WEBVTT

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<v ->Interpreting theater, societal behaviors</v>

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and values are affected by theater.

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Theater has the ability

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to change people's
perspectives about things.

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And there are many examples of this.

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One example is Lorraine Hansberry's Play A

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Raisin in the Sun.

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It was the first work by
an African American woman

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to be performed on Broadway,

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and it really caused a lot
of people to question some

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of their assumptions back
in those days about the,

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the nature of society

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and people who hadn't really seen works

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depicting black people on stage,

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and the situations that people encountered

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and the difficulties that
people struggled with.

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And so this really changed a
lot of people's perspectives.

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Another example, there's a type

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of theater called Verbatim
Theater where they take words

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from actual historical events

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and you use those on stage verbatim.

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And an example of this
is the Laramie Project,

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which depicted the murder of a gay man.

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And this was during a time when that sort

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of thing was not depicted very often,

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and a lot of people had
very bigoted attitudes

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around these kinds of subjects.

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And it led people to really
examine those kinds of topics

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and rethink a lot of those
societal perspectives.

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Another example would be
Arthur Miller's The Crucible,

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which was about the Salem Witch Trials,

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which were a long time ago,

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but it was also during
the time he wrote it.

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It was sort of a metaphor for

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what was happening in society at the time.

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'cause this was the McCarthy
era, the McCarthy era, when

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politicians were really kind
of on a witch hunt for people

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that they felt were communists

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and a lot of people's
careers were being ruined

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and people were being
persecuted around that.

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So it was very analogous to what happened

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in the earlier days of America
with the Salem Witch trials.

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And he was attempting to show those

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parallels with that story.

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And of course, that story
continues to be relevant today

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to the ways in which certain
groups of people get miss,

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you know, miscast and persecuted and,

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and that sort of thing.

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And the way that people can
kind of get on a bandwagon

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and go after people in a
way that's sort of the same

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as they did during the Salem Witch trials.

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So all of these are examples of plays

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that have really affected
societal views of things

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and have really changed our culture.

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So theater has a lot of power to do that.

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Students need to be able to appreciate

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how theater differs from film

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and TV in terms of per
performance and production values.

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So when we think about
performances in a theater,

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you know, people are on stage,

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so they're often further
away from the audience.

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So they might have to perform
things in a sort of bigger

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or more expressive way than
they would if they were

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performing on film,

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<v ->Where the camera can be
really close on their face.</v>

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Also, with a film, the director

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and the editor can control
what we're looking at

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and they can edit the shots so

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that they can really focus our
attention where they want it.

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But in a theater, they, we might have

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to look at different ways of focusing the

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audience's attention.

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Maybe it's done through
lighting, maybe it's done

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through staging the
character steps to the front

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of the stage when we're
supposed to look at

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that particular character.

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So there are different kinds of things

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that are used in terms of
technique and performance

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and production to affect

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how the audience interprets something.

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And of course, the audience
behaves differently in a film

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and in a theater as well.

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You can see here in the
images, it's very easy to see

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that in the image on the left.

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They're in a movie and the image on the

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right, they're at a play.

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There's conventions like that.

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An audience in a movie theater,
you know, eats popcorn and,

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and drinks soda.

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And it's more, can be
more of a family thing.

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And there there's a lot of things that

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are maybe different than
what you see in a theater,

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which is a little bit
more of a formal affair

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and sort of a special event kind of thing.

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For a lot of people when
they go to the theater,

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people might dress up for
the going to the theater,

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you know, they're probably
not gonna talk, you know,

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because the, there's live
performers on stage, obviously,

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and you know, they,

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they might give a standing
ovation at the end, things like

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that, that are different than
what they would do in a movie.

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So there's a lot of different
things, both in terms

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of the performance, the
production values, as well

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as the audience's participation

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and response that
students need to be aware

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of when they are criti critiquing a play

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or a theater production versus a film.

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Because those are very different mediums.

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Both the production

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and interpretation of
dramatic work is influenced

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by personal, cultural, social,
and historical context.

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Thus, different audiences will
respond differently based on

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their own context.

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So each of us has our own
context, our own society

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that we grew up in, our own
family that we grew up in,

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our own personal interests,

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and the things that we've
experienced that have happened

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to us in our own personal history.

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And all of those are going to
affect the ways in which we

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interpret something that
we're watching on stage.

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So if you think about the
ways you interpret things,

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you know, what are the,
what are the kind of things

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that affect that, you know, as
did you have certain teachers

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that taught certain
types of interpretation

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and now you've kind of internalized that

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and you think in those terms,
are there certain things

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that sort of resonate with you

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because of your personal experiences

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or your personal identity?

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So those sorts of things
affect every person

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and every person's
interpretation of theater.

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When we analyze the
theatrical work, we're a,

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we're not only analyzing the script,

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but we're also analyzing
the ideas of the director

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and the production team

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and what those, how they
layered those ideas on top of

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what was in the script.

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So nearly any script could
be turned into something

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that has a comment on, on society

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or race or gender

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or what have you, depending
on how that thing is staged

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or how it is cast,

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or how we kind of have a
person say a certain line.

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So you have to look at
both the kind of root work

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that something is based
on, as well as the way that

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that production interprets it

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and the people involved in
that production interpret it.

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Now, when we're talking
about the different lenses

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through which we can
interpret a piece of theater,

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there are many, many different
kind of critical approaches.

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And on this slide we've look,

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we've in the third bullet point here,

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we're really looking at just some examples

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of really common ones that might be good

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to know for the exam.

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But there are many others
besides these as well.

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But here are some common ones.
One is the feminist approach.

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So the feminist approach
basically looks at

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how society treats women,

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and often the ways in
which women are, you know,

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not given the same rights as men,

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or the ways in which
women struggle in, in ways

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that men wouldn't based on
the way society has cast them.

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And an example of a play
that definitely lends itself

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to a feminist approach

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for interpretation is
Ibsen's the Dollhouse,

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which looks at, in the
19th century the role

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of women in domestic life,

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and the way in which a
particular woman in this

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story is treated.

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And what she's going through.

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Another form is Marxist.

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Marxist interpretations tend to look at

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the things like the
wealthy versus the poor,

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and the ways in which people are

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the wealthy might exploit the poor

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and people, the, the
use of labor in society

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and the structures around that.

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So something like Charlie

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and the Chocolate Factory
could be done in a production

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where it becomes, you know,
a Marxist kind of production

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if the Oompa Lumpa were kind
of treated as the people

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who are the laborers
that were sort of forced

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to do this labor by this, you know,

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wealthy sort of overlord.

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So that would be sort of a
Marxist interpretation of that

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ethnic studies.

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So ethnic studies looks at
racial and cultural groups

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and the ways in which
society has affected them

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and looks at that through the
lens of a particular play.

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So if you were doing an
ethnic studies interpretation,

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a play that would really lend itself to

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that would be West Side story.

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So there's the two groups,
the Jets and the Sharks.

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So one group is Puerto
Rican, the other group is,

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is white people who have
lived in the area for a while.

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And the groups are, you know, in conflict.

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The, you know, the
people who've lived there

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for a while are, you know,
resistant to the immigrants and,

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and are are treating them in, in bad ways.

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And so we are looking at,
at those relationships,

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and that would be a, a
ethnic studies approach

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to interpreting that post-colonial

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post-Colonial really looks at

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the way in which groups
that have moved into

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and taken over

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or different geographical areas

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and the ways that they've
treated the indigenous people

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who lived there before the colonization.

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So a play could be specifically
about that kind of topic,

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but it could be the lens that
gets layered on top of a play

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that's not specifically about that topic.

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So one example of that
would be in Australia,

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the Bell Shakespeare
Company did a production

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of the Shakespeare play, the
Tempest in which they sort

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of reinterpreted it to have
certain characters be the sort

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of colonial people who came to Australia

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and other characters as the
indigenous people that were,

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you know, that had their
land taken from them

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and were mistreated by the colonizers.

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And so you could sort of
look at that, that play,

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which was not originally
written about that topic,

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but the director and the,
the, the production team chose

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to reinterpret it through
a post-colonial lens.

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Another thing is cultural
criticism, cultural criticism,

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criticism, really kind of questions.

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What is called the canon,
the, the works that are chosen

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to be kind of looked
at as the classic plays

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and the ones that people
should see and study.

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It really questions that

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because many of those plays,
you know, are centered

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around white, European male
subject matter and writers.

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So it kind of asks people
to look at, you know, who,

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who is actually, whose stories
are actually being told.

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Another form of criticism

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and approach to looking at
subject matter is new criticism.

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New criticism really looks
at just the story itself.

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It doesn't look at any extrinsic
factors, so nothing that's

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outside the story.

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We're really just looking at,
you know, characterization

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and the use of literary devices

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and metaphors, how it is
happening inside the story itself,

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not the context in which it was created.

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And this really contrast with historical,

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the historical approach with
the historical approach.

246
00:11:36.510 --> 00:11:39.330
You're, you are really looking
at the context in which

247
00:11:39.330 --> 00:11:41.010
something was originally written.

248
00:11:41.010 --> 00:11:43.350
Who was the writer, what
was their biography?

249
00:11:43.350 --> 00:11:45.450
What were their experiences?

250
00:11:45.450 --> 00:11:47.730
What was going on in
society during the time

251
00:11:47.730 --> 00:11:49.710
that this was originally being performed?

252
00:11:49.710 --> 00:11:52.080
So if we were looking
at a historical approach

253
00:11:52.080 --> 00:11:55.900
to Shakespeare, we
would look at, you know,

254
00:11:55.900 --> 00:11:59.650
the 16th century and when
he was originally writing

255
00:11:59.650 --> 00:12:01.450
and when the plays were
originally performed,

256
00:12:01.450 --> 00:12:04.660
and how would they have been
interpreted then versus now in

257
00:12:04.660 --> 00:12:05.950
the 21st century?

258
00:12:05.950 --> 00:12:07.540
How would we interpret this play

259
00:12:07.540 --> 00:12:09.820
and how would we interpret
these particular relationships?

260
00:12:09.820 --> 00:12:12.640
It may be different because
there may be different societal

261
00:12:12.640 --> 00:12:16.870
views about gender and race and
wealth and different things.

262
00:12:16.870 --> 00:12:19.240
So the interpretation now
may be quite different

263
00:12:19.240 --> 00:12:22.300
to the interpretation
of audiences at the time

264
00:12:22.300 --> 00:12:24.340
of the original performances.

265
00:12:24.340 --> 00:12:27.315
So historical approach
looks at those things.

266
00:12:27.315 --> 00:12:30.280
So these are all just
examples of different ways

267
00:12:30.280 --> 00:12:33.310
to both criticize a work and
when you're looking at it

268
00:12:33.310 --> 00:12:36.280
and interpreting it, and
different ways that a director

269
00:12:36.280 --> 00:12:39.250
and a production team and a
cast could interpret a work

270
00:12:39.250 --> 00:12:40.750
when they're producing it.

271
00:12:40.750 --> 00:12:45.550
And when you're looking at
something, you might look at it,

272
00:12:45.550 --> 00:12:47.800
you know, based on one of these approaches

273
00:12:47.800 --> 00:12:50.440
because maybe one of these
approaches really fits

274
00:12:50.440 --> 00:12:53.320
with the way you kind of
personally feel about things.

275
00:12:53.320 --> 00:12:54.970
And you want to kind of use that approach

276
00:12:54.970 --> 00:12:57.940
because it feels very true to you.

277
00:12:57.940 --> 00:13:01.750
But you might also find that
you find some truth in each

278
00:13:01.750 --> 00:13:02.980
of these different approaches

279
00:13:02.980 --> 00:13:05.590
and that you might look,
choose to look at something

280
00:13:05.590 --> 00:13:07.180
through a variety of lenses

281
00:13:07.180 --> 00:13:10.600
and sort of explore the
different ways that you can kind

282
00:13:10.600 --> 00:13:13.090
of interpret something
based on the way you

283
00:13:13.090 --> 00:13:15.040
happen to be looking at it.

284
00:13:15.040 --> 00:13:17.475
But all of these things
are important for students

285
00:13:17.475 --> 00:13:21.885
to be able to understand so
that when they are writing about

286
00:13:21.885 --> 00:13:23.860
and talking about theater,

287
00:13:23.860 --> 00:13:28.570
they can look at it in a nuanced way so

288
00:13:28.570 --> 00:13:30.130
that students need to be able

289
00:13:30.130 --> 00:13:32.740
to express their ideas using the formal

290
00:13:32.740 --> 00:13:33.880
vocabulary of theater.

291
00:13:33.880 --> 00:13:37.545
So when they're talking about
these things, we want them

292
00:13:37.545 --> 00:13:42.190
to be talking about structure,
style, technical elements,

293
00:13:42.190 --> 00:13:43.360
historical context.

294
00:13:43.360 --> 00:13:44.710
And when they're doing that, we want them

295
00:13:44.710 --> 00:13:47.440
to be using the vocabulary that shows

296
00:13:47.440 --> 00:13:50.110
that they have learned
about these, these ideas,

297
00:13:50.110 --> 00:13:53.055
and they can talk about
them in a sophisticated way.

298
00:13:53.055 --> 00:13:55.630
So when they're talking about structure,

299
00:13:55.630 --> 00:13:57.865
talking about things
like scenes, you know,

300
00:13:57.865 --> 00:14:00.580
the units in which something, the units

301
00:14:00.580 --> 00:14:03.910
of story in which something changes,

302
00:14:03.910 --> 00:14:05.650
but not as big as an act.

303
00:14:05.650 --> 00:14:07.510
An act is a bunch of scenes put together

304
00:14:07.510 --> 00:14:10.150
and a major change within a story.

305
00:14:10.150 --> 00:14:13.240
Beats on the other hand,
are very small moments

306
00:14:13.240 --> 00:14:15.615
where something changes
maybe within a scene.

307
00:14:15.615 --> 00:14:16.780
A character tries to get

308
00:14:16.780 --> 00:14:18.645
what they want a certain
way that doesn't work.

309
00:14:18.645 --> 00:14:20.500
Now they try it a different way.

310
00:14:20.500 --> 00:14:23.290
Those are the individual
beats that make up a scene.

311
00:14:23.290 --> 00:14:26.530
And of course they,
every scene and every act

312
00:14:26.530 --> 00:14:29.475
and the story overall is
driven by the conflict

313
00:14:29.475 --> 00:14:31.515
between the protagonist
and the antagonist.

314
00:14:31.515 --> 00:14:34.330
So students being able to
identify the, the sources

315
00:14:34.330 --> 00:14:38.140
of conflict and also look at
the goals of the characters.

316
00:14:38.140 --> 00:14:39.550
What are they trying to achieve

317
00:14:39.550 --> 00:14:42.010
and what are they doing to
try to achieve those goals?

318
00:14:42.880 --> 00:14:45.400
The style of the piece, is it a farce

319
00:14:45.400 --> 00:14:47.470
where things are very exaggerated

320
00:14:47.470 --> 00:14:49.030
and where they're kind of making fun

321
00:14:49.030 --> 00:14:52.040
of the character's pretensions
and things like that.

322
00:14:52.040 --> 00:14:54.200
Is it a parody that's sort of making fun

323
00:14:54.200 --> 00:14:57.290
of something in society or maybe
making fun of another work?

324
00:14:58.250 --> 00:15:01.220
Is it a tragedy? Is it, is it realistic?

325
00:15:01.220 --> 00:15:04.880
Is it not realistic in
terms of technical elements?

326
00:15:04.880 --> 00:15:06.410
How is the lighting used?

327
00:15:06.410 --> 00:15:09.140
Is the lighting used to
create a certain mood?

328
00:15:09.140 --> 00:15:10.790
How are the costumes used?

329
00:15:10.790 --> 00:15:12.860
How do those causes to
interpret something?

330
00:15:12.860 --> 00:15:15.560
Is it, does it contribute
to a realistic feel

331
00:15:15.560 --> 00:15:19.460
or does it contribute to
something that's not realistic?

332
00:15:19.460 --> 00:15:21.950
What are the set, how's the set design

333
00:15:22.910 --> 00:15:24.920
impacting our interpretation?

334
00:15:24.920 --> 00:15:27.200
Is it a minimalist set
design that causes us

335
00:15:27.200 --> 00:15:30.890
to really focus on sort of
the generalities of the story?

336
00:15:30.890 --> 00:15:33.050
Or is it a very nuanced

337
00:15:33.050 --> 00:15:34.700
and historically correct design

338
00:15:34.700 --> 00:15:36.980
that makes everything feel
very realistic and rooted?

339
00:15:38.660 --> 00:15:40.165
And then what is the context of it?

340
00:15:40.165 --> 00:15:41.720
What is the historical context?

341
00:15:41.720 --> 00:15:44.600
Or is this a ancient Greek tragedy?

342
00:15:44.600 --> 00:15:45.830
Is this a something

343
00:15:45.830 --> 00:15:48.110
that was written in
Elizabeth in times like

344
00:15:48.110 --> 00:15:49.640
Shakespeare's works?

345
00:15:49.640 --> 00:15:51.140
Is this something that's modernist

346
00:15:51.140 --> 00:15:53.450
and has a certain
sensibility that is common

347
00:15:53.450 --> 00:15:55.280
to the modernist writers?

348
00:15:55.280 --> 00:15:56.300
So all of that helps

349
00:15:56.300 --> 00:15:59.150
to give us context in which
we can interpret the work.

350
00:15:59.150 --> 00:16:01.910
And all of those things
are the types of vocabulary

351
00:16:01.910 --> 00:16:04.250
that students should be using when they're

352
00:16:04.250 --> 00:16:05.480
discussing things.

353
00:16:05.480 --> 00:16:07.820
And we see in the image here, this, this

354
00:16:08.750 --> 00:16:11.990
sculpture depicts comedy and tragedy.

355
00:16:11.990 --> 00:16:15.380
These are like the two masks
of theater that you often see.

356
00:16:15.380 --> 00:16:16.825
And those are the kinds of terms

357
00:16:16.825 --> 00:16:17.990
that students should be using.

358
00:16:17.990 --> 00:16:20.480
They should be saying, this is
a comedy, this is a tragedy,

359
00:16:20.480 --> 00:16:23.150
not, it's a funny story,
it's a happy story,

360
00:16:23.150 --> 00:16:24.440
it's a sad story.

361
00:16:24.440 --> 00:16:26.930
Which they should be trying to
use those more sophisticated

362
00:16:26.930 --> 00:16:30.475
terms that show that they have
learned about the different

363
00:16:30.475 --> 00:16:32.270
kinds of devices

364
00:16:32.270 --> 00:16:34.975
and the different kinds of
contexts that allow them

365
00:16:34.975 --> 00:16:37.880
to interpret theater in
a more sophisticated way.

366
00:16:39.680 --> 00:16:42.500
Styles of theater. In
this section, we're going

367
00:16:42.500 --> 00:16:46.400
to look at various theatrical
traditions throughout history

368
00:16:46.400 --> 00:16:49.340
that have had an influence
on American theater.

369
00:16:49.340 --> 00:16:51.110
And we're gonna start all the way back

370
00:16:51.110 --> 00:16:53.390
with classical Greek tragedy.

371
00:16:53.390 --> 00:16:55.790
And this is a form that
really kind of came

372
00:16:55.790 --> 00:16:58.790
to its pinnacle in the fifth century bc.

373
00:16:58.790 --> 00:17:02.000
Some famous writers of this period

374
00:17:02.000 --> 00:17:03.740
that you may have heard of.

375
00:17:03.740 --> 00:17:07.490
One is Ide, who wrote Oedipus Rex,

376
00:17:07.490 --> 00:17:11.060
another is Soles who wrote Madea.

377
00:17:11.060 --> 00:17:14.660
And another one is ESUs
who wrote the Oria.

378
00:17:16.250 --> 00:17:18.170
During this period,

379
00:17:18.170 --> 00:17:21.890
most theater was performed
in outdoor amphitheaters

380
00:17:21.890 --> 00:17:24.565
and there were some it,
there were some traditions

381
00:17:24.565 --> 00:17:26.300
that were starting to form around

382
00:17:26.300 --> 00:17:27.920
how stories should be told.

383
00:17:29.030 --> 00:17:31.580
Aristotle wrote poetics

384
00:17:31.580 --> 00:17:36.080
and Poetics was a really
seminal work in terms of sort

385
00:17:36.080 --> 00:17:39.145
of defining some ideas
around Greek theater and the,

386
00:17:39.145 --> 00:17:40.910
and what made good theater.

387
00:17:40.910 --> 00:17:44.150
He talked about the three unities.

388
00:17:44.150 --> 00:17:47.000
This was the unity of
time, place, and action.

389
00:17:48.140 --> 00:17:52.380
So he thought that a story
should take place over a single

390
00:17:52.380 --> 00:17:53.490
unit of time.

391
00:17:53.490 --> 00:17:54.600
It shouldn't jump forward

392
00:17:54.600 --> 00:17:57.150
and backward in time or things like that.

393
00:17:57.150 --> 00:18:00.120
Even though in in theater
today, often we do those things,

394
00:18:01.470 --> 00:18:04.980
he thought that there
should be a unity of place.

395
00:18:04.980 --> 00:18:08.160
So the whole story should take
place in a single setting.

396
00:18:08.160 --> 00:18:09.390
Again, that's not something

397
00:18:09.390 --> 00:18:13.080
that's necessarily done
in various stories today.

398
00:18:13.080 --> 00:18:15.840
Sometimes you'll have a
many different settings

399
00:18:15.840 --> 00:18:17.520
that a story takes place in,

400
00:18:18.395 --> 00:18:21.515
and he thought there should
be a unity of action.

401
00:18:21.515 --> 00:18:22.650
And by that he meant

402
00:18:22.650 --> 00:18:25.380
that it should be either
a comedy or tragedy.

403
00:18:25.380 --> 00:18:26.490
And the definition

404
00:18:26.490 --> 00:18:29.190
of comedy was a little bit
different back in Greek

405
00:18:29.190 --> 00:18:30.390
theater than it is today.

406
00:18:31.230 --> 00:18:34.565
It just meant any story in
which the protagonist was

407
00:18:34.565 --> 00:18:38.525
successful, where some, a
story that had a up ending

408
00:18:38.525 --> 00:18:40.565
as opposed to a tragedy

409
00:18:40.565 --> 00:18:43.560
where the protagonist was
not successful, a story

410
00:18:43.560 --> 00:18:44.910
that had a down ending.

411
00:18:46.440 --> 00:18:48.240
So he felt it should be clearly one

412
00:18:48.240 --> 00:18:49.920
or the other of those two things.

413
00:18:49.920 --> 00:18:54.510
So the, a lot of the Greek
theater of that time really

414
00:18:55.770 --> 00:19:00.090
followed those traditions
that Aristotle set forth.

415
00:19:00.090 --> 00:19:02.730
Some other features that we
see in ancient Greek theater,

416
00:19:02.730 --> 00:19:04.350
one is the idea of a chorus.

417
00:19:04.350 --> 00:19:06.870
So there'd be a group of
people that would sort

418
00:19:06.870 --> 00:19:10.685
of narrate in a sense by
singing what was happening.

419
00:19:10.685 --> 00:19:13.565
And sometimes they would
comment on the action

420
00:19:13.565 --> 00:19:16.650
and also the idea of Deus X Machina.

421
00:19:16.650 --> 00:19:20.040
So there is this, this is
a term that you might hear

422
00:19:20.040 --> 00:19:24.060
when something today a story
resolves through things

423
00:19:24.060 --> 00:19:25.530
that don't really have much to do

424
00:19:25.530 --> 00:19:27.780
with what's actually
happening in the story.

425
00:19:27.780 --> 00:19:31.200
So for example, maybe two
characters are really in conflict

426
00:19:31.200 --> 00:19:32.580
over something and then one

427
00:19:32.580 --> 00:19:34.440
of 'em just gets run over by a car.

428
00:19:34.440 --> 00:19:35.975
And so it's like that would,

429
00:19:35.975 --> 00:19:37.205
you're like, what happened there?

430
00:19:37.205 --> 00:19:38.670
It's just something outside

431
00:19:38.670 --> 00:19:41.070
of the story just solved
the whole thing as opposed

432
00:19:41.070 --> 00:19:44.435
to the characters in conflict
coming to some resolution

433
00:19:44.435 --> 00:19:47.220
that feels intrinsic to the story.

434
00:19:47.220 --> 00:19:50.315
That term. The term for
that is Deus X Machina.

435
00:19:50.315 --> 00:19:52.620
And it goes back to ancient Greek theater

436
00:19:52.620 --> 00:19:56.910
where they Deus was God
and Machina was a machine

437
00:19:56.910 --> 00:19:58.740
and they would literally lower some,

438
00:19:58.740 --> 00:20:02.880
a god from a machine would get
lowered down by this machine

439
00:20:02.880 --> 00:20:05.850
from the sky and they would
say, oh, this guy wins,

440
00:20:05.850 --> 00:20:08.220
this guy loses, here's what's
right, here's what's wrong.

441
00:20:09.060 --> 00:20:11.070
And that God would solve the story.

442
00:20:11.070 --> 00:20:12.720
So that's where that term comes from.

443
00:20:12.720 --> 00:20:14.490
It comes from this
ancient Greek tradition.

444
00:20:16.380 --> 00:20:19.650
Then we're looking at
medieval morality plays.

445
00:20:19.650 --> 00:20:22.020
We're jumping forward
in time here to the 15th

446
00:20:22.020 --> 00:20:23.370
and 16th century.

447
00:20:24.300 --> 00:20:28.680
These were very, very
Christian influenced stories

448
00:20:28.680 --> 00:20:32.580
during the medieval time
when, when Christianity was,

449
00:20:32.580 --> 00:20:34.350
was really sort

450
00:20:34.350 --> 00:20:38.010
of had a very strong influence
on society at that time.

451
00:20:38.910 --> 00:20:42.630
And these plays were
really religious plays

452
00:20:42.630 --> 00:20:46.720
and they were meant to
sort of teach morals.

453
00:20:46.720 --> 00:20:50.680
And the characters themselves
were often the embodiment

454
00:20:50.680 --> 00:20:53.500
of something like a virtue or a vice.

455
00:20:53.500 --> 00:20:56.320
So a character might just
be sort of the embodiment

456
00:20:56.320 --> 00:20:58.840
of charity or something like that.

457
00:20:58.840 --> 00:21:02.055
Or another one might be
the embodiment of pride.

458
00:21:02.055 --> 00:21:04.365
And so the things that would happen

459
00:21:04.365 --> 00:21:08.110
to these characters were
not necessarily very complex

460
00:21:08.110 --> 00:21:10.690
and they weren't supposed
to be like real people.

461
00:21:10.690 --> 00:21:12.910
Instead they were supposed
to be representation

462
00:21:12.910 --> 00:21:16.300
of these ideas that were
being taught in this sort

463
00:21:16.300 --> 00:21:18.850
of like religious culture

464
00:21:18.850 --> 00:21:22.330
through from which the
morality plays emerged.

465
00:21:22.330 --> 00:21:24.640
And even the characters'
names reflected this.

466
00:21:24.640 --> 00:21:28.180
One of the most famous morality
plays was called Every Man.

467
00:21:28.180 --> 00:21:29.710
And the Cha, the main character

468
00:21:29.710 --> 00:21:32.080
of the story was actually
just called Every Man.

469
00:21:32.080 --> 00:21:34.960
He didn't have a, a name like
John or Bill or whatever.

470
00:21:36.100 --> 00:21:38.145
So it sort of, that reflects the idea

471
00:21:38.145 --> 00:21:40.930
that it wasn't really about
these characters themselves

472
00:21:40.930 --> 00:21:42.940
being interesting, unique people.

473
00:21:42.940 --> 00:21:45.460
It was about them
representing ideas that they,

474
00:21:45.460 --> 00:21:49.240
that the church was trying to
teach through these stories.

475
00:21:50.800 --> 00:21:53.320
Next up we have Ched del Arte,

476
00:21:53.320 --> 00:21:56.440
and this was in the 16th, 17th centuries.

477
00:21:56.440 --> 00:21:58.780
This is an Italian tradition.

478
00:21:58.780 --> 00:22:02.320
And those, it was performed
by traveling troops.

479
00:22:02.320 --> 00:22:05.200
So there wasn't really
much in terms of sets

480
00:22:05.200 --> 00:22:06.855
because they had to be able to move around

481
00:22:06.855 --> 00:22:08.475
and perform in different locations.

482
00:22:08.475 --> 00:22:13.475
So very sort of simple
performance in terms of setting,

483
00:22:13.870 --> 00:22:17.470
but the performance is
really used a lot of what we,

484
00:22:17.470 --> 00:22:20.290
we call stock characters.

485
00:22:20.290 --> 00:22:23.920
So it could be the sort of silly old man

486
00:22:23.920 --> 00:22:26.475
or the devious scheming servants

487
00:22:26.475 --> 00:22:29.710
or things like that that people
would recognize immediately.

488
00:22:29.710 --> 00:22:30.850
So you wouldn't have to spend a lot

489
00:22:30.850 --> 00:22:35.380
of time developing the
characters as you might in a sort

490
00:22:35.380 --> 00:22:40.360
of very specific story that
that that, that uses characters

491
00:22:40.360 --> 00:22:42.490
that are very unique.

492
00:22:42.490 --> 00:22:45.190
So people would get right away,
oh, that's the silly old man

493
00:22:45.190 --> 00:22:48.040
that these are the, the
lovers, these are this,

494
00:22:48.040 --> 00:22:49.515
these are the scheming servants.

495
00:22:49.515 --> 00:22:52.690
And then people could just
sort of enjoy the comedy

496
00:22:52.690 --> 00:22:53.830
and what not.

497
00:22:53.830 --> 00:22:57.640
That came out of that
very readily from this.

498
00:22:57.640 --> 00:23:01.360
The term slapstick also emerges.

499
00:23:01.360 --> 00:23:04.935
So when you think about slapstick
comedy, like with people,

500
00:23:04.935 --> 00:23:07.270
you know, taking Pratt
Falls to get a laugh

501
00:23:07.270 --> 00:23:09.910
or something like that, that
idea came from Come Del Arte

502
00:23:10.750 --> 00:23:13.330
and there was a character
that actually had two sticks.

503
00:23:13.330 --> 00:23:16.240
So there's slap together to
make the sound when he got hit

504
00:23:16.240 --> 00:23:19.420
or fell over or whatever
to make it more comical.

505
00:23:19.420 --> 00:23:20.920
And that's where the term slapstick

506
00:23:20.920 --> 00:23:22.210
comes from that we hear today.

507
00:23:24.100 --> 00:23:28.630
Following that we look at
Renaissance Theater 1562

508
00:23:28.630 --> 00:23:31.000
to 1642,

509
00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:34.420
and this encompasses Elizabethan theater,

510
00:23:35.620 --> 00:23:38.800
which is when, when William
Shakespeare was writing,

511
00:23:38.800 --> 00:23:40.480
and obviously William Shakespeare was one

512
00:23:40.480 --> 00:23:43.480
of the most influential
playwrights of all time.

513
00:23:43.480 --> 00:23:47.120
Many of his plays are still
performed today and adapted

514
00:23:47.120 --> 00:23:51.050
and various modern stories or
versions of Shakespeare plays.

515
00:23:52.850 --> 00:23:57.680
So this is a very influential
time, and not just

516
00:23:57.680 --> 00:23:58.975
because of Shakespeare's writing,

517
00:23:58.975 --> 00:24:02.030
but also the nature of theater
kind of changed because

518
00:24:02.030 --> 00:24:06.680
before this most play plays were put on

519
00:24:06.680 --> 00:24:11.660
and, and most actors were
employed by wealthy aristocrats,

520
00:24:11.660 --> 00:24:15.170
so they weren't really
accessible to the common person.

521
00:24:16.280 --> 00:24:18.385
But this sort of changed during this time,

522
00:24:18.385 --> 00:24:20.780
and this is when we saw the first public

523
00:24:20.780 --> 00:24:22.430
theaters being built.

524
00:24:22.430 --> 00:24:25.250
And even though many of these
were still sort of sponsored

525
00:24:25.250 --> 00:24:27.890
by, or funded by aristocratic people,

526
00:24:27.890 --> 00:24:30.860
they were much more
available to all people.

527
00:24:30.860 --> 00:24:33.710
So people from various
classes would all come

528
00:24:33.710 --> 00:24:36.115
and be able to experience theater.

529
00:24:36.115 --> 00:24:39.230
So it really sort of changed
the essence of who theater was

530
00:24:39.230 --> 00:24:41.870
for and the types of performances

531
00:24:41.870 --> 00:24:44.510
that took place following this.

532
00:24:44.510 --> 00:24:48.410
We have Spanish Golden Age from 1590

533
00:24:48.410 --> 00:24:50.450
to 1681.

534
00:24:50.450 --> 00:24:54.590
And one of the really
seminal figures from this,

535
00:24:54.590 --> 00:24:56.270
this period was Lpe de Vega.

536
00:24:57.530 --> 00:25:00.350
So this is kind of a time of,

537
00:25:00.350 --> 00:25:03.260
of great production in theater.

538
00:25:03.260 --> 00:25:05.185
There were between 10

539
00:25:05.185 --> 00:25:09.980
and 30,000 plays written
during this time in Spain

540
00:25:09.980 --> 00:25:14.630
and like, like Renaissance
theater in England.

541
00:25:14.630 --> 00:25:17.030
It really was theater for everybody.

542
00:25:17.030 --> 00:25:19.430
So people of various
classes were all coming

543
00:25:19.430 --> 00:25:20.690
to the theater in a way that in the

544
00:25:20.690 --> 00:25:22.100
past they weren't able to.

545
00:25:23.240 --> 00:25:28.045
Lupe de Vega established sort
of what is Quin the seen as,

546
00:25:28.045 --> 00:25:30.565
sort of the quintessential form of theater

547
00:25:30.565 --> 00:25:32.150
during the Spanish Golden Age,

548
00:25:32.150 --> 00:25:34.160
which was the three act comedy.

549
00:25:34.160 --> 00:25:37.280
And the idea of telling a
story in three acts is still

550
00:25:37.280 --> 00:25:40.010
something that is, is often noted today,

551
00:25:40.010 --> 00:25:41.810
and a lot of writers write in that way.

552
00:25:42.950 --> 00:25:46.670
So again, something very
influential following that,

553
00:25:46.670 --> 00:25:51.500
we have restoration
comedy, this is from 1660

554
00:25:51.500 --> 00:25:52.940
to 1710.

555
00:25:54.650 --> 00:25:58.430
So we can see that there was
a, a little bit of a gap here

556
00:26:00.560 --> 00:26:03.410
in, in the the, in the theater

557
00:26:03.410 --> 00:26:05.480
between the Renaissance Theater in England

558
00:26:05.480 --> 00:26:09.410
and the restoration comedies,
which were also in England.

559
00:26:09.410 --> 00:26:14.270
And the reason, the reason
for this 18 year gap was

560
00:26:14.270 --> 00:26:18.230
because the Puritans had come
to power after the Civil War

561
00:26:18.230 --> 00:26:21.890
and had in England and had
essentially banned theater.

562
00:26:21.890 --> 00:26:25.370
They thought that it was
a bad influence on people

563
00:26:25.370 --> 00:26:27.830
and led to corruption and vice.

564
00:26:27.830 --> 00:26:31.280
So for this 18 year period,
they had made it illegal.

565
00:26:31.280 --> 00:26:32.720
But during the restoration,

566
00:26:32.720 --> 00:26:36.320
after the Civil War,
it kind of was brought,

567
00:26:36.320 --> 00:26:39.050
theater was brought back, and

568
00:26:39.050 --> 00:26:42.380
because it had been banned a
lot of the, the productions

569
00:26:42.380 --> 00:26:45.840
during this time were really
a response to the puritans.

570
00:26:45.840 --> 00:26:49.860
So they were often depicting overt

571
00:26:49.860 --> 00:26:53.760
sexuality and vices on
stage, like gambling or,

572
00:26:53.760 --> 00:26:57.270
or you know, whatever,
different hedonistic things.

573
00:26:57.270 --> 00:27:00.090
And really kind of
throwing, even using sort

574
00:27:00.090 --> 00:27:01.560
of coarse language

575
00:27:01.560 --> 00:27:02.790
and things like that really to sort

576
00:27:02.790 --> 00:27:06.180
of throw these things in the
face of the Puritan tradition,

577
00:27:06.180 --> 00:27:09.360
which had banned theater during this time.

578
00:27:09.360 --> 00:27:13.980
Some famous writers, Afro Afro Ben,

579
00:27:13.980 --> 00:27:16.765
who was the f noted as
kind of the first female

580
00:27:17.885 --> 00:27:21.570
English playwright and another was Moye.

581
00:27:22.980 --> 00:27:27.395
Moye is famous for writing
tartu and the imaginary invalid.

582
00:27:27.395 --> 00:27:31.920
And he really popularized
the style of farces

583
00:27:31.920 --> 00:27:36.150
and farce was really about
exaggerated situations

584
00:27:36.150 --> 00:27:39.570
and kind of ridiculous
characters, often things

585
00:27:39.570 --> 00:27:43.500
that were very silly happening on stage.

586
00:27:43.500 --> 00:27:48.270
And FARs is a tradition that
has carried on to, to the,

587
00:27:48.270 --> 00:27:49.440
the, the modern age.

588
00:27:50.880 --> 00:27:52.865
And, you know, some contemporary

589
00:27:52.865 --> 00:27:55.080
or more contemporary examples
would be something like the

590
00:27:55.080 --> 00:27:57.780
play that goes wrong that's, that's farce

591
00:27:57.780 --> 00:27:59.820
and that's influenced by
this tradition that started

592
00:27:59.820 --> 00:28:03.090
during this time after this,

593
00:28:03.090 --> 00:28:06.870
we see in the early
19th century, melodrama

594
00:28:06.870 --> 00:28:11.070
and melodrama was really
a, a time when they started

595
00:28:11.070 --> 00:28:13.115
to incorporate music into theater

596
00:28:13.115 --> 00:28:16.410
and really trying to express
kind of big emotions.

597
00:28:17.340 --> 00:28:20.340
So the per the performers
themselves would be highly

598
00:28:20.340 --> 00:28:23.460
emotional and there might
be swells of music that kind

599
00:28:23.460 --> 00:28:25.740
of reinforce the joy or the sadness

600
00:28:25.740 --> 00:28:28.530
or whatever was happening emotionally.

601
00:28:28.530 --> 00:28:32.130
This came out of a period
called the Romantic Period.

602
00:28:32.130 --> 00:28:35.310
And the Romantics really
wanted to look at feelings

603
00:28:35.310 --> 00:28:38.645
and emotions and, and
really valued the individual

604
00:28:38.645 --> 00:28:43.440
and the experience of an
individual and, and feelings.

605
00:28:43.440 --> 00:28:47.130
So that's why we have those
things in this tradition.

606
00:28:47.130 --> 00:28:50.400
So some of the so famous writers from the

607
00:28:51.330 --> 00:28:55.650
the melodrama tradition
are, are people like

608
00:28:55.650 --> 00:28:57.330
August Von Kobu

609
00:28:58.320 --> 00:29:01.890
and Renee Charles Giber de Peace Court.

610
00:29:01.890 --> 00:29:06.480
Now, if you haven't heard of
any of these people, like Kobu

611
00:29:06.480 --> 00:29:09.810
wrote The Stranger, but you
might not have heard of this.

612
00:29:09.810 --> 00:29:11.310
And that's not unusual

613
00:29:11.310 --> 00:29:12.810
because melodrama

614
00:29:12.810 --> 00:29:16.830
as a theatrical style really
fell out of popularity.

615
00:29:16.830 --> 00:29:19.175
And it's something that we
often make fun of today.

616
00:29:19.175 --> 00:29:22.920
We might say a performance
is melodramatic as sort

617
00:29:22.920 --> 00:29:25.205
of a criticism saying
that it's sort of silly

618
00:29:25.205 --> 00:29:28.440
and overly dramatic and
doesn't feel realistic.

619
00:29:29.940 --> 00:29:31.980
But there are still some things

620
00:29:31.980 --> 00:29:34.890
that do use the style of melodrama.

621
00:29:34.890 --> 00:29:38.550
Even today, for example, soap operas.

622
00:29:38.550 --> 00:29:42.310
You know, somebody, you know,
they might, you know, reveal,

623
00:29:42.310 --> 00:29:45.640
oh, he was, he was this
person's lover in disguise

624
00:29:45.640 --> 00:29:47.800
and then they will go, dun dun dun.

625
00:29:47.800 --> 00:29:49.300
You'll hear this big swell of music

626
00:29:49.300 --> 00:29:53.080
and the person with this big
exaggerated facial expression

627
00:29:53.080 --> 00:29:55.120
that's melodrama, right?

628
00:29:55.120 --> 00:29:56.535
And we kinda laugh at it now,

629
00:29:56.535 --> 00:29:58.540
but that is the style
that they were trying

630
00:29:58.540 --> 00:30:00.400
to have back then to sort

631
00:30:00.400 --> 00:30:03.130
of represent these emotions
in a heightened way

632
00:30:03.130 --> 00:30:04.750
that earlier stories had not.

633
00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:12.000
Next we have modernism. And modernism.

634
00:30:12.280 --> 00:30:14.950
When we think of the term
modern, it can just mean anything

635
00:30:14.950 --> 00:30:18.430
that is contemporary and,
you know, modern day, right?

636
00:30:18.430 --> 00:30:20.470
But when we're talking about modernism

637
00:30:20.470 --> 00:30:23.620
as a movement in theater, it's
specifically this time period

638
00:30:23.620 --> 00:30:24.730
between the 1880s

639
00:30:24.730 --> 00:30:29.080
and 1930s when there was a real reaction

640
00:30:29.080 --> 00:30:33.430
to the previous, to the
previous more tradition,

641
00:30:33.430 --> 00:30:36.820
what they felt were more
traditional types of theater

642
00:30:36.820 --> 00:30:38.380
of the Victorian period.

643
00:30:39.610 --> 00:30:43.815
So they were really kind of
rejecting those old styles

644
00:30:43.815 --> 00:30:45.645
and they were, we, they
were really wanting

645
00:30:45.645 --> 00:30:48.555
to focus on something different
in theater in particular.

646
00:30:48.555 --> 00:30:50.410
They wanted to look more at the inner

647
00:30:50.410 --> 00:30:51.640
workings of characters.

648
00:30:51.640 --> 00:30:54.520
They wanted to look at
the internal conflicts

649
00:30:54.520 --> 00:30:56.680
and struggles that people felt

650
00:30:56.680 --> 00:30:59.350
and the sort of what made
people do what they do.

651
00:31:00.790 --> 00:31:05.740
So modernism contained several

652
00:31:05.740 --> 00:31:09.940
other traditions, for
example, futurism that

653
00:31:09.940 --> 00:31:13.090
was about the fast pace
of modern life and,

654
00:31:13.090 --> 00:31:15.100
and mechanization and violence

655
00:31:15.100 --> 00:31:19.300
and those sorts of things were
futurism dadism, which came

656
00:31:19.300 --> 00:31:23.620
after World War I and was a
reaction to the horrors of war

657
00:31:23.620 --> 00:31:27.400
and sort of looked at
sort of the, the ideas

658
00:31:27.400 --> 00:31:29.470
of meaninglessness and, and,

659
00:31:29.470 --> 00:31:32.170
and things that were just kind of absurd

660
00:31:33.370 --> 00:31:34.720
and surrealism,

661
00:31:34.720 --> 00:31:37.930
which really looked at
more at the subconscious.

662
00:31:37.930 --> 00:31:41.800
And like, for example,
Salvador Dali, the Painter,

663
00:31:41.800 --> 00:31:44.440
you might have seen his works
with like the melting clocks

664
00:31:44.440 --> 00:31:47.890
and these weird kind
of dreamlike landscapes

665
00:31:47.890 --> 00:31:51.160
that were representing
the subconscious mind.

666
00:31:51.160 --> 00:31:53.080
Well, that's in visual art,

667
00:31:53.080 --> 00:31:57.490
but theater had its own version of that,

668
00:31:57.490 --> 00:31:59.710
its own version of surrealism

669
00:31:59.710 --> 00:32:03.310
and all of these kind of fall
under the modernist movement.

670
00:32:04.390 --> 00:32:07.395
So when we're thinking about modernism

671
00:32:07.395 --> 00:32:12.280
or any of these isms that you
see on the, on the slide here,

672
00:32:12.280 --> 00:32:16.450
keep in mind that different
people define these differently

673
00:32:16.450 --> 00:32:18.580
and that often some of these can overlap

674
00:32:18.580 --> 00:32:19.725
with each other as well.

675
00:32:19.725 --> 00:32:22.270
So people might consider
someone to be a realist.

676
00:32:22.270 --> 00:32:24.730
Some people might consider
that person to be a modernist.

677
00:32:24.730 --> 00:32:28.180
Some people might consider
realism to be part of modernism.

678
00:32:28.180 --> 00:32:29.230
So keep that in mind

679
00:32:29.230 --> 00:32:31.300
that these terms can get used differently.

680
00:32:31.300 --> 00:32:34.300
But generally speaking, what
we have here is a good overview

681
00:32:34.300 --> 00:32:37.240
for you that'll give you some
context about the various

682
00:32:37.240 --> 00:32:39.170
influences of American theater

683
00:32:39.170 --> 00:32:41.000
and they'll be very
helpful to you on the exam.

684
00:32:42.710 --> 00:32:47.330
So the next thing we have
is realism and naturalism.

685
00:32:47.330 --> 00:32:51.320
Realism and naturalism
are two very closely

686
00:32:51.320 --> 00:32:52.370
related movements.

687
00:32:52.370 --> 00:32:54.770
Realism is just what it sounds like.

688
00:32:54.770 --> 00:32:59.030
They wanted to really depict
things in a very realistic way,

689
00:32:59.030 --> 00:33:02.810
realistic sets people
behaving in a realistic way,

690
00:33:02.810 --> 00:33:04.640
realistic costumes, all of that.

691
00:33:05.780 --> 00:33:09.410
Naturalism is a kind
of version of realism,

692
00:33:09.410 --> 00:33:13.225
but it really focus on,
focuses on the natural world

693
00:33:13.225 --> 00:33:15.980
and not just the natural
world in the sense of nature,

694
00:33:15.980 --> 00:33:20.150
but that things happen for natural causes,

695
00:33:21.500 --> 00:33:25.700
things like heredity, things
like societal factors,

696
00:33:25.700 --> 00:33:29.180
things like that as opposed
to supernatural causes.

697
00:33:29.180 --> 00:33:32.690
So God or Gods having an influence

698
00:33:32.690 --> 00:33:34.520
and causing things to happen.

699
00:33:34.520 --> 00:33:38.570
So naturalism was more
about these scientific or,

700
00:33:38.570 --> 00:33:41.780
or societal or hereditary
based, those kinds of things.

701
00:33:41.780 --> 00:33:45.650
And because of those
factors causing things,

702
00:33:45.650 --> 00:33:47.720
morality was kind of relative.

703
00:33:47.720 --> 00:33:49.225
What was right and wrong was kind

704
00:33:49.225 --> 00:33:52.700
of relative in naturalistic plays, unlike

705
00:33:52.700 --> 00:33:56.810
what we saw in the earlier
religious morality plays where

706
00:33:56.810 --> 00:33:59.150
what was right and wrong
was very prescribed

707
00:33:59.150 --> 00:34:01.220
and really based on religious ideas.

708
00:34:03.170 --> 00:34:06.440
So that's realism and
naturalism in a nutshell.

709
00:34:06.440 --> 00:34:10.400
Some of the famous writers
of these two movements are,

710
00:34:10.400 --> 00:34:14.360
and Andre Antoine, who

711
00:34:14.360 --> 00:34:18.080
founded the Theater Libre,
which means free theater,

712
00:34:18.080 --> 00:34:20.990
and came up with sets
that were very realistic.

713
00:34:20.990 --> 00:34:24.710
He would build them and then
just remove one of the walls.

714
00:34:24.710 --> 00:34:26.870
And that's the wall in
which you would look

715
00:34:26.870 --> 00:34:29.810
through into this world that he'd created.

716
00:34:29.810 --> 00:34:34.105
And that's where the idea, the
term fourth wall comes from.

717
00:34:34.105 --> 00:34:36.290
Now we think of the idea
of a fourth wall as kind

718
00:34:36.290 --> 00:34:40.250
of being the imaginary
wall between the audience

719
00:34:40.250 --> 00:34:42.020
and the, and the performers.

720
00:34:42.020 --> 00:34:44.330
The performers are in this
fictional world on the other

721
00:34:44.330 --> 00:34:45.650
side of the fourth wall.

722
00:34:45.650 --> 00:34:46.880
And if they turn

723
00:34:46.880 --> 00:34:51.140
and they talk to the audience
breaking the fourth wall,

724
00:34:51.140 --> 00:34:53.960
that sort of breaks the boundary
between the fictional world

725
00:34:53.960 --> 00:34:56.300
and the real world in which
the play is taking place.

726
00:34:57.740 --> 00:34:59.815
Anton Checkoff was another person

727
00:34:59.815 --> 00:35:01.465
who was part of this movement.

728
00:35:01.465 --> 00:35:03.590
He wrote Uncle Vanya and the Seagull.

729
00:35:03.590 --> 00:35:08.120
He was a Russian
playwright, Hendrik Ibsen,

730
00:35:08.120 --> 00:35:10.370
who was a Norwegian playwright.

731
00:35:10.370 --> 00:35:14.030
He wrote a Dolls House, which
was a really important work

732
00:35:14.030 --> 00:35:17.150
because it depicted the
domestic life of women.

733
00:35:17.150 --> 00:35:20.480
And it it depicted a woman
who was leaving her husband

734
00:35:20.480 --> 00:35:25.310
and it depicted her in a, in
a sympathetic way, which was

735
00:35:25.310 --> 00:35:28.820
really kind of groundbreaking at the time.

736
00:35:28.820 --> 00:35:31.760
So again, this is a example of

737
00:35:31.760 --> 00:35:34.400
how theater can have
an influence on society

738
00:35:34.400 --> 00:35:35.810
and on people's perceptions.

739
00:35:37.170 --> 00:35:40.680
And Arthur Miller, an
American playwright, death

740
00:35:40.680 --> 00:35:43.260
of a Salesman, the Crucible,

741
00:35:43.260 --> 00:35:46.895
and even more contemporary
playwrights like August Wilson

742
00:35:46.895 --> 00:35:50.280
would be part of the realist tradition.

743
00:35:50.280 --> 00:35:53.760
Many plays that are written
today are still realist plays.

744
00:35:53.760 --> 00:35:56.280
That's a very popular tradition
that has really stayed

745
00:35:56.280 --> 00:35:59.280
around after this.

746
00:35:59.280 --> 00:36:03.815
We have symbolism, symbolism,

747
00:36:03.815 --> 00:36:07.500
unlike realism, which was really

748
00:36:07.500 --> 00:36:11.310
looking at things depicted
in a very real way,

749
00:36:11.310 --> 00:36:12.570
was really wanting

750
00:36:12.570 --> 00:36:17.010
to get at truth in a more subjective way,

751
00:36:17.010 --> 00:36:19.470
really saying truth was very subjective.

752
00:36:19.470 --> 00:36:23.130
It is very internal, it's very spiritual.

753
00:36:23.130 --> 00:36:27.750
So we're looking at the
internal forces inside a person

754
00:36:27.750 --> 00:36:30.960
as the higher form of truth
and expression of truth.

755
00:36:32.400 --> 00:36:35.790
So Maurice Mater link, one

756
00:36:35.790 --> 00:36:38.490
of the examples here of a symbolist.

757
00:36:38.490 --> 00:36:39.605
He once said

758
00:36:39.605 --> 00:36:43.920
that an old man sitting
quietly at a table is more

759
00:36:43.920 --> 00:36:47.160
dramatically powerful and

760
00:36:47.160 --> 00:36:51.990
and truthful than an
enraged lover strangling

761
00:36:51.990 --> 00:36:53.760
his, his mistress.

762
00:36:53.760 --> 00:36:55.140
So even though those one

763
00:36:55.140 --> 00:36:58.830
of those things seems more
physically, outwardly dramatic,

764
00:36:58.830 --> 00:37:01.805
he's arguing that the
inner lives of people is

765
00:37:01.805 --> 00:37:05.465
where the real drama and
power and beauty and sadness

766
00:37:05.465 --> 00:37:08.670
and all those things come from, so

767
00:37:08.670 --> 00:37:13.560
that he would get at those ideas
through, through symbolism.

768
00:37:16.105 --> 00:37:19.080
And the other symbolist we
have listed here, Paul Fort,

769
00:37:20.070 --> 00:37:22.770
he founded the Theater to Art.

770
00:37:22.770 --> 00:37:25.740
He was a French, a French playwright,

771
00:37:25.740 --> 00:37:29.790
and an example of a play
that was done there, there

772
00:37:29.790 --> 00:37:30.870
had a curtain

773
00:37:30.870 --> 00:37:33.840
and the actors were behind the
curtain saying their lines.

774
00:37:33.840 --> 00:37:36.605
You can even see them. And
in front of the curtain,

775
00:37:36.605 --> 00:37:38.760
there was a woman dressed in a blue tunic

776
00:37:38.760 --> 00:37:41.010
and she was commenting on

777
00:37:41.010 --> 00:37:43.380
and repeating what they were saying

778
00:37:43.380 --> 00:37:44.970
and sort of analyzing it.

779
00:37:44.970 --> 00:37:48.960
And, and, and so that was
looking at beneath the surface of

780
00:37:48.960 --> 00:37:51.330
what people are saying,
what is the deeper meaning?

781
00:37:51.330 --> 00:37:52.740
What is the symbolic meaning?

782
00:37:52.740 --> 00:37:55.170
Obviously this is not very realistic.

783
00:37:55.170 --> 00:37:56.520
So it's different than realism,

784
00:37:56.520 --> 00:37:59.820
but it's attempting to get
at a greater deeper truth

785
00:37:59.820 --> 00:38:02.520
as they saw it within
the symbolist movement.

786
00:38:04.620 --> 00:38:06.990
The next thing we have
here is expressionism.

787
00:38:07.830 --> 00:38:11.160
Expressionism was a movement
that started in Europe,

788
00:38:11.160 --> 00:38:14.130
specifically in Germany, but really spread

789
00:38:14.130 --> 00:38:17.250
and really became very
popular in the United States.

790
00:38:17.250 --> 00:38:20.100
Often the sets were very minimalist

791
00:38:20.100 --> 00:38:22.650
and often there were things
both in the production design

792
00:38:22.650 --> 00:38:26.645
as well as in the acting
that were very distorted

793
00:38:26.645 --> 00:38:27.660
or exaggerated

794
00:38:27.660 --> 00:38:29.250
because they were really trying

795
00:38:29.250 --> 00:38:33.720
to get at whatever could
most strongly express the

796
00:38:33.720 --> 00:38:35.530
emotions and feelings.

797
00:38:35.530 --> 00:38:39.040
So expressionism was very
much about expressing

798
00:38:39.040 --> 00:38:41.110
feelings and emotions.

799
00:38:41.110 --> 00:38:44.920
Eugene O'Neill is a famous playwright

800
00:38:44.920 --> 00:38:46.270
of the expressionist movement.

801
00:38:46.270 --> 00:38:48.820
He wrote the Harry Ape
and, and many other plays.

802
00:38:50.770 --> 00:38:53.380
The next one we have listed
here is Theater of Cruelty.

803
00:38:54.280 --> 00:38:55.750
Theater of Cruelty,

804
00:38:57.190 --> 00:38:59.950
or I'm sorry, I jumped over Epic Theater

805
00:38:59.950 --> 00:39:02.410
ec Epic Theater from, it was in the early

806
00:39:02.410 --> 00:39:04.330
and mid 20th century.

807
00:39:05.170 --> 00:39:10.150
And Epic Theater was
very didactic, meaning

808
00:39:10.150 --> 00:39:13.090
that it was really about
teaching people things

809
00:39:13.090 --> 00:39:17.890
and making sort of very political
po points or social points

810
00:39:17.890 --> 00:39:21.370
and trying to get people
to engage with ideas

811
00:39:21.370 --> 00:39:23.530
and try to affect change in society.

812
00:39:23.530 --> 00:39:25.935
So it was much more about the ideas

813
00:39:25.935 --> 00:39:28.300
as opposed to the emotions.

814
00:39:28.300 --> 00:39:29.500
So that's a kind of difference

815
00:39:29.500 --> 00:39:32.080
between Epic Theater and Expressionism.

816
00:39:32.080 --> 00:39:34.510
So Epic Theater, very
much about the ideas.

817
00:39:34.510 --> 00:39:37.450
They would use things like
signs that were on stage.

818
00:39:37.450 --> 00:39:42.450
They would have projections
of videos or things like that.

819
00:39:42.940 --> 00:39:44.830
They would often break the fourth wall

820
00:39:44.830 --> 00:39:48.465
and the audiences would
engage the actors engaged in

821
00:39:48.465 --> 00:39:51.910
discussions with the audience,
whatever they could do to try

822
00:39:51.910 --> 00:39:54.010
to make their various political points

823
00:39:54.010 --> 00:39:55.180
or social points

824
00:39:55.180 --> 00:39:58.210
to have the audience leave the
theater thinking differently

825
00:39:58.210 --> 00:40:00.640
or taking some action that
they wanted them to take.

826
00:40:02.380 --> 00:40:07.090
So Bertol Brecht was a
famous writer of the,

827
00:40:07.090 --> 00:40:09.460
of the Epic Theater movement.

828
00:40:09.460 --> 00:40:11.200
He was a Marxist

829
00:40:11.200 --> 00:40:14.685
and he wa was very interested
in creating social change,

830
00:40:14.685 --> 00:40:18.820
particularly on behalf of
people who were poor on behalf

831
00:40:18.820 --> 00:40:20.980
of laborers or people who were exploited

832
00:40:20.980 --> 00:40:23.260
by the wealthy as he saw it.

833
00:40:23.260 --> 00:40:26.590
So these were, this is an
example of a, you know,

834
00:40:26.590 --> 00:40:29.560
political action through theater

835
00:40:29.560 --> 00:40:31.270
that was very common to Epic theater.

836
00:40:32.260 --> 00:40:33.370
The next one we have is Theater

837
00:40:33.370 --> 00:40:36.790
of Cruelty, theater of Cruelty.

838
00:40:36.790 --> 00:40:38.535
It wasn't so much about cruelty

839
00:40:38.535 --> 00:40:40.365
between the characters on stage,

840
00:40:40.365 --> 00:40:44.145
it was about cruelty towards
the audience, so to speak.

841
00:40:44.145 --> 00:40:47.980
So they felt that really our force, first

842
00:40:47.980 --> 00:40:50.170
and foremost, people experienced things

843
00:40:50.170 --> 00:40:51.670
through their senses.

844
00:40:51.670 --> 00:40:55.000
So they wanted the theater to
be an assault on the senses.

845
00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:58.060
They really wanted things to
just be like coming at you.

846
00:40:58.060 --> 00:41:01.630
So loud noises, bright
flashing lights, anything

847
00:41:01.630 --> 00:41:04.810
that could kind of dazzle the senses.

848
00:41:04.810 --> 00:41:06.220
That's why they called it cruelty

849
00:41:06.220 --> 00:41:08.200
'cause it was sort of an
assault on the audience,

850
00:41:08.200 --> 00:41:10.930
and they felt that that
would really cause you

851
00:41:10.930 --> 00:41:15.070
to experience the feelings
and the ideas more powerfully.

852
00:41:16.990 --> 00:41:20.650
So a a famous writer of from the Theater

853
00:41:20.650 --> 00:41:22.720
of Cruelty was Antoine aau.

854
00:41:24.130 --> 00:41:29.130
And Antoine AAU really would sometimes

855
00:41:29.380 --> 00:41:32.865
to the point he would really
be believed in the spectacle

856
00:41:32.865 --> 00:41:35.720
and the power of these kind of
visceral things to the point

857
00:41:35.720 --> 00:41:39.470
of even having people say
words that were just nonsense.

858
00:41:39.470 --> 00:41:41.570
It was just about the
feelings of the words.

859
00:41:41.570 --> 00:41:43.400
It was just about the force of the words.

860
00:41:43.400 --> 00:41:47.540
It wasn't even about the
specific meanings of the words.

861
00:41:48.650 --> 00:41:52.250
Au was originally a
surrealist, but he was expelled

862
00:41:52.250 --> 00:41:54.590
because the surrealist
thought he was too extreme.

863
00:41:57.110 --> 00:42:00.770
Next we have Theater of
the Absurd Theater of the,

864
00:42:00.770 --> 00:42:02.570
of the Absurd came after World War ii

865
00:42:03.860 --> 00:42:08.540
and again as sort of a response
to the horror sort war.

866
00:42:08.540 --> 00:42:12.050
It was again, kind of looking
at the idea of things,

867
00:42:12.050 --> 00:42:15.260
you know, being kind of
bleak and meaningless

868
00:42:15.260 --> 00:42:17.330
and it kind of felt like communication

869
00:42:17.330 --> 00:42:20.540
and connection between
people was really doomed and,

870
00:42:20.540 --> 00:42:22.790
and wouldn't work.

871
00:42:22.790 --> 00:42:25.250
So a lot of the things
that were in Theater

872
00:42:25.250 --> 00:42:29.210
of the Absurd were just
sort of people like in,

873
00:42:29.210 --> 00:42:31.640
in Samuel Becketts waiting for Gau.

874
00:42:31.640 --> 00:42:34.910
Two people are sitting in
a bleak landscape waiting

875
00:42:34.910 --> 00:42:37.280
for this guy gado to show up who's kind

876
00:42:37.280 --> 00:42:38.630
of a metaphor for God.

877
00:42:39.560 --> 00:42:42.230
And he, you know, maybe
he's not ever gonna show up

878
00:42:42.230 --> 00:42:43.795
and they're just talking
about this and that,

879
00:42:43.795 --> 00:42:46.490
and it's all kind of circular

880
00:42:46.490 --> 00:42:48.830
and maybe a little bit pointless.

881
00:42:48.830 --> 00:42:52.370
That is kind of quintessentially
theater of the absurd.

882
00:42:52.370 --> 00:42:56.570
And another writer, Eugene Esco,

883
00:42:56.570 --> 00:43:00.710
he wrote Exit the King, again,
that same style of theater,

884
00:43:00.710 --> 00:43:01.730
theater of the absurd.

885
00:43:03.590 --> 00:43:05.270
Next we have postmodernism.

886
00:43:06.410 --> 00:43:10.760
Postmodernism really
rejected the modernist idea

887
00:43:10.760 --> 00:43:14.270
of expressing universal truth

888
00:43:14.270 --> 00:43:16.160
through through art.

889
00:43:16.160 --> 00:43:17.845
So the modernist really thought, you know,

890
00:43:17.845 --> 00:43:19.645
we can really understand people

891
00:43:19.645 --> 00:43:22.400
and get at the inner workings
of people and society and,

892
00:43:22.400 --> 00:43:26.570
and expressed these, these
big ideas through a narrative.

893
00:43:26.570 --> 00:43:29.630
The postmodernist kind
of rejected this idea

894
00:43:29.630 --> 00:43:33.860
and said, you know, everything
is kind of subjective.

895
00:43:34.940 --> 00:43:36.205
And the, you know,

896
00:43:36.205 --> 00:43:40.550
the theater experience is a
just its own real experience

897
00:43:40.550 --> 00:43:44.150
between a real audience and
real actors that are on stage.

898
00:43:44.150 --> 00:43:46.700
And it's kind of different
every time depending on the

899
00:43:46.700 --> 00:43:48.020
response of the audience.

900
00:43:48.020 --> 00:43:50.630
And we can't really have a grand narrative

901
00:43:50.630 --> 00:43:52.820
that just explains things to people

902
00:43:52.820 --> 00:43:55.670
and leaves them with an
understanding of something.

903
00:43:55.670 --> 00:43:57.410
Instead, we are, we really want

904
00:43:57.410 --> 00:44:01.190
to engage the p the audience
members themselves in sort

905
00:44:01.190 --> 00:44:02.660
of connecting with ideas

906
00:44:02.660 --> 00:44:05.180
and coming up with their own understanding

907
00:44:05.180 --> 00:44:07.730
and their own explanations for themselves.

908
00:44:07.730 --> 00:44:10.190
So often, instead of
kind of giving answers

909
00:44:10.190 --> 00:44:13.340
that in postmodernism,
they would ask questions

910
00:44:13.340 --> 00:44:15.980
and leave people to kind
of engage with the ideas

911
00:44:15.980 --> 00:44:18.590
and often participate in the play,

912
00:44:18.590 --> 00:44:21.950
the audience members
participating themselves to sort

913
00:44:21.950 --> 00:44:23.900
of draw their own conclusions

914
00:44:23.900 --> 00:44:27.590
and connections in, in
some ways this was a form

915
00:44:27.590 --> 00:44:29.450
of deconstruction.

916
00:44:29.450 --> 00:44:31.950
It was deconstructing that narrative

917
00:44:31.950 --> 00:44:34.800
and leaving people with sort of the pieces

918
00:44:34.800 --> 00:44:36.390
to assemble in their own way.

919
00:44:37.860 --> 00:44:40.320
And the last thing we
have here is avant-garde

920
00:44:40.320 --> 00:44:41.640
and experimental theater.

921
00:44:43.170 --> 00:44:47.190
Avant-garde is French for
advanced guard, meaning the,

922
00:44:47.190 --> 00:44:48.810
the line of soldiers
that were in the front

923
00:44:48.810 --> 00:44:50.730
line in an attack.

924
00:44:50.730 --> 00:44:54.330
So this is how avant
garde theater writers and

925
00:44:54.330 --> 00:44:56.220
and producers saw themselves.

926
00:44:56.220 --> 00:44:59.730
They saw themselves as coming
up with new innovative ideas

927
00:44:59.730 --> 00:45:02.610
that challenged the, the accepted

928
00:45:02.610 --> 00:45:04.350
and traditional forms of theater.

929
00:45:05.280 --> 00:45:07.740
And this idea of avant
garde dates all the way back

930
00:45:07.740 --> 00:45:09.060
to the 1830s.

931
00:45:09.060 --> 00:45:11.730
So many of the different people in the,

932
00:45:11.730 --> 00:45:14.130
in these different movements
like Theater of Cruelty

933
00:45:14.130 --> 00:45:15.600
and theater of the Absurd,

934
00:45:15.600 --> 00:45:17.700
considered themselves avant-garde.

935
00:45:18.540 --> 00:45:21.810
So this is an example of
how these terms can kind

936
00:45:21.810 --> 00:45:23.580
of overlap with each other.

937
00:45:23.580 --> 00:45:26.730
And it's still, people today
consider themselves avant-garde

938
00:45:26.730 --> 00:45:30.150
are experimental writers or theater makers

939
00:45:30.150 --> 00:45:33.030
because they're trying to come
up with new, innovative ideas

940
00:45:33.030 --> 00:45:36.450
and challenge the, the, the norm.

941
00:45:36.450 --> 00:45:40.230
So all of this is, is things

942
00:45:40.230 --> 00:45:42.270
that are very fluid and evolving

943
00:45:42.270 --> 00:45:43.800
and these things built on each other

944
00:45:43.800 --> 00:45:45.420
and overlapped with each other.

945
00:45:45.420 --> 00:45:48.510
And you'll see, when
you watch plays today,

946
00:45:48.510 --> 00:45:51.960
you'll see the influences
of different traditions.

947
00:45:51.960 --> 00:45:53.250
And it's interesting to kind

948
00:45:53.250 --> 00:45:55.830
of think about the
influences that you see.

949
00:45:55.830 --> 00:45:57.900
Is this something that feels more realist

950
00:45:57.900 --> 00:45:59.850
or does it feel more postmodern?

951
00:45:59.850 --> 00:46:03.240
Or does it feel like maybe a
combination of different ideas?

952
00:46:04.200 --> 00:46:09.180
And all of this is part
of the, the tradition

953
00:46:09.180 --> 00:46:13.620
that built, built the world
in which we have our theater

954
00:46:13.620 --> 00:46:17.700
today, which does not exist
in isolation, exists as part

955
00:46:17.700 --> 00:46:21.390
of this lineage of creativity

956
00:46:21.390 --> 00:46:26.390
where things built on one
another World theater.

957
00:46:26.670 --> 00:46:29.700
So we've been talking about
some of the styles of theater

958
00:46:29.700 --> 00:46:33.330
that have been influential
in American theater,

959
00:46:33.330 --> 00:46:34.625
but of course there are many,

960
00:46:34.625 --> 00:46:38.430
many traditions all over
the world of, of theater.

961
00:46:38.430 --> 00:46:41.280
And we're just gonna look
at a few examples here.

962
00:46:41.280 --> 00:46:44.130
So as we're thinking about
these, it can be kind

963
00:46:44.130 --> 00:46:46.290
of interesting to think about the cultures

964
00:46:46.290 --> 00:46:48.185
that they exist within

965
00:46:48.185 --> 00:46:50.160
and how the, the different forms

966
00:46:50.160 --> 00:46:52.380
of theater obviously affect cultures

967
00:46:52.380 --> 00:46:54.065
and affect people within the cultures,

968
00:46:54.065 --> 00:46:56.850
but also how they are
shaped by the cultures.

969
00:46:57.870 --> 00:46:58.950
So first of all,

970
00:46:58.950 --> 00:47:02.820
Kabuki Theater is a Japanese
tradition involving elaborate

971
00:47:02.820 --> 00:47:05.550
makeup and costumes,
melodramatic plot lines

972
00:47:05.550 --> 00:47:07.560
and skillful gestures and dance.

973
00:47:08.790 --> 00:47:12.570
So there's a great deal of
kind of, of color and pageantry

974
00:47:12.570 --> 00:47:16.050
and a a lot of different
things that are part of this

975
00:47:16.050 --> 00:47:19.140
in terms of music and
dance and performance and,

976
00:47:19.140 --> 00:47:23.580
and big expressive type of
emotions and things like that.

977
00:47:25.320 --> 00:47:27.720
This was a form of theater
that originally started

978
00:47:27.720 --> 00:47:31.210
with all female troops and then,

979
00:47:31.210 --> 00:47:34.630
or in the 16 hundreds in Japan,
it was outlawed for women

980
00:47:34.630 --> 00:47:36.520
to perform in the theater.

981
00:47:36.520 --> 00:47:39.100
So then it became all male troops.

982
00:47:39.100 --> 00:47:42.070
So that's no longer true today
women can perform in theater

983
00:47:42.070 --> 00:47:43.990
obviously, but that sort

984
00:47:43.990 --> 00:47:46.990
of historic influence
leads kabuki theater troops

985
00:47:46.990 --> 00:47:50.470
to still be generally more male.

986
00:47:50.470 --> 00:47:53.800
So this is an interesting
example of, of gender roles

987
00:47:53.800 --> 00:47:56.080
and how gender roles can change over time

988
00:47:56.080 --> 00:47:59.895
and how that can affect affect theater.

989
00:47:59.895 --> 00:48:03.160
This is not unlike what
happened in English theater

990
00:48:03.160 --> 00:48:06.430
where it used to be that
only men could perform, so

991
00:48:06.430 --> 00:48:10.060
men would play both roles,
both male and female roles.

992
00:48:10.060 --> 00:48:12.645
And of course that's not
true there anymore either.

993
00:48:12.645 --> 00:48:14.565
But you know, it's influential on

994
00:48:14.565 --> 00:48:16.185
how these things got their start

995
00:48:16.185 --> 00:48:18.430
and the sort of way
that the shape of these,

996
00:48:18.430 --> 00:48:21.460
these traditions, you know, looks today

997
00:48:22.960 --> 00:48:27.880
in Nigeria, Aruba Theater, it
was developed from masquerades

998
00:48:27.880 --> 00:48:31.000
where dead ancestors
returned to the world.

999
00:48:31.000 --> 00:48:32.380
So there's kind of a, something

1000
00:48:32.380 --> 00:48:34.870
that's reli re rooted in religious

1001
00:48:34.870 --> 00:48:36.580
and sort of folklore traditions.

1002
00:48:37.570 --> 00:48:41.710
It's a type of folk opera
that combines mime drumming,

1003
00:48:41.710 --> 00:48:43.750
vivid costume and folklore.

1004
00:48:43.750 --> 00:48:46.690
And like many theater
traditions, it has kind

1005
00:48:46.690 --> 00:48:48.640
of branched off in different ways.

1006
00:48:48.640 --> 00:48:51.460
So even though it's a fairly
new tradition, it dates back

1007
00:48:51.460 --> 00:48:52.780
to about the 1940s.

1008
00:48:54.310 --> 00:48:56.350
It has kind of two different forms.

1009
00:48:56.350 --> 00:48:59.800
One, which is really
about religious themes

1010
00:48:59.800 --> 00:49:01.870
and folklore kind of themes,

1011
00:49:01.870 --> 00:49:05.470
but another form that has
become very secular where it is,

1012
00:49:05.470 --> 00:49:08.295
it still uses the idea of the masquerades

1013
00:49:08.295 --> 00:49:11.170
and the dead returning,
but it explores stories

1014
00:49:11.170 --> 00:49:13.120
that are about people's domestic lives

1015
00:49:13.120 --> 00:49:15.460
and relationships between
husbands and wives.

1016
00:49:15.460 --> 00:49:18.940
Or it can explore political things

1017
00:49:18.940 --> 00:49:21.610
or historical subjects
and things like that.

1018
00:49:21.610 --> 00:49:25.780
So not necessarily things
that are religious.

1019
00:49:25.780 --> 00:49:29.380
So that's an example of
how, how theater can sort

1020
00:49:29.380 --> 00:49:32.890
of evolve from and can
evolve fairly quickly.

1021
00:49:34.840 --> 00:49:39.405
Ka theater is from Car Carala in India,

1022
00:49:39.405 --> 00:49:43.600
and it is based on the famous
Sanskrit epic, the Mahata.

1023
00:49:43.600 --> 00:49:45.640
So this is a religious text.

1024
00:49:45.640 --> 00:49:48.820
It's, it is considered the
longest poem ever written.

1025
00:49:48.820 --> 00:49:50.590
It's over a hundred thousand verses.

1026
00:49:51.610 --> 00:49:53.830
And so there's a lot of story

1027
00:49:53.830 --> 00:49:58.365
and source material in the
mahata that they can draw on.

1028
00:49:58.365 --> 00:50:00.010
And it, and this particular kind

1029
00:50:00.010 --> 00:50:04.690
of theater utilizes classical
Indian dance to sort

1030
00:50:04.690 --> 00:50:07.120
of tell some of the
stories from the Mahata.

1031
00:50:08.050 --> 00:50:10.960
It's very athletic form of theater.

1032
00:50:10.960 --> 00:50:14.080
There's, it's almost acrobatic
in terms of the movements,

1033
00:50:14.080 --> 00:50:16.600
a lot of very strong facial expressions.

1034
00:50:16.600 --> 00:50:17.950
And so it's very expressive

1035
00:50:18.910 --> 00:50:22.750
and it's just one of many,
many different traditions

1036
00:50:22.750 --> 00:50:26.350
of theater that exist in India
in all the different regions

1037
00:50:26.350 --> 00:50:28.700
of India, which all have very distinct

1038
00:50:28.700 --> 00:50:30.980
and interesting theatrical traditions.

1039
00:50:32.870 --> 00:50:37.435
Al Arga is an old form
of Egyptian theater,

1040
00:50:37.435 --> 00:50:39.830
and this one uses
traditional hand puppetry

1041
00:50:39.830 --> 00:50:41.660
where the person puts their hand

1042
00:50:41.660 --> 00:50:44.035
inside the puppet to operate it.

1043
00:50:44.035 --> 00:50:47.360
And the actual puppeteers
would be sort of hidden

1044
00:50:47.360 --> 00:50:49.820
while assistance would
interact with the audience

1045
00:50:49.820 --> 00:50:52.340
and interact with the
puppets out in front.

1046
00:50:53.810 --> 00:50:57.440
And the, it takes its name from

1047
00:50:57.440 --> 00:50:59.935
the main puppet character, which has sort

1048
00:50:59.935 --> 00:51:03.590
of a distinctive voice that's,
they use a voice modifier

1049
00:51:03.590 --> 00:51:05.480
to create the distinctive
voice of the puppet.

1050
00:51:06.920 --> 00:51:10.070
And it can explore lots
of different themes,

1051
00:51:10.070 --> 00:51:14.030
often focused on things like,
like themes of corruption and,

1052
00:51:14.030 --> 00:51:17.870
and things like that, that
that, that it would explore

1053
00:51:17.870 --> 00:51:19.705
through the, through the puppetry.

1054
00:51:19.705 --> 00:51:23.300
And through this, this form of expression,

1055
00:51:23.300 --> 00:51:26.300
it's currently at risk of dying out

1056
00:51:26.300 --> 00:51:28.520
as many old traditions are.

1057
00:51:29.510 --> 00:51:31.250
And it's be, this is

1058
00:51:31.250 --> 00:51:36.170
because of laws about public gatherings

1059
00:51:36.170 --> 00:51:40.400
and religious radicalize,
religious radicalization,

1060
00:51:40.400 --> 00:51:44.660
and as well as the older puppeteers

1061
00:51:44.660 --> 00:51:47.815
who perform this kind of
theater just dying off

1062
00:51:47.815 --> 00:51:51.805
and younger people not necessarily
picking it up as readily.

1063
00:51:51.805 --> 00:51:55.010
So all these kind of
cultural changes has led

1064
00:51:55.010 --> 00:52:00.010
to this not being, you know,
as easy to find or as accepted.

1065
00:52:00.410 --> 00:52:01.430
So there is a risk

1066
00:52:01.430 --> 00:52:05.780
of this rich cultural
tradition possibly dying out,

1067
00:52:05.780 --> 00:52:09.320
but organizations like UNESCO
have listed it as something

1068
00:52:09.320 --> 00:52:12.955
that's at risk to try to get
more people to be aware of it

1069
00:52:12.955 --> 00:52:15.440
and to hopefully have
younger people embrace

1070
00:52:15.440 --> 00:52:19.340
and continue these traditions
that are really important part

1071
00:52:19.340 --> 00:52:21.110
of cultural heritage.

1072
00:52:21.110 --> 00:52:25.430
So this is again, just a few
examples of the thousands

1073
00:52:25.430 --> 00:52:27.110
of different unique

1074
00:52:27.110 --> 00:52:29.630
and interesting world theater traditions,

1075
00:52:29.630 --> 00:52:32.300
but this can just help to give
you a sense of the diversity

1076
00:52:32.300 --> 00:52:33.560
of different traditions

1077
00:52:33.560 --> 00:52:37.850
and how how theater has
evolved in different places all

1078
00:52:37.850 --> 00:52:38.450
around the world.