a specific space, one that is designed to produce a certain reaction or series of responses” (Llewellyn-Jones, 2002, pp.3). The relationship between actor, audience and theatrical space is no less important today than it was at the time of theatre during the Spanish Golden Age and the creation of Commedia dell’arte in Italy. Despite being very close geographically with theatre thriving for both in the same era, sources that explore the social, cultural and historical context of these countries and the theatre styles will bring to light the similarities and differences. This essay will analyse the staging, the behaviour of the audience as well as the challenges the actors faced, and how this directly influenced the relationship between actor, audience and theatrical space.
The above example illustrates not only how the theatrical performance affects the audience, but also how the audience influences its dynamics, development and the characters within it. The actors feel a certain level of acceptance from the viewer, who demands a certain way of depicting the character. Theatre is not just entertainment, itís something much more than that ñ itís education. Theatre should always represent things, rather than
The Chinese Mayor is a controversial documentary film that is from China. Datong is a historically important city in China, but it was fall into a decline. The mayor Yanbo Geng has a transformation plan for this city. The birth of the documentary is associated with the social situation of China. This documentary film shows a different mayor with his distinctive thinking in China and the things he does in his tenure of office. Creators create is because of a need to change thinking. They want to take the new ideas to challenge the old ones to push the And also, the reason of this documentary film born will be discussed clearly in this essay.
Dramatic arts became an essential and esteemed form of entertainment during the Song Dynasty. The Chinese theater ran the gamut of all possible kinds of play or composition. A testament to the Song’s work toward variety in entertainment “the drama made quite a feature of short farcical scenes, acrobatic turns and satirical
The history of theatre in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries is one of the increasing commercialization of the art, accompanied by technological innovations, the introduction of serious critical review, expansion of the subject matters portrayed to include ordinary people, and an emphasis on more natural forms of acting. Theatre, which had been dominated by the church for centuries, and then by the tastes of monarchs for more than 200 years, became accessible to merchants, industrialists, and the less privileged and then the masses.
On reading Christopher B. Balme’s The theatrical public sphere, the concept of theatre’s role in the Public Sphere is explored. Balme traces the origins
There have been many dramatic plays over the centuries. Many of these plays have died in their time, while others have lived on. What makes these plays endure time and continue to be influential over time? Perhaps it is the storyline or the interesting nature of the play is what makes these dramas last. I think that it is the focus on human nature and its essential truths that keep these plays alive. Most of the plays, still enacted in theaters today, deal with social issues that people can learn from and relate to.
Theatre is an art that transcends time and builds a new world for the audience atop the stage. A play is defined as “a dramatic composition” or “the stage representation of an action or story” (The Merriam-Webster Dictionary). This refers to drama being performed live by actors on a stage. Ancient Greece is accredited to inventing theatre and drama. In Greece during that time, at the height of popularity, were the stories of the well known flawed heroes and their journeys.