Drama

Zarrilli mentioned that “Although scholars disagree on a definition, we may define ‘popular’ theatre as stage entertainment that appeals to cross class audiences in complex societies through commercial means. ” (Zarrilli et al, Theatre Histories, 2006, pg 311) In this context it could be stated that a theatre is a stage where the actor and actress perform their characters according to the director script is written. But the acting on the stage and especially in front of the audience is more difficult rather than performing on the back stage.

There is whole lot of difference between a normal theatre and a popular theatre because rather than the culture mimic and mirror it also shows disagreement for the spectators with not a single question to answer but actually gives a reflection to the audience to find the answer. Popular theatre is nothing like that, what we see on television or theatre, where the actor and actress are performing a masterpiece, but here it is only to perform and realise the situation of the script and play a stage role in a very simple manner so that everyone can understand.

However, in this context it would be relevant to mention that melodrama, folk drama, festivals, calendar celebrations such as; Christmas, Easter, the harvest festival and Halloween, carnivals, clowns, reality TV as examples of popular theatre. Discussion While placing a role in front of a viewer popular theatre should tell a story and also bring a concern to the community around the issue. The content should be a potential one and it should be a theatre as a “rehearsal of life” so that the visitors can overcome the fears of mind and can build a self reliance among them selves.

The act should be intense, so that the audience gets encourage and they should have the ideas without any hesitation in mind. Thus from this view point events like melodrama, folk drama, festivals, calendar celebrations such as; Christmas, Easter, the harvest festival and Halloween, carnivals, clowns, reality TV well blends into the parameter of popular theatre. Now, for the presentation it requires some time and with the chosen form of communication it can be done very quickly and easily.

Sometimes the local people carry out the expenses making the production cost low. Another important part of popular theatre is to organize a very few people who have a very good understanding among themselves so that they can make their own decisions and participate to do the work. (Berkowitz, 189) An illustration of a case study would help in this context. Take for example ‘Kissa Kursi Ka’ (Trans: Tale of Throne), Directed by former parliamentarian Amrit Nahata, that originated as a folk drama, was a controversial Indian play.

The plot revolved around a corrupt and evil politician, Utpal Dutt, trying to woo personified public, Shabana Azmi. It talked about evil politicians running after the ministerial throne to do anything and everything to get the so called ministry chair and ultimately shows that all politicians are of same character, leaving a question mark on the viewers about the characters of the politicians governing the country. This is what folk drama does. It reveals the public sentiment on different issues. In this case it was political satire.

(Dos, 177) Now comes the performance part. It is completely an art, where the artist has to interact with spectators indirectly. Before they come in front of them they need ample practice to perform on stage with exemplary presence of mind. To make it complete, the artist should have appropriate make up, speech, to convey the message with proper skills of non verbal communication. Sometimes the interaction with audience can be direct, it becomes a testing time for the artist’s presence of mind, as different audience can behave indifferently.

So folk artists of a folk drama have to work according to it. In a normal theatre the artist perform their role very professionally because it is their bread and butter for them, so they have to perform quiet confidently so that the next order or roll does not quit away from them. Therefore they have to work very sincerely on that performance act. But in the popular theatre such as folk drama the artist plays a role without any tension on the platform and they do well than the professional people.

This only happens because they think that they are working for the society or for the community to grow awareness among the people, so that they do not suffer afterwards in the later part of the life. Here we can see that the normal theatre artist perform their duties for their occupation, whereas the popular theatre artist does their work for the betterment of the society. For example, in India our government has taken an initiative to do away with stigma around AIDS. While launching this type of welfare needs, the government has taken two steps to convey the message to the people of India.

One is by providing awareness to the citizen by the help of television. (Border, 227-228) This type of small advertisement programs are covered by popular artist, so that the admirers of the artist gets more attracted to the message of the advertisement, which had been conveyed to them and they should follow that message from that particular day and also discuss the issue with others. With that particular topic, the government also launches small programs, like street skits, with the local people who stay in the villages and perform the role, where the awareness of the advertisement had not reach.

Here popular theatre plays its part. It takes more time and hassle for the performers to do the work, but it will be sure that the message will be reach to each and every family, which is much more effective than the regular theatre. These types of popular theatre are conducted by the artist according to the village tradition, culture and language which can give a more positive effect on the minds of the audience. Artist faces many problems out here. Cost is a main factor, where most of the money comes from the government, where the rest had to be collected from the welfare trustees, who donate for the betterment of the people.

For every rehearsal the artists had some expenses for make ups, dress, food, lodging, this small cost looks more visible when the artist is performing for quit along time. As the funds are very limited it also crates a negative impact while performing a role. For that the insiders and the outsiders have to talk freely and openly with the particular problem and with the help of the experiences they have to solve it. Most of the people start with his own experience and later notice or study the experience of other artist. (Deb, 323)

The analysis part is done between actors, facilitators, animators and even between the insiders and the outsiders. In this type of analysis the issue information is examined in three contexts, that is economical social or political. This issue should immediately bring to light and the problem had to solve instantly so that the performance gets better. In a popular theatre, one most important point have to be notice that is to convert the major issues into entertainment and that particular entertainment can be in the form of series of work shops, or a play.

This type of particular structured entertainment or activities can be done by asking people to take on the role of a group or community unfamiliar to them and then have the feeling and reflect the experience. Thus it is certain that popular theatre like melodrama, folk drama, festivals, calendar celebrations such as; Christmas, Easter, the harvest festival and Halloween, carnivals, clowns, reality TV work highly in the context of mass entertainment. (Dev, 78-81) Conclusion When the artist take on very unfamiliar roles they are forced to learn and find new feelings and experience followed by creative thoughts.

Emotions of new thought can be done by incorporating the ideas into the theme. Here practice takes place and the next important stage “rehearsal for life”, which also provides an opportunity of a new perception. The contributor or audience are said to analyze or resolution of a problem or leave the stage with a provoking question in the mind of the audience so that they can separately analyse and assess the culture and work according to the political scenario. By resolving this type of contradiction the drama reach a new phase and it turns to a new disagreement and so the process becomes continuous.

(Dos, 441-442) Bibliography: Zarrilli, Phillip B. McConachie, Bruce A Williams, Gary Jay and Sorgenfrei, Carol Fisher. Theatre Histories: An Introduction. New York and London: Routledge, 2006 Berkowitz, L; Theatre and Man; New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 2006 Border, S; Act I: Fire of the Mind; Wellington: National Book Trust; 2006 Deb, J; Introduction to Russian Acting: Stage for Mankind; Dunedin: ABP Ltd. 2005 Dell, S; Evaluation of UK Stage; Dunedin: ABP Ltd. 2006 Dos, M; Future of Thought Process in Theatre History; Christchurch: Alliance Publications; 2005

Few writers have invested as much care into the personal image they publicly project as did Noel Coward. As a result, within popular culture the name “Coward” has become synonymous with a certain English style: the elegant silk dressing gown, the cigarette holder, charm, wit, clipped phrases, upper-class accents, and sex appeal. His plays reinforced this image, and Coward was not averse to audiences confusing him with his leading male heterosexual characters.

Coward’s homosexuality is now well understood, as is the fact that his public persona was a careful construction designed to hide his homosexuality from the general public. He was, for example, unimpressed with Oscar Wilde, calling him “a silly, conceited, inadequate creature . . . a dreadful self-deceiver” (The Noel Coward Diaries, 135). Although by the 1960s Coward was writing openly about the Homosexual Bill in Parliament in both his diaries and his play Shadows of the Evening, he failed to realize that his whole mannerism–the silk dressing gown, the cigarette holder, the raised eyebrow–was deeply artificial and camp.

In addition to the creation of an immensely enjoyable persona, Coward’s homosexuality may have also led him to the acidly witty exposure of society characteristic of so many of his plays and the comedy of manners ( Lahr). He well understood society’s double standards and knew exactly how they might best be exposed through language. However, his success lay not with the epigrammatic phrase, but rather with the timing so that ordinary phrases become witty, hilarious, hysterical, or loaded with desperation. The recent revival of Coward in London, labeled by some critics as Coward for the nineties, attests to Coward’s enduring qualities.

To a certain extent he ignored modernism and sweeping changes in the theater, preferring instead to perfect the comedy of manners. Yet his sparse but witty dialogue that relies on situation and moment, his consciousness of language as a weapon that can damage, and the gap between the grace of the language and what people actually do to one another ensure that Coward is more than merely an entertaining period comedy writer. Even Coward’s birth date of 16 December 1899 seems suspiciously auspicious, falling at the end of an old century, and early on Coward appeared determined to embody the new century.

He was born into a middle-class suburb in Teddington, Middlesex, and not into the world of cocktails and dressing gowns that his plays were to celebrate. His devoted mother Violet had married a piano salesman, Arthur, from a musical family, and she adored the theater and certainly passed that on to her son. With her encouragement, Noel took acting lessons at the age of ten in Miss Janet Thomas’s Dancing Academy, and in September, 1911 he auditioned for his first part in The Goldfish.

The year 1911 saw the beginning of his relationship with Charles Hawtrey, one of the great Edwardian actor-managers, when Noel first appeared in Hawtrey The Great Name. Hawtrey cast him in a series of plays: The Great Name, Where the Rainbow Ends, A Little Fowl Play, and The Saving Grace. Between 1911 and 1917 Coward appeared in a number of plays and quickly learned to appreciate the pleasure of an audience, which, he claimed, launched him on his writing career. He was finally drafted into the army in 1918, but his tubercular tendency and neurasthenia ended his army career after a few short months.

Between 1918 and 1920 Coward survived by acting in a few small roles and writing stories for magazines and song lyrics. Early success came with I’ll Leave It to You, a vehicle he wrote for himself and Esme Wynne-Tyson staged in Manchester and London. Critics agreed that a new talent had emerged. At the age of twenty-four, Coward confirmed this with The Vortex. Coward was hailed as a sensational talent. He shocked audiences with the subject matter of the play, but those who got beyond shock appreciated Coward’s talent for writing. He seemed to epitomize the age’s need to live life at a fast rate.

His early success was confirmed with Hay Fever, produced in 1925, and Easy Virtue. Coward’s finest play, Private Lives, written, like so many others, at high speed and as a vehicle for his dear friend Gertrude Lawrence, opened the 1930s. During this decade Coward wrote his finest work. In 1931 he wrote Cavalcade, in 1932, Design for Living, in 1935, ten one-act plays in Tonight at 8:30, and in 1939, This Happy Breed. During this decade he also acted as a somewhat unsuccessful spy and more successful patriot. In 1940 he toured Australia for the armed forces and in 1941 toured New Zealand.

In that same year Blithe Spirit was produced, and he wrote the screenplay for In Which We Serve. During the early 1940s Coward enjoyed success with films. In 1943 he produced This Happy Breed; in 1944 he produced Blithe Spirit; also in 1944 he wrote the screenplay for Brief Encounter, based on Still Life, a play from the ten in Tonight at 8:30, and the film was produced in 1945. With the end of the war Coward’s popularity declined. His musical Pacific 1860 was not successful and was followed by the equally unsuccessful Peacein Our Time in Our Time, written in 1946 and produced in 1947.

These failures continued through the 1950s with the musical Ace of Clubs in 1950 and the plays Relative Values in 1951 and Quadrille in 1952. In 1953 his career took a new shift when he performed as a cabaret entertainer at Cafe de Paris. In 1954 he wrote Nude with Violin and moved first to Bermuda and then in 1959 to Switzerland. During the late 1950s and 1960s Coward once more enjoyed success with a production of Waiting in the Wings in 1959, the musical Sail Away, and an attack on the new drama written by Coward himself in 1961 for The Sunday Times. In 1964 Hay Fever was revived and directed by Coward at the National Theatre.

His last appearance on the West End stage came in 1966 with Suite in Three Keys. In 1970 Coward was knighted, and there followed in 1972 a revue in London named Cowardy Custard and Oh! Coward in Toronto, which reached Broadway in 1973. Coward died of a heart attack in 1973 at his retreat in Jamaica. This play, dealing with a mother’s affair with a young man the same age as her son, and a son addicted to drugs, launched Coward’s career. Both characters long to be adored, and both promise to change at the end of the play and give up their respective vices.

Although the Lord Chamberlain almost refused the play a license, Coward managed to obtain one by persuading the Lord Chamberlain that the play was really a moral tract. Agate noted that Coward lifted the play from disagreeable to “philosophic comment,” but complained that “the third act is too long” (Mander and Mitchenson, 69). Hastings commented firmly that this was a “dustbin of a play” (Morley 83). Nevertheless, most critics praised the play, especially those in America such as the reviewers for the New York World, the New York Post, and the New York Tribune, who called it “the season’s best new play” (Cole 47).

Later critics such as Lahr (18-26) and Gray (34-41) still praised the play for the literary leap Coward exhibited. The 1952 revival was set in the 1920s and received mixed praise: the London Daily Mail complained about its “frantic piano-playing at every crisis” but noted that “the wit still sparkles and that final hysterical scene between the son and the mother with a lover of just his own age has lost little of its old dramatic sting” (Mander and Mitchenson 21-22). Coward’s finest play, Private Lives, claims no political message, and each element is fully resolved in this beautifully symmetrical play.

Amanda and Elyot have each remarried and meet on their honeymoons with their exceedingly dull spouses. Elyot and Amanda appear in turn on their Riviera balconies, each having a similar conversation with their new spouses. The play begins by contrasting balanced scenes in which Amanda and Elyot discover that the only way to communicate with their new spouses is through language, but they are unable to do so. Thus, when Elyot attempts to probe Sibyl’s mind and discover her future plans, she responds: “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.

” She functions on the simplest level of language as talk, of words having a precise and limited meaning. Similarly, Amanda finds Victor equally limited. When she articulates her belief that communication depends on “a combination of circumstances” and takes place “if all the various cosmic thingummys fuse at the same moment, and the right spark is struck,” Victor can only reply that she is not nearly as complex as she thinks she is. For Elyot and Amanda, language communicates all too well on a literal level, but their feelings do not align with the words or with each other’s words.

They use the language of the commonplace as a weapon. In one of their most memorable scenes, they display their sophisticated barbs when Amanda asks, “Whose yacht is that? ” and Elyot replies “The Duke of Westminster’s, I expect. It always is. ” Amanda, opening herself for the next retort, exclaims, “I wish I were on it,” to which Elyot replies, “I wish you were too. ” None of these lines is especially witty alone, but given their context and the timing, they are funny and sad.

This couple cannot live apart, and yet as act 2 reveals, neither can they live together. Indeed, in the second act language becomes too effective a weapon, so that periodically Amanda and Elyot must resort to a technique to literally stop communicating. When language threatens to communicate their old jealousies and recriminations too starkly, they resort to using the word “sollocks”; the device fails and language refuses to submit to such control. When Amanda and Elyot refrain from relying on language, they can communicate.

Thus, if they divert themselves with word games such as deciding whether it is a “covey of Bisons, or even a school of Bisons,” or perhaps “the Royal London school of Bisons,” they succeed. But when they try to discuss something meaningful, such as their five years apart and the question of other lovers, they find language powerful and disturbing. Amanda says that she would not expect Elyot to have been more or less celibate than she was in their five years apart, but he cannot separate the words from the meaning they imply.

He cannot bear the thought that she was not celibate, and in the ensuing argument he concludes, “We should have said sollocks ages ago. ” They should have ceased conversation because language is too destructive. What makes Coward very much a twentieth-century writer is his refusal to restore harmony to this chaos. We must accept that Amanda and Elyot cannot live together without fighting and there will be no happy ending because their attempts to control language are futile.

Moreover, this futility infects Victor and Sibyl so that their previous united front disintegrates, and as they echo the arguments of Amanda and Elyot, Amanda and Elyot sneak out to fight another day. Coward’s couples find that language communicates only too well so that they can neither live together nor apart, and in this, Coward embodies the awful dilemma of the human condition. Contemporary scholarship should continue to explore Coward to dispel the notion that he is just a period writer. Works Cited Cole Stephen. Noel Coward: A Bio-Bibliography.

Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993. Coward, Noel. Private Lives, Bitter Sweet, The Marquise, Post Mortem. London: Methuen, 1979. Gray, Frances. Noel Coward. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan, 1987. Lahr, John. Coward the Playwright. London: Methuen, 1982. Mander Raymond, and Joe Mitchenson. Theatrical Companion to Coward. London: Rockliff, 1957. Morley Sheridan. A Talent to Amuse: A Biography of Noel Coward. Boston: Little, Brown, 1985. Payn, Graham and Morley, Sheridan. The Noel Coward Diaries. Ed. Boston: Little, Brown, 1982.

Bertold Brecht (1898 – 1956) founded the so-called new, or “epic theatre” that creatively reworked the principles of traditional “Aristotelian” drama, in order for the plays to correspond to modern demands. Brecht characterised his position in dramatic art as social-critical. He was an active antifascist and thus centered his works on major historical events and gave them a social-political meaning. From the formal point of view, Brechtian techniques were based on defamilirisation of the event. First and foremost, he transposed the event into third person.

He uses new concept of author’s time, i. e. time as it is perceived by the narrator of the play. The latter usually tells about the events that happened in the past and comments them. In doing so, he freely operates various layers of time, so that the whimsical structure of the story reminds that of a recollection or a dream. Finally, an important element of Brechtian drama is its increased convention, for instance the action can be interrupted by speaking stage directions aloud and or via usage of placards and signs.

The drama “Zoot Suit” (1978) by Luis Valdez’ efficiently uses the Brechtian principles and techniques. Like many of Brecht’s dramas, this work is a passionate social protest that shows the injustice of the society with purely Brechtian didacticism. Valdez wrote this play at the end of “turbulent seventies”, which in the US were characterised by increased social activity of minorities fighting for their rights, and Mexican Americans were among these.

Thus, the playwright addresses the times, when the Mexican American identity was only forming, and yet it was oppressed and discriminated by the police. Valdez implies that the same thing may happen or even happens in his times and protests against it. In this respect his play may be linked with activities of Guerilla theatre, which considered itself to be a cultural revolt against war and a mouthpiece of social protest movements. Valdez’ play also has explicit antiwar and protest connotations, and in accordance with Brecht’s conception, his art serves political purposes.

Furthermore, action is presented and commented by the narrator, the fictional El Pachuco, which is the condensed embodiment of Mexican spirit (pachucos were Mexican American youth who emphasized their Mexican identity and wore zoot suits). He converses with the protagonist of the story, Henry Reyna, and in some episodes interferes into action (for instance, he takes the place of Rudy Reyna in an uneven fight with sailors). Moreover, from the very first words Valdez emphasizes Brechtian convention. For instance, the drop curtain is “giant facsimile of a newspaper front page” (1, 1992).

Besides in his first monologue EL Pachuco says that he is an actor who plays El Pachuco and recollects this myth. This indicates another Brechtian technique. The narrated action takes place in the past. The setting, as described by the author, emphasizes that the age of zoot suits is in the past: “The somber shapes and outlines of pachuco images hang subtly, black on black, against a back-ground of heavy fabric evoking memories and feelings like an old suit hanging forgotten in the depths of a closet somewhere, sometime” (1, 1992).

At the same time, in the end El Pachuco says that this legend still lives and is topical, for at least he is interested in telling it. However, this is not the objective past time of Aristotelian drama, but rather narrator’s individual perception. El Pachuco can retard action by making the judge repeat for the second time that “zoot haircuts will be retained throughout the trial for purposes of identification” (ibid). He also uses sudden retrospections, for example when Henry mentions Saturday night dance, El Pachuco snaps fingers and makes this event repeat.

In another instant, he skips witness’ statement, saying “You know what. We’ve already heard from that bato. Let’s get on with the defense” (1, 1992). Besides the conventionality is emphasized by various other interruptions of action. An interesting example of this is when the arrested pachucos stand in a line, the Press starts and they continue the headline. In another episode the Press“moves the bundles of newspapers on the floor to outline the four corners of a jail cell”, i. e.

makes the decorations for the next scene in jail (1, 1992). To sum up, the play “Zoot Suit” by Luis Valdez exemplified Brechtian understanding of social-political role of art and demonstrates a number of Brechtian techniques of the “new theatre”, among them accentuated conventionality of action, transposition into third person (use of narrator) and into the past, connected with the present, and forcible handling of time. References 1. Valdes, L. (1992). Zoot Suit. Zoot Suit and Other Plays. Houston, TX: Arte Publico Press. Pg 22-94.

For many centuries the tragedy holds to continue to be perceived as the most ardently gratifying arrangement of drama because it encompasses the capability of transporting the spectator into the drama as well as allowing them to empathize with the characters, particularly the tragic hero. The study noted above regarding tragedy was shaped by the Greek philosopher, Aristotle. Aristotle also noted that the tragic flaw is imperative in the characteristic of the protagonist and the proceedings that transpire in the piece are a manifestation of that flaw (“The Poetics by Aristotle: XIII. ). This philosophy of the tragic hero can be located in both Charles Van Doren in Quiz Show and Shakespeare’s character, Othello, in his play Othello. It is the characters’ prominence and faults as well as their ability to acquire their audiences pity in which label them tragic heroes. Charles Van Doren in Robert Redford’s Quiz Show possesses an existence in which numerous souls would envy.

His affiliation with being one of the country’s highly knowledgeable and esteemed families (his father labeled an eminent professor at Columbia University as well as a Pulitzer-prize awarded poet, his uncle defined as a renowned historian, and his mother being a recognized author possessing multiple acknowledged works of literature) is the first step to his being a tragic hero. Charles attempts to shadow his father’s achievements as he labors as a mentor at Columbia training to conquest for his father when he retires.

Alas, Van Doren believes that he falls short in character in comparison to his family in terms of success. At this moment in time, he judges that he should have achieved a sufficient amount to the extent that people would not seek to refer to him as “the son” but rather refer to him by his own identity. Van Doren evidently does not recognize how privileged his existence is in contrast to the majority of America’s citizens; that he remains far more triumphant than any of them could ever achieve.

It is this self-doubt and catastrophic fault that will eventually direct him to his expiration as an icon throughout the progression of the film. When the ability to become a possible contender on Twenty-One displays itself, Van Doren observes it as a chance for him to finally receive recognition in his family; this opportunity puts him into a situation where he is forced to evaluate his ethics. Enright and Freedman shatter Van Doren’s moral standards by stating that they should place him in the show and provide him with the questions that he previously knows.

Van Doren mechanically recognizes that this suggestion is immoral: that it is ultimately dishonourable. A significant defining moment of the film is when Van Doren encounters a crisis; whether to state the answer to a question he was arranged to be asked or to answer the question inaccurately and preserve his veracity. Though Van Doren clearly faces a struggle within himself, he ultimately chooses the recognition and fortune that will derive from his victory on the show.

The awareness he acquires from his presence on the Today Show causes it to become effortless for him to validate his verdict. The fall of Van Doren becomes apparent when Congressional investigator, Dick Goodwin, comes to New York City to investigate the quiz show after reading a piece about how Stempel attempted to acquire a trial regarding the cheating taking place on the show. After much investigation, Van Doren’s fraud is discovered causing his divine facade to perish along with the name he has created for himself.

The enthralled audiences around the country, once desiring to be a part of the marvel Twenty One deceitfully was, now see Van Doren’s infamy and view him as nothing but a deceitful human being. His name, as well as his honour, is demolished because of his disillusionments and his desire to create an identity for himself. Aristotle’s analysis of what makes a tragic hero is greatly demonstrated in Charles Van Doren’s story represented in Quiz Show because he was of such a high rank in society and it was his tragic flaw of insecurity and lust for fame that initiated his downfall.

Othello can be qualified to be one of Shakespeare’s supreme tragedies because it shadows the procedures established by Aristotle’s Poetics. Othello’s prestige (that of a dark, tall, African Moor), joined with his particular charisma, aids him in achieving the admiration and loyalty of the Venetian people and senators. Othello, subsisting as a soldier for a large interval of his life, is viewed as an exceptionally honourable gentleman. His status as a governor-general itself displays an aura of aristocracy, poise, and potency.

The identity portrays someone who is sustained in tremendously high reverence by the people of Venice. In addition to him exhibiting pronounced characteristics and courage, Othello also exhibits pride. He retains his composure during the initial confrontation with the senators when he is accused of witchcraft when Desdemona’s father faces Othello about his courting his daughter: “Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,/ My very noble and approved good masters,/ That I have ta’en away this old man’s daughter,/ It is most true.

True, I have married her. / The very head and front of my offending/ Hath this extent, no more,” ( I. iii. 76-81). Though Iago is the venomous serpent of the play, it is Othello’s tragic faults of gullibility and jealously that convert him from an aristocrat into a venomous creature himself, which inescapably carriages him to his demise. Although Iago fuels the fire that is Othello’s jealously through his tactics of manipulation, Othello’s unfeasible train of thought must be analyzed to substantiate Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero.

This defect ultimately directs him to his disgrace; the murder of his devoted wife, Desdemona, and himself. Before Othello kills himself, he acknowledges his fault in murdering his beloved wife: “…besides that in Aleppo once,/ Where a malignant and a turbaned Turk/ Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,/ I took by the throat the circumcised dog,/ And smote him, thus,” (V. ii. 352-56). his also entails of his assassination of the monstrosity that he was bred to be.

Othello’s monologue proclaims that it is not the real Othello who is dying, but rather the “turbanned Turk” in which he was spawned. As the play unravels the viewer’s resonant benevolence towards the tragic hero, as well as distress for their own lives, as the final scene the incidents leaves its mark on the stage just as Aristotle predicted. Defined, a tragedy illustrates a tale that features the collapse of a protagonist.

Customarily, the protagonist demonstrates upper class attributes or derives form an upper class institute and is encountered with an antagonizing episode, whether it is external or internal, which thus causes the protagonist’s downfall. This fall, according to Aristotle, “should come about as the result, not of vice, but of some great error or frailty in a character. ” A plot such as this is liable to breed empathy and apprehension into the audience, for “pity is aroused by unmerited misfortune, fear by the misfortune of a man like ourselves,” (“The Poetics by Aristotle: XIII”).

This notion exemplifies an aspect of tragedy in which several productions are centered, including Robert Redford’s film Quiz Show based on the fall of Charles Van Doren and Shakespeare’s Othello. It is Charles’s lust for fame to seek his father’s approval in which triggers his downfall, and it is Othello’s gullibility and jealousy in which initiates his. Allied with the characters’ individual incentives, the cause-and-effect sequence of proceedings is crafted, generating pity and anxiety in the audience.

Aliya Crochetiere Mrs. Crass Theater History April 11, 2011 Kabuki Theatre: Japan’s National Treasure Kabuki Theater has captured the hearts and minds of the Japanese audience from its beginnings over four centuries ago to the present day. In Kabuki wild spectacles of song and dance transpire, different from anything familiar to the Western observer. Its color, drama, and richness of costumes and characters contrast wildly with the simplicity and functionality of which the Japanese people live their lives.

Kabuki Theater seen today has been shaped by historical tensions about women, religious influences in Japanese society, and is considered to be the people’s theater filled with unique styles and ideas. In order to understand this wild spectacle and its unique techniques of staging and characters, one must look behind the make-up and understand the drama’s widespread roots deeply intertwined in Japan’s popular culture. The word kabuki, as shown in the history of name, is a type of acting based on the arts of singing and dancing (Miyake 11).

However, mixed in this display is a variety of hidden aspects such as make-up, costumes, and special effects that make a Kabuki performance unlike any other. Kabuki is a very complicated, highly refined art involving stylized movement to the sounds of instruments such as the Tsuke that takes many years to master (National Theater of Japan). Unlike Noh Theater it does not use masks, but incorporates a vast variety of styles and effects, from the realistic to the grandiosely extravagant through cosmetics (Leiter 18-22). The colors used have symbolic meanings.

For example, blue usually indicates evil and red is used to express strength or virtue. Wigs are utilized to inform the audience about the characters age, occupation, and social status and are worn by all characters in Kabuki (The British Museum). In the theater, each character has a defining moment, called a Mie. The Mie displays the characters personality. The actor assumes a position significant to his character and experiences his climatic moment (Binnie and Wanczura). It usually involves a movement of the head, a crossing of eyes in a powerful glare, and shaking.

In this artistic spectacle there are two main styles of acting involved, Aragoto and Wagoto. Aragoto, the rough style, contains heroes who are physically strong, impulsive, fierce, and martial (Brandon). This is reflected in the actors’ dramatic, stylized make-up and costumes, and in their exaggerated poses. In contrary, Wagoto features softer, young playboys in more friendly stories. The main manner of Wagoto acting is tender, romantic, or humorous (Encyclop? dia Britannica). Although the styles differ, Kabuki will always be a form of theater that requires a mastery of technique, especially when playing a woman.

Unlike Western Theater, Kabuki in the present day features no females on the stage. One feature that sets Kabuki apart from other theater is the Onnagata, a male actor who plays the parts of women. Kabuki was founded in 1603 by Izumo no Okuni, a Japanese princess, with her troop consisting of mostly females (Spencer). The women entertainers, many of whom were prostitutes, performed exotic dances and risque skits causing an instant sensation in Japan with the common people (The British Museum).

The idea of women exploiting themselves while creating public messages was preposterous and as its popularity grew, the government was quick to take control of the situation (Lombard, Allen, and Unwin). The prostitution within the theater was believed to be corrupting society and from the 1620’s onward, the government attempted to bring them under control. In 1692, women performers were banned from the stage. It soon became necessary for males to take the part of the females and the art of the Onnagata was formed. The Onnagata does not aim to imitate the behavior of a real woman.

Rather, he becomes an artificial and idealized symbol of female characteristics as seen from a man’s interpretation (Binnie and Wanczura). Those who have mastered the art of the Onnagata have the ability to transform a potentially grotesque situation into an emotionally moving truth. The Onnagata does not rely on facial beauty but the talent and skill to make a room full of people believe the authenticity of a teenage girl played by a 70 year-old man. Today, as a result of issues of women corrupting society and the upper class, females have yet to re-appear on the stage.

However, because Kabuki is directed at the common people of Japan, it is believed that women will once again grace the stages of Kabuki (Matsuda). Though Kabuki today is generally more accepted as a National Theater of Japan, it originated from the middle class, the common people of Japan, as a way to express their suppressed feelings under restrictive social conditions (Lombard, Allen, and Unwin). At the time when Kabuki was developed, distinction between the commoners and the upper class was more rigid than ever before, so Kabuki acted as a safe means of protest against dramatic and social conventions.

Multiple times it was banned from the inner cities because it threatened with dangerous thought and popular freedom (Lombard, Allen, and Unwin). Kabuki was charged with undermining the morals of the warrior class, yet the government was unable to outlaw the theater completely. It had made its way into the social lives of the Japanese people as it developed eclectically from other art forms. As the people’s theater, Kabuki has a very unique relationship between the actors and the audience. The most celebrated feature of the Kabuki stage is the hanamichi, a long extension from the back of the audience to the stage (Scott 18).

This symbolizes the close connections that the actors have with the viewers. A continuous interplay of shouts from the audience and reactions from the actors take place in the Kabuki Theater. The show is often interrupted for an actor to address the crowd, which is responded to with praise and encouragement (Encyclop? dia Britannica). The audience hollers the name of their favorite actor, showing a much closer connection to the actors than the directors (Matsuda). For the first time, the actor is in a position of control of his own actions and originality.

Because Kabuki programs run from dusk till dawn, in the theater one can find restaurants, lunchboxes, and snack shops. The audience will eat, drink, and talk all during the performance, treating it much more like a social gathering than a trip to the theater (Miyake 25). Unlike western theater a trip to Kabuki is supposed to a social gathering. The audience enjoys the whole day’s event, not just the individual performances. This is in sharp contrast to Noh Theater, a much more serious and formal theater of Japan that incorporates slow, meditational movements under extremely rigid rules (Matsuda).

The Noh performance is in slow motion and is much more popular with the military class than the common people of Japan (Mitchell and Watanabe 1-5). Buddhism, Shintoism, and Confucianism have all had a weighty effect on Japanese philosophies of life. This in turn is reflected in Kabuki drama in an innumerable number of ways. Action in Kabuki plays usually revolves around Confucian notions of filial piety duty and obligation, and the Buddhist traditions such as the impermanence of things or the law of retributive justice (Scott 28).

The religious part of the drama is expressed through actions and characters, such as the komuso, who wears a large basket-like head covering and plays a flute (Scott 28). The komuso, who appears in multiple plays, is a religious figure in Buddhism, a priest of the Buddhist sect seen preaching about the religion with his flute. During the Edo period when Kabuki was developed, Confucian philosophy defining the hierarchy of social relations was recognized as official thought and caused an uprising of the common townspeople expressed in Kabuki Theater (Ernst 14).

A favorite Kabuki technique is to have a dying man recall and regret all past misconducts and return to his innocent state by time of death (Scott 28). This extends to the Buddhist philosophy that man is fundamentally good and all sins committed during his lifetime are purged upon death. This as well as many other examples shows strong Buddhist influences in Kabuki. Shintoism shines through the drama as well. As one of the most common religions in Japan, Shintoism was also the religion of Kabuki’s founder (Spencer). Many religious ideas and themes are apparent in both historical and domestic Kabuki plays.

Kabuki Theater, flamboyant and spectacular, has evolved into one of Japan’s cultural treasures. The drama has developed from controversial ideas of women in society, the religious influences of Buddhism and Confucianism, and from the heart of Japan, the common people, as a free way to express themselves. Although some may argue that Kabuki has lost some of its connection to the general public, Kabuki drama is an irreplaceable aspect of Japanese society that will continue to entertain audiences and influence contemporary drama and Japanese history for years to come.

The flashy, colorful spectacle filled with music, movement, and emotion has the ability to take the audience on a journey to a new world. Works Cited Binnie, Paul, and Dieter Wanczura, eds. “Kabuki Theater. ” Artelino. N. p. , 2009. Web. 11 Apr. 2011. ;http://www. artelino. com/? articles/? kabuki_theater. asp;. Brandon, James R. “Myth and Reality: A Story of ‘Kabuki’ during American Censorship, 1945-1949. ” Asian Theatre Journal 23. 1 (2006): 1-110 . JSTOR. Web. 11 Apr. 2011.