Dramatic Action Research Articles

Periphery to core: scenes from a psychodrama

ABSTRACT Psychodrama, sociometry, and group psychotherapy is an action-oriented form of therapy through which individuals (protagonists) act out scenes with support from a group facilitator (director) and group members (auxiliary). A traditional psychodrama group has three distinct stages: warm-up, action, and sharing. Psychodrama uses dramatic action to explore the concerns, hopes, and dreams of individuals and groups. The following narrative is a fictional depiction based on a composite of experiences that the authors have had.

“Our eyes are sentinels unto our judgments”: Embodied Perception in The Changeling

This essay argues that Thomas Middleton and William Rowley's The Changeling (1622) draws on debates about sense perception in the period to interrogate the effects of dramatic representation. After a brief overview of early modern perceptual theory, this essay demonstrates that the play's villain, De Flores, manipulates other characters’ perception through language. In fact, De Flores uses theatrical language to manipulate how other characters perceive their environment, indicating the theater's ability to manipulate audiences. By affecting how characters perceive, De Flores affects other characters’ ability to process and react to their environment, which impedes their judgment. The essay argues that much of The Changeling's dramatic action unfolds through a conflict between two models of perception—presentational and representational—that undergird much of the play's dramatic conflict. In the play, pervasive anxiety about judgment, particularly how perception affects judgment, is structured around the distinction between these two models of perception. Considering the play alongside representational and presentational models indicates how early modern dramatists engage with intellectual theories to consider how representation works and how spaces are experienced. In this way, the theater refracts and dramatizes theories about perception.

Periphery to core: scenes from a psychodrama

ABSTRACT Psychodrama, sociometry, and group psychotherapy is an action-oriented form of therapy through which individuals (protagonists) act out scenes with support from a group facilitator (director) and group members (auxiliary). A traditional psychodrama group has three distinct stages: warm-up, action, and sharing. Psychodrama uses dramatic action to explore the concerns, hopes, and dreams of individuals and groups. The following narrative is a fictional depiction based on a composite of experiences that the authors have had.

Movie Narrative: A Study on the Narrative Beat of Movie Scenes

The beat is a kind of behavioral communication in the action or reaction. The dramatic action and the reaction with dramatic conflict together construct a narrative beat, and the dramatic conflict is the basis for establishing the narrative beat. The narrative of movie scenes should revolve around the same drama task. The establishment of narrative beats within the scene makes the drama conflict of events progressive and escalating. The narrative beat is a strategy to grasp the narrative rhythm, a method to create suspense, and a way to lay out the structure of the story.

"РИМ И КАРФАГЕН" А.В. ТИМОФЕЕВА: К ПРОБЛЕМЕ ГЕНЕЗИСА ИСТОРИЧЕСКОЙ ФАНТАЗИИ КАК ЖАНРОВОЙ РАЗНОВИДНОСТИ РУССКОЙ РОМАНТИЧЕСКОЙ ДРАМЫ XIX В

The paper explores the genre of scarcely studied play by Russian minor writer Alexei V. Timofeev (1812-1883) Rome and Carthage (1837). Timofeev’s contemporary literary critic Osip Senkovskii treated like poet’s failure his use of romantic techniques in the play on ancient plot. Taking into account this opinion the paper analyzes the paratextual elements in the play, the way of describing characters, the division of the play into acts, the connection of the plot events with historical facts. The paper argues that the play approaches the kind of romantic drama, which the author suggests to call “historical fantasy” Its main feature is the coexisting in the plot mythology and religious tradition, on the one hand, and historical events, on the other, the heroes of historical chronicles and the heroes of folk legends, belief in miracles and rationalism. The goal of historical fantasy is to produce a generalized image of the time, to convey the spirit of the epoch while the dramatic action takes a secondary place. Samples of the genre were given in the works of Alexander A. Shakhovskoi, Alexander I. Gertsen, Apollon N. Maikov. Timofeev’s play was just in the way to this kind of drama.

ПОЛИТИЧЕСКАЯ ЭКСТРАВАГАНЦА КАК ДРАМАТИЧЕСКИЙ ЖАНР (на материале пьес Бернарда Шоу)

The paper deals with the semantic and structural specificity of political extravaganza as a genre of dramaturgy. The history of this literary and dramatic kind and also its scantily explored genetic connection with the dramatic pamphlet, which arose in the 18th-century English theatre, are briefly retraced. Its artistic peculiarity is investigated by using material from several plays of Bernard Shaw, which were written from the 1920s–1930s (The Apple Cart, Too True to be Good, Geneva, On the Rocks). The genre definition was used by the playwright for the first time as a subtitle to the play The Apple Cart, the first performance of it took place in Warsaw in 1929; the extravaganza was staged by Arnold Szyfman at the “Teatr Polski”. Special attention is paid in the article to such features of political extravaganza, as paradox, the grotesque and eccentricity, which become apparent at some levels of dramatic text: in the linguo-stylistic originality of the tirades and dialogues, as well as in the extensive stage directions and sometimes in the titles, in the characters of personages, in construction of the plots and in the composition of the plays. Of primary interest is also the eccentric treatment of the artistic time in the plays based on the historical personalities or episodes, and in the introduction of fantastical elements to the dramatic action. The essential role of the concentrated eccentricity in the sharpening and the emphasized topicalization of political satire is also discussed in the paper.

Прием визуализации восприятия в пьесах Александра Строганова

The purpose of the paper is to analyze how the thematization of the perception of the world is implemented in the plays by A. Stroganov: ‘Halo,’ ‘Halo and the Night,’ ‘The Greatness of the Swing,’ ‘Black, White, Accents of the Red, Orange. Control Prints in two acts.’ The analysis of poetics proves that the visualization of metaphors creates the effect of optical illusions, resulting in the action acquiring a symbolic-magical character. The metatheatrical way of multiplying action plans (conditional-substantial and projective-illusory) allows presenting the technique of switching one’s attention to the imaginary elements. Visual projections of parareal events objectify the ability of the characters (and consequently readers/viewers) to see and perceive their inner world. A conclusion is made that in the plays under study, the integrity of the dramatic action is lost, whereas voices, gestures, images-paths, and photographs are constantly pulsating in the poetics of the text, with their ability to visualize the world vision image embodying the performative potential of action. The way to complete the integrity is the reader / viewer’s preexisting representations and interactive participation in the creation of textual projections of image-metaphors. Such absolutization of a single dramatic technique leads to a multidimensional artistic reading of A. Stroganov’s plays in the context of his theory of pararealism.

ЖАНРОВО-СТИЛИСТИЧЕСКИЕ ОСОБЕННОСТИ СОВРЕМЕННОЙ АУДИОКНИГИ

Modern technological conditions make it possible to create, quickly replicate and use audio books conveniently. Audio books are one of the fastest growing segments of the global publishing market. Informative issues of creating audio books, not technological ones, are in the research focus of the article. The content of an audiobook is a voiced text that refers to the “auditory literature”. Assessments of the quality of the auditory literature are polar. On the one hand, it is considered secondary to the original literary text; on the other hand, it is a self-contained artistic phenomenon with its own aesthetic nature. In this article, an audiobook is considered precisely in the aspect of its artistic value, which is highlighted when speaking about the genre nature of the voiced text. The genre features of the voiced text in this study are identified taking into account the communicative features of its formal-stylistic features. The communicative nature of the audiobook genre is associated with two types of reading, which reflect the opposite positions of the two participants in communication. On the one hand, this is an expres-sive reading aloud, which can also be defined as staged reading. Genetically, this type of reading is associated with public performances of artists and initially assumed live reading. Further, this type of reading is transformed into the genre of radio plays, called “theater at the microphone”. In modern communicative practices of creating and repli-cating audio content, including one related to the actor’s readings of works of art, there is no binding to time and place. On the other hand, this is auditory reading, a modifica-tion of which is audio reading in modern technological conditions. If auditory reading is the first reading practice of a child mastering books from the voice of a parent, then audio reading is the choice of an adult who can read. The acoustic representation of a literary work is associated not only with the performance of elementary technical characteristics of sound, but also with the introduction of a certain aesthetic value into it. The creative translation of a literary text from verbal to acoustic should preserve its value in the aesthetic plane, without reducing it to a purely pragmatic one. Actualization of the aesthetic value of an audiobook outside of its paper format is associated with the principles of its directing and editorial preparation – the principles associated with the implementation of the stylistic characteristics of the genre form of an audiobook. Translation of a verbal literary text into an audio one is carried out as a result of comparing reading a book to dramatic action. In this case, the forming element of the genre becomes the sounding text itself. In the case of audio books, the reader’s voice as a performer’s instru-ment and the musical noise accompaniment of the text read is a style-forming genre element. The article traces the publishing strategies for the embodiment of the formal-stylistic features of the audiobook genre in the context of modern audio cultural practices.

The musical sequence of the ballet "Lady of the Camellias"

The purpose of the article is to analyze the musical fabric of the ballet "Lady with Camellias" (Kyiv). The methodology is based on the use of general scientific methods and approaches to solve the set tasks: comparative analysis helped to reveal originality in the selection of music; musicological analysis showed the expediency of forming a musical line in accordance with ballet drama. The scientific novelty lies in the analysis of the music of the ballet "Lady of the Camellias". Conclusions. Ballet – drama is revealed by music organically embodied in choreography. The musical basis of the ballet is subordinated to the plot-semantic conflict drama. The selection of music for the ballet is varied. Although one can notice certain patterns in the metro-rhythmic and emotional organization. Display of the salon atmosphere of the 19th-century music by L. Beethoven, which serves as a kind of refrain. Stylistically similar musical fragments and even repetitions of selected works make it possible to trace the process of a gradual increase in dramatic action. The music of other composers (J. Brahms, I. Pachelbel, I. Stravinsky, G. Fore, E. Elgar) helps to reveal emotionally tense moments.

The Ritual of Sacrifice within the Cultural Boundaries in Wole Soyinka's “The Strong Breed”

Fiziksel coğrafi sınırların dışında, bir kültürün bireyi gelenek ve kültürel uygulamalarla şekillenmiş olan toplumdaki kültürel sınırlamalarla karşılaşır. Bu uygulamalar arasında bulunan kurban verme, insanlığın var oluşu ve tarih kadar eskidir. Kurban verme yoluyla, toplumun canlanması ve arınması hedeflenir. Bu türden bir arınma töreni Soyinka'nın oyununda temsil ettiği Yoruba insanlarının gelenekleri arasında da mevcuttur. Kurban ritüeli ile ilişkili olarak rolünü algılayan Eman' in etrafında oyundaki dramatik eylem gelişir. Bu makale, ilk olarak, Yoruba kültürü içinde bireyin özgürlüğünü sınırlayan kültürel kısıtlamaları inceler, ikinci olaraksa, kültürel aynileştirme ve kişisel bütünleşmişlik durumlarını The Strong Breed (1963) adlı oyun özelinde analiz etmeyi hedeflemektedir. Bu bağlamda, The Strong Breed oyununun temsil ettiği sonuç şudur: kültürel sınırların gücü altında hür irade ve kader şekillenebilir ve de kurban sunumu bireyin kimlik ve aidiyetini şekillendirebilir.

The role and significance of musical and choreographic drama in the creation of highly artistic stage works

The purpose of the article is to clarify the features and significance of the synthesis of folk stage choreography and instrumental music, the merger of which in the dramatic action of dance compositions contributes to the creation of highly artistic works. The research methodology is the use of comparative and art history methods. The indicated methodological approach allows us to reveal and analyze the features of the creative production of the choreographer-director, during which the dance and music, entering into an alliance with each other, gain greater clarity and visual effectiveness. The scientific novelty of the work is to expand the creative possibilities of the choreographer in collaboration with the composer, the musical material of which after instrumental processing becomes even more expressive and, retaining its originality, raises it above the original source, helping the choreographer to create stage artistic images. Conclusions. Carrying out stage production of folk stage dance, the choreographer, possessing all the expressive means of dance, should well understand that music, without saying anything, can tell everything and with its sound “finish” the choreography of the inner mental state of the stage heroes, as well as convey the atmosphere time.

THE AESCHYLEAN STING INWASPS’ TALE: ARISTOPHANES’ ENGAGEMENT WITH THEORESTEIA

The sting to Aristophanes’ ‘little tale’ inWasps(λογίδιον,Vesp.64) materializes from the comedy's interplay with theOresteia. This article argues that Aristophanes alludes to bothAgamemnonandEumenidesin the scenes running up to (and including) the trial scene, and that he exploits this intertext in the cloak scene (Vesp.1122–264). While isolated allusions to theOresteiahave been identified inWasps, a systematic consideration of these references has not been undertaken: a surprising absence in discussions of the ongoing competition between the comic and the tragic genres permeatingWasps’ dramatic action. Moreover, Aristophanes’ engagement with theOresteiaoffers a special type of tragic intertext, in which the first and the last plays of a connected trilogy are referenced simultaneously, provocatively destabilizing the original. Furthermore, this allusion has implications for our understanding of a scene which recent scholarship has established as pivotal within the comedy, namely the cloak scene. The first part of this article, therefore, establishes the extent ofWasps’ engagement with theOresteiaand considers the significance of the ‘pastiche’ formed through the combined intertextual references toAgamemnonand toEumenides. The second part explores the impact of this intertext on the interpretation of the cloak scene, revealing that its use of costume can be understood as a criticism of Aeschylus’ dramaturgy, inviting a negative reading of Bdelycleon's ideological stance and reinforcing the play's pessimistic view of the Athenian law courts.

Om bergvisjoner og diktning hos Ibsen

This article examines some connections between rock and mountain visions and poetry in Henrik Ibsen’s writings. The article argues that the poem «Paa Vidderne» and also the poem «Bergmanden» thematizes the poetic call, where the starting point of the poetry is analogous to ascending a mountain or penetrating into a dark rock room below the ground. Also in several of Ibsenʼs dramas (Keiser og galiæer, Peer Gynt, Brand, John Gabriel Borkman), the rock motif is of considerable importance, both related to cognition and poetic inspiration. In Når vi døde vågner, the rock and mountain motif is linked to the metapoetic on a number of levels. Not only does Irene insist on calling Rubek – stonemason by profession – a poet. The drama as such, and perhaps in particular Professor Rubekʼs marble stone group, can also be considered as a kind of meditation over Ibsenʼs life work. Not least, the high mountains play a dominant role as a room of the dramatic action in the dramaʼs final act. The drama ends high in the mountains, and with it also Ibsenʼs writing, as a last testimony to the fundamental significance of this topos in Ibsenʼs oevre.

ОСОБЕННОСТИ ЭКФРАСИСА В ПЬЕСЕ ВИКТОРА СЛАВКИНА «КАРТИНА»

Taking into account the achievements of modern Intermedia practices, the article analyzes Victor Slavkin’s one-act play «The Picture» (1982) in the context of the interaction of literature and painting. In connection with the recently published diary entries of the writer, the path from the design of the play to publication in the journal «Modern Drama» is traced. The genreforming function of ekphrasis is emphasized. The presence of the landscape on the wall of the room expands the boundaries of a single room, the dialogue of characters in front of the picture reveals the characters in a short time of action. The peculiarities of ekphrasis are manifested in contrasting images (artist Guest and engineer Boss), in the guest’s description of imaginary paintings, coloristic filling, appeal to the trends of Western European art, etc. The symbolic significance of ekphrasis in the dramatic action of Slavkin’s play is emphasized, and the connection between visual imagery and the philosophy of art is examined.

COMMUNICATIVE STRATEGY OF DRAMA LYRIZATION

The article is devoted to the study of the communicative strategy of drama lyrization. The study was based on the works by Oleksander Oles. In modern literary criticism, the lyrization of drama is associated with the subjectivization of dramatic action. Different types of lyrical composition of drama serve for the structural organization of the author's emotions and thus implement the communicative strategy of lyrization of drama through rhythmic-intonational organization of the text, polyphony of the author's position, musicality of the text, combination of stage realism and artistic conventionality. Expression in a lyrical drama realizes many meanings, which are often transmitted through a metaphor or a symbol. One of the functions of this type of expression in lyrical drama is to blur the line between the poetic experience and the word, which has absorbed the potential of the poet's feelings, and to give it a symbolic status. At the level of the genre in the late nineteenth - early twentieth century the dramatic theme is actualized, which is a reflection of the tendency to lyricize the drama. It is realized by the poeticization of drama as a manifestation of communicativeness or operable properties of lyricism in drama, when the laws of lyricism become the structure-forming foundation of drama. Based on the communicative strategy of form transformation, Oleksandr Oles managed to create a lyrical drama with no traditional division into actions or acts. Instead, there is only a graphical-mathematical division into episodes, which unite the text of the play with a dream vision, a model of in life, which has a conditionally ironic game character. Due to the vision of the dream, the author of the drama actualized the world - theater, symbolized the chronotope of the play, giving it a conditional and playful-ironic character.

Lev Venediktov's Choir Theater and His Traditions, Creative Method, Synthesis

The aspects of the creative activity of the outstanding opera choirmaster Lev Venediktov, an epoch-making figure in the Ukrainian choral art of the second half of the 20th — the beginning of the 21st century, are considered. The influence of family succession, the achievements of professional communication with outstanding contemporary musicians, the traditions of opera and choral performance at the National Academic Opera and Ballet Theater of Ukraine on the formation of Master’s creative personality are highlighted. The importance of his creative and musical-pedagogical activity in the formation of a high artistic standard of choral performance, enlightenment promotion of the best performing traditions, professional education of several generations of Ukrainian choral conductors are emphasized. The importance of the choirmaster's work in creating original highly artistic performing interpretations of operas is noted. The features of the individual performance style of L. Venediktov's choir, which was an important component of the opera, highlighting the synthesis of music, words and dramatic action imagery, are highlighted. Such moments of the choirmaster's work as the complete set of the choral composition, work on the acoustic characteristics of the sound, ensemble, synthesis of musical-verbal intonation, dynamics, timbre, strokes are analyzed. An attempt is made to generalize the features of individual performance style and methods of work of the choirmaster, highlighting the mechanisms of formation of opera synthesis in them. L. Venediktov's cooperation with the conductor and director of the play, aimed at revealing the interpretive possibilities of choral performance as a component of opera synthesis, is observed. It is noted that due to the performing qualities, the choir under the direction of L. Venediktov was recognized as a unique phenomenon, engraved as a characteristic feature of Ukrainian opera, in particular, in the projection of Ukrainian-European intercultural dialogue. It is confirmed that the creative method of the choirmaster is unique in combining the best traditions of the national choral school with the principles of opera performance, demonstrates the unity of general-objective and subjective-individual in creating performing interpretations of operas

Musical and dramatic creativity by Olena Pchilka in the development of children musical theater in Ukraine

Musical and dramatic creativity by Olena Pchilka in the development of children musical theater in Ukraine

Public pension shortfalls and state economic growth: a preliminary examination.

Public pension funding problems may contribute to a state's poor economic performance. This paper examines that proposition, using state-level data on public pensions developed by the Pew Trust, and jointly by the Federal Reserve Board and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. There is little evidence that measures of the level of unfunded pension plan liabilities lead directly to a state's soft economic performance, though growth in unfunded liabilities appear to be associated with lower growth. While these results suggest that reductions in the growth of a state's pension debt may be beneficial, they arguably do not imply that dramatic action to reduce liabilities is necessarily called for. In that regard, the implications are comparable to those of Lenney et al. (2019), that suggest that reasonable goals for some presumed highly troubled systems are stabilization of the ratio of their unfunded liabilities to their state's nominal GDP, rather than outright elimination of the debt.

Performing School Failure: Using Verbatim Theatre to Explore School Grading Policies

This article describes how dramatic writing and performance practices can be used to reshape qualitative interview data into a verbatim theatre performance with the intent of drawing attention to social movements in education. The performance described in the article reveals the consequences of a punitive educational policy agenda and addresses the emotional toll school grading and other neoliberal policies have had on teachers at a school in the southwestern United States. A primary objective is to examine and explore how verbatim dramatic writing and performance tactics can amplify current issues and social dilemmas and evoke an emotional response in the absence of dramatic action. The methods of writing a script from qualitative data are presented for other scholars and educators who intend to create performances from data.

Climax Building in Verismo Opera

This article examines the process of dynamic building and subsiding in verismo opera. Departing from groundswell originally drawn from Julian Budden’s analysis of bel canto opera, I propose a new dynamic paradigm, the climax archetype—consisting of initiation, intensification, highpoint, and abatement—and its operational parameters. To appropriately respond to diverse dynamic structures, variants of climax archetype—climax-stage fusion,high region,highpoint frustration,highpoint absence,climax succession, and climax nesting—are also suggested. These analytical paradigms are applied to works by Puccini, Giordano, Mascagni, and Zandonai, to clarify the mechanism of dynamic rise and fall in conjunction with the dramatic action.