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Aristotle, Theatre Spaces Theatre 100 Dr. Blood week 2 of class Definitions Theatre Spaces
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| Date | 17.09.2017 | | Size | 4.72 Kb. | | #31878 |
| - Theatre 100 -- Dr. Blood
- week 2 of class
Definitions - Theatre Spaces - Theatre must have a live performer and a live audience. That’s it.
- Proscenium stage
- Thrust stage
- Arena stage
- Found spaces
- Environmental staging
Audience - Forms a collective identity
- Cyclic interchange with performers
- Different behaviors expected in different times, performance styles
- Critic as privileged audience member
- Peer reviewers for grants
- Academic critics
Aristotle’s Poetics Aristotle’s Poetics - C. 350 BCE; 1st extant work of literary or artistic criticism
- Focus on tragedy; did he also write ones on comedy and epic poetry?
- Imitation is the basis of art (from Plato); drama is imitation of action
- Definition of tragedy
Six Elements of Drama - In order of importance to Aristotle:
- Plot
- Character
- Thought (theme)
- Diction (artistic use of language)
- Song/Music
- Spectacle
Plot Elements - Beginning, middle, end structure
- Unity and probability
- A complex vs. a simple plot is preferred; this includes peripety (reversal) and anagnorisis (recognition)
- Single vs. double (no subplots)
- Goal (telos) is catharsis - gives drama a social function in the polis
Character elements - Characters should also be probable or necessary
- Hero
- Good
- Aim at propriety
- True to life
- Consistent
- Hamartia (tragic flaw): meaning much debated
Structure of Tragic Plot Old Comedy - 5th century BCE
- Part of City Dionysia from 487 BCE
- Political and social satire
- Personal attacks, author’s POV
- Aristophanes (c.448-380 BCE) bridges old and middle comedy; Lysistrata (411 BCE) is old comedy
- “Happy idea:” absurd but clear relevance to contemporary issue
- Prologue
- Chorus enters and debates the happy idea (agon) with each other and characters
- Parabasis choral section in the middle, direct address to audience,
- Scenes of adopting the happy idea
- Komos - reconciliation, often exiting to feast or revels
Peloponnesian War 431-404 BCE - Background of Aristophanes’ play: 20 years into the war
- Athens (Delian League) vs. Sparta (Peloponnesian League)
- 1st phase (10 yrs) Athens’ navy raids coasts, Sparta repeatedly invades Attica
- Peace of Nicias, 421
- 2nd: Athens launches attack on Syracuse in 415, whole force destroyed 413
- Persian joins Sparta, they chip away at Athens’ allies
- Destroy navy at Aegospotami, 405
Results of Peloponnesian War - Massive human cost
- Tremendous economic cost; Athens never regains prosperity
- Democracy vs. oligarchy
- Warfare broke prior rules: devastation of whole cities, crops and countryside, broken religious and cultural taboos
- Historians: Thucydides, Xenophon
- How are these real costs lampooned by Aristophanes?
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