Theatrical Expression Research Articles

Blending Noh and Shakespearean Elements: An Exploration of Tradition and Modernity in Singaporean Theatre

This paper delves into the groundbreaking fusion of Noh and Shakespearean elements in Singaporean theatre, showcasing a unique blend that mirrors the diverse cultural tapestry of Singapore and its ambitions as a global arts hub. By melding the minimalist and symbolic aesthetics of Noh with the rich narratives and characters of Shakespearean drama, Singaporean theatre has carved out a distinctive niche in the global arts scene. This fusion not only pays homage to the traditional roots of Noh and the timeless appeal of Shakespeare but also pushes the boundaries of theatrical expression, creating a vibrant and innovative form that resonates with audiences worldwide. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the artistic innovations resulting from this fusion, evaluates the audience reception, discusses the cultural implications, and explores the potential opportunities for future theatrical endeavors in Singapore. The blending of Noh and Shakespearean elements signifies a creative dialogue between Eastern and Western traditions, offering fresh perspectives and new possibilities for storytelling and performance in the contemporary theatrical landscape. This fusion is emblematic of Singapore’s broader aspirations to serve as a cultural bridge and a hub for artistic innovation, reinforcing its position as a dynamic and multicultural arts center on the global stage.

THE ROLE OF THEATER IN ENHANCING CULTURAL IDENTITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

The impact of theater on Middle Eastern cultural identity formation and enhancement is the focus of this research. This study delves into how theater has played a significant role in reflecting, building, and negotiating cultural identities in different Middle Eastern societies through an extensive examination of current theatrical plays. Case studies of well-known theatrical productions and interviews with creatives involved in making these plays are all part of the qualitative methodology used in this study. To round out the analysis, secondary sources are examined to shed light on the political and historical factors that shaped the region's theatrical expression. The research points to the theater in the Middle East performing arts as a place for cultural preservation and education, a platform for political commentary, and a reflection of social issues. This study sheds light on concrete instances where theater has directly impacted public discourse and helped people reconnect with their cultural heritage. These instances primarily occur in nations undergoing social transition or conflict. Topics and styles of theatrical expression are frequently influenced by the difficulties encountered by regional theater practitioners, such as censorship and inadequate funding. Despite all these obstacles, the conclusion argues that theater is still an essential part of Middle Eastern culture, providing a potent arena for affirming and reimagining cultural identities. The study emphasizes the importance of cultural policy, giving the arts, and theater in particular, more credit for their positive effects on social cohesiveness and cultural identity.

'Fire': An Australian Play Gives Voice to Animals Devastated by Catastrophic Bushfire

Animals on a grand scale are victims of climate change and of natural disaster. With no voice within human cultures, their plight can be silenced and forgotten once an extreme weather event is over and when media coverage of the devastation has ceased. The creative arts have an important role to play in raising public awareness of and empathy for animals impacted by natural disaster. This paper presents a critical discourse analysis of the Australian play Fire by Scott Alderdice (2017), framed by Animal Studies perspectives. The voices of the animals in Fire, as expressed through language – dialogue and narration – are the focus of the analysis to determine how the play engages in the concepts of considering other-than-human interests; imagining and representing animals and their significance; personifying species’ presence using human speech to offset facelessness; and inspiring humans to take responsibility in this time of climate crisis and natural disaster. Fire provides an exemplar for theatrical expression giving voice to animals in times of crisis. An examination of the narration and dialogue of the animal characters reveals a respectful representation of native Australian animals, who are shown to be sentient and social beings intimately entwined with the environment in which they live. The language use by the animals throughout elicits recognition and empathy and subsequently feelings of grief and of guilt. The play inspires humans to take responsibility by considering animals’ perspectives and interests; understanding their significance in the world; and performing our role to protect the natural environment.

Unveiling the Aesthetic Charms of 'Khabar Mati': A Deep Dive into Text Folk Performance on the Southern Coastal Shores

This research delves into the aesthetic elements of 'Khabar Mati,' a renowned folk theater performance in the Southern Coastal region. The study employs qualitative analysis with a descriptive method to decipher this traditional theatrical expression's intricate artistic and cultural dimensions. The research meticulously examines the narrative and performance aspects of 'Khabar Mati,' providing a comprehensive analysis of the text and its enactment on the stage. Through this in-depth investigation, the study aims to provide valuable insights into the rich aesthetics embedded within 'Khabar Mati.' The findings promise to shed light on the profound artistic heritage of the Southern Coastal communities, offering a deeper understanding of the cultural and aesthetic significance of this captivating folk theater tradition. By scrutinizing the textual and performative aspects, this research provides a holistic exploration of 'Khabar Mati,' contributing to a more comprehensive appreciation of its artistic and cultural merits.

The correlation between theatrical artistic expression and employees’ resistance to PTSD

BackgroundDrama art, as a diverse art form, provides practitioners with a unique way of self-expression through role-playing, situational simulation, and emotional expression. Personnel engaged in theatrical performances often experience psychological injuries due to uncontrollable factors such as insufficient rehearsals, which can develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Based on this background, this study aims to analyze the correlation between the two.Subjects and MethodsThis study used both qualitative and quantitative methods. Through in-depth interviews, questionnaire surveys, and psychological tests, 300 theatrical art practitioners were selected for a 12-month follow-up study. Evaluate the patient’s status using the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Self-Rating Scale (PTSD-SS). During the experiment, SPSS 24.0 was used for statistical data analysis.Results The study found that compared to practitioners who are less involved in theatrical expression, practitioners who frequently participate in theatrical art expression have a lower proportion of PTSD after experiencing traumatic events. In addition, practitioners who delve into theatrical role-playing and emotional expression have more positive and healthy emotional regulation abilities and strategies for coping with trauma.ConclusionsThe expression of theatrical art provides practitioners with a powerful psychological adjustment tool, which helps them confront and prevent post-traumatic psychological disorders. This provides a new approach to treatment and intervention in the mental health field and brings new value and significance to drama art education and practice.

Chasing the sun: Discovering Chinese therapists’, students’ and educators’ proficiency in the use of dramatic reality

In this clinical commentary, we present insights about introducing drama therapy in China. We highlight how challenging our own cultural assumptions regarding Chinese nationals, namely that they may feel restricted when entering dramatic reality, enabled the possibility of rich, detailed and ludic responses. Relying on our joint knowledge of drama therapy and a Chinese cultural context, with one from the United States and the other born in China, we designed a lecture and drama therapy process for Chinese nationals at a family communication conference in Beijing. We discovered diverse theatrical expression in our encounter with Chinese educators, therapists and students resulting largely from careful cultural preparation and an openness to experience.

Formation and Trends in Development of Digital Theatre in Contemporary Internet Culture

The purpose of the article is to identify the peculiarities of the formation and the main trends of the development of digital theatre in the context of the specifics of contemporary Internet culture. Research methodology. The structural-functional method (to summarise the theoretical and methodological foundations of the study of digital theatre in contemporary Internet culture), the typological method (to determine the features of Internet culture), the diachronic method (to consider digital theatre in the context of the specifics of its historical development), the method of comparative analysis (to identify the common and distinctive features of online theatre and digital theatre); and the method of theoretical generalisation have been applied. Scientific novelty. The peculiarities of the formation and trends in the development of digital theatre in the context of modern Internet culture have been studied; the concepts of "digital theatre" and "online theatre" have been clarified; the main characteristics of digital theatre have been revealed; little-known materials on the development of digital theatre have been introduced into scientific circulation. Conclusions. The study has revealed that digital theatre is characterised by: the use of digital technologies as the basis of the production; various approaches of stage directors-producers to the use of digital technologies in the process of implementing the author's idea, which ensures the uniqueness and originality of each digital theatre performance; a high level of immersion, which involves the full immersion and involvement of the viewer in the theatrical action; specific interactivity (the viewer affects the development of the storyline); lack of binding to a specific venue; the possibility to attract a significant number of viewers (thanks to information and communication technologies); active combination of various techniques of theatre and film art, video games and media art; accessibility for potential viewers. Digital theatre performances presented in contemporary Internet culture on various platforms for video conferencing and webinars, social networks, and so on represent experimental forms of artificial integration of traditional elements of the performance into virtual reality, a new aesthetics of digital theatrical expression and, accordingly, lead to the transformation of professional tools. Digital theatre, which is currently in its infancy, has a powerful potential that arises at the intersection of theatricality and digitality.
 Key words: digital theatre, online theatre, Internet culture, digital technologies, performances.

Reception of the values of the Aeschylus drama and mnemonic imprints by ancient tragedy spectators.

Background: Ancient Greek tragedy remains today a special dramatic genre that expresses the concept of the classic through time, perhaps better than any other form of art and culture, representing, as a theatrical expression, the vision of the conception and expression of values of a particular era. In this context, the purpose of the present research is to study the humanitarian values of European culture, as they are expressed in ancient Greek drama, and to highlight the way in which these values are projected through modern drama and are impressed on the spectators. Methods: To achieve this goal, 105 spectators watched the tragedy of Aeschylus 'Seven against Thebes' directed by Cesaris Grauzinis and answered, both immediately after watching the performance and six months later, a questionnaire, in order to record their opinions about the theatre performance they had attended. Results: According to the findings of the comparative analyses, it emerged that the messages and values governing the work remain unchanged for its viewers over time. The memory is based on original audio-visual elements and directorial findings, confirming that it preserves the messages of the symbolism of the performance as well as the channels through which they were conveyed to the audience. Conclusions: The correspondences between the past and the present, as well as the contrasts on stage, contributed to the reproduction of the fundamental moral values that the dramatic work brought, highlighting the work and messages of Aeschylus.

Social role development in playback theater groups in light of the Mackenzie and Livesley model

Playback theater is a form of improvisational theater created in a response to personal stories. It can take place as a performance and in the setting of an ongoing group. In such groups, members create improvised theatrical responses to personal stories shared by other group members. Group dynamics are both represented in the discourse and interaction between members, and manifested and shaped through theatrical expression. Draw on the thinking of MacKenzie and Livesley, who outline four types of group roles, this paper demonstrates the interrelatedness of a member’s role type and the dynamic unfolding on the group stage. In order to explore this relation, the authors propose three distinct perspectives or lenses: i) dramatic role; ii) the rules of dramatic play; iii) and the theatrical encounter with the story’s contents. These three lenses help conductors recognize the interrelatedness and mutual influence of the social role of the individual member of a Playback group and the drama unfolding on stage and thereby choose methods and interventions in theatrical space that could promote development and role-expansion for individual members.

Please do not touch! learning through object-work and arts-based expression in museum theatre, a South African example

ABSTRACT This article proposes that participatory museum theatre can provide a platform through which learners studying history can engage a troubled past, specifically looking at South African history, to generate a more complex understanding of it. Through the use of performance, object-work, and creative arts-based responses, such as poetry and drawing, in the museum space, learners are able to connect with the performed historical narratives, characters, and events creating a sensory learning experience. The argument is presented through the example Beer Halls, Pass Laws and Just Cause which was performed at the KwaMuhle Museum, Durban, South Africa during March 2020.

Muzica în arta lui Samuel Beckett

In November 2018, the premiere of the opera "Fin de parties" by György Kurtág took place at the Scala theater in Milan. On a stage with a rather conservative and traditional reputation, the performance based on Samuel Beckett’s libretto invites an exploration of the musicality of this modernist playwright. Often, in his correspondence, Beckett resorts to a critical, aesthetic reading of the concerts he heard. Being also a quite appreciated pianist (in non-professional circles), we can realize the importance that music had in shaping both his aesthetics and his dramaturgical constructions. This essay aims to explore the “musical details” present in Beckett’s work, aiming at a reconstitution, even if not complete, of the theatrical expression of the musicality of his texts. The possibilities of staging them were fulfilled by countless compositions, or musical works, including Kurtág’s work, "Fin de parties", which we will mainly deal with and from which we will actually start our research.

Existing Within and Beyond Time: «Capri—the Island of Fugitives» by Krystian Lupa

The proposed article ponders upon Krystian Lupa’s Capri—the Island of Fugitives (2019), an original production staged at the Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw that brings together two of Curzio Malaparte’s prose books: Kaputt (1944) and The Skin (1949). By focusing on the parts of the production that adapt Kaputt, the article scrutinizes scenes produced by the live performance and the virtual projections in order to describe and explain how theatrical expression is enriched by such a juxtaposition. This analysis uses the theoretical frameworks of unnatural narratology (Jan Alber et al.), postdramatic durational aesthetics (Hans-Thies Lehmann), and the idea of the virtual double (Matthew Causey). The primary argument relies on the specific temporality emerging from the Lupa’s performance that enables spectators to feel existence within and beyond time. Furthermore, the study investigates the overarching idea of the performance, recognized by the strategy of foregrounding the thematic that oscillates within the problematics of human cruelty.

A Marble Head of Ares in the Old Archaeological Museum of Chalkis in Euboea, Greece

This study engages with a marble head of Ares, currently on exhibition at the Old Archaeological Museum of Chalkis in Euboea, Greece. The head has been executed according to the finest tradition of Classical-Hellenistic Greek sculpture, creating a figure with theatrical and pathetic expressions, recalling the Skopadic trend. The lack of pupils may indicate that the head of the god is a pre-Hadrianic Roman copy of a Greek original from the 4th-2nd centuries BCE.

What James Boswell tells us about 18th‐century acting theory

AbstractThis article reads a series of essays on the actor by James Boswell through recent scholarship on the theory of acting in order to elaborate an expansive and historically grounded definition of what was and is meant by ‘18th‐century acting theory’. I thus show how 18th‐century texts on acting are important documents that should be read not as isolated phenomena but as works that can illuminate contemporary stage performance and the culture that produced it. In particular, I follow Boswell by placing a specific, illustrative emphasis on three key themes of professionalism, theatrical expression and ephemerality: each theme is both essential to thinking about the stage (and criticism on this topic) while also, like so much about the 18th‐century theatre, applicable far more widely both then and now.

Zakres swobody artystycznej we Francji – wybrane aspekty

W opracowaniu podjęto próbę analizy normatywnego kształtu granic wolności twórczości artystycznej we Francji. Z uwagi na to, że Francja odpokoleń uchodzi za kolebkę kultury i sztuki, ukazano zakres ingerencji prawa karnego w powszechnie uznaną wolność twórczości artystycznej – właśnie na przykładzie tego państwa. W artykule zwrócono również uwagę, iż kult wolności i kreatywności opanował rynek sztuki, przyczyniając się dopowstania sporów interpretacyjnych w orzecznictwie i doktrynie. Ilość procesów przeciwko artystom stanowi dowód na to, że jednak pewien zakres cenzury we Francji wciąż istnieje. Liczne skandale, procesy ożywiają debatę wokół wolności twórczości artystycznej. Autorka omówiła charakterystykęwybranych przestępstw popełnionych z przekroczeniem wolności artystycznej, wskazując na zasady odpowiedzialności karnej. W opracowaniu omówiono zakres swobody artystycznej we Francji w aspekcie ochrony praw autorskich i pokrewnych, swobody wypowiedzi, a także w zakresie swobody artystycznego wyrazu w kinematografii i teatrze.

The director in puppet theatre (Eastern European context)

In Poland, as well in the East European countries, puppet theatres of the second half of the 20th century, and it seems that also in that of the first quarter of the 21st century, the most important person is a director. Was it always so that puppet theatre equals the director? So, the objectives of this study is to determine this problem. It was only in the beginning of 20th century, in the period of the great reform of theatre, that the director was given unlimited competencies. In puppet theatre this process lasted much longer, because the classical style of theatre organization, derived from unaccompanied and private enterprises of particular creators, also endured for longer. Today, it is a director who rules supreme in a puppet theatre. In practice, Polish directors are still convinced today that theatre is intended to tell stories. is process limited puppetry as an independently existing art based primarily on the abilities of the craftsmen; on the miracle of animating a lifeless object, a puppet, whose magical life has so much to offer the spectators. On the contrary, axis of this process stand the artists who see the meaning of their theatrical expression in bring lifeless matter to life. This – when puppet theatre is, after all, a show; it is visual art in motion, not storytelling.

The Dynamics of Communication in the Context of Relations and Events Performed on Stage

This paper discusses communication processes in the context of performative arts and focuses on staged events as communicative events which disperse messages across different levels and in different directions in order to construct meanings in a multi-layered way, to include artistic, ideological, political and other dimensions. The core issue is the role of the director as the motivating and organizing stance of all the processes that evolve on stage. The modalities of organizing theatrical acts intertwine as the process of directing unfolds, stage after stage, and the ultimate goal to reach the audience needs to be kept in focus the entire time. It is possible to distinguish four such stages mediated specifically by directing itself. Organization of events to be set on the stage and sustained by strategies of communication starts with the abandonment of the literary template, with the articulation of the theatrical concept. The next stage is described in terms of a confrontation between the text and the performance (mise-en-scène), to be followed by the semiotic elaboration of signs which are structured and manipulated with in accordance with a specific directorial concept. Finally, the fourth stage is about creating a meta-text, and at this level, the directed communication connects with current social, political and cultural issues that provide the context to the theatrical expression. This paper provides an overview of most relevant views on this subject excerpted from the field of semiotics and from the theory of theatre communication, and it provides arguments for drawing this area of research into the broader context of the media theory, also announcing future research to pursue this direction of thought.

ЗАСОБИ “ТЕАТРАЛЬНОЇ ЕКСПРЕСІЇ” У ВИХОВАННІ ФАХІВЦІВ АУДІОВІЗУАЛЬНОГО МИСТЕЦТВА ТА ВИРОБНИЦТВА

ЗАСОБИ “ТЕАТРАЛЬНОЇ ЕКСПРЕСІЇ” У ВИХОВАННІ ФАХІВЦІВ АУДІОВІЗУАЛЬНОГО МИСТЕЦТВА ТА ВИРОБНИЦТВА

As garatujas teatrais nos gestos dos bebês: um estudo bakhtiniano

O presente artigo apresenta algumas ideias bakhtinianas sobre a constituição da linguagem, com destaque para o gesto, atrelado às experiências comunicativas que os bebês podem experimentar nos espaços educativos, com ênfase para os jogos teatrais. São apresentados dois episódios nos quais os bebês expressam, através dos gestos, algumas das inúmeras possibilidades da linguagem teatral presente no contexto infantil, seja através das descobertas realizadas a partir da movimentação do próprio corpo e os efeitos que este produz em contato com a luz, seja através da manipulação de materiais e/ou brinquedos em uma brincadeira de faz de conta. São momentos lúdicos, de brincadeiras e descobertas que permitem o desenvolvimento das garatujas teatrais, ou seja, as primeiras expressões teatrais dos bebês.

Yusuf Al-Ani’s dramatic journeys and his theatrical cane

Providing an account of al-Ani’s artistic development as both actor and playwright through his contemporaneous experience in the Iraqi theatre, Mehdi explores the role of folklore and theatrical realism in the manner developed by Bertolt Brecht, alongside progressive social and political concepts that all influenced al-Ani’s works. The harmonization of experimentation between the native expression evident in al-Ani’s writing and his directing, that is, the combination of originality and the folkloric aspect that captures the essence of the experience of the Iraqi individual provided the potential for Iraqi theatrical expression moving forward. The connection to al-Ani’s commitment to see such conceptual commitments be expressed through an Iraqi idiom provided the theatre with intellectual respect amongst Iraqi intellectuals, while his efforts to professionalize and develop Iraqi theatre troupes and production capacities led to a growing regional and global reputation. This development provided great opportunity not only for al-Ani but also for the Iraqi arts broadly and the theatre in particular. By developing deep roots within Iraq’s emerging public culture al-Ani supported Iraqi theatre-makers who followed to be afforded considerable opportunity. The debt that modern Iraqi theatre owes to al-Ani through his enormous talent and prodigious efforts to elevate the art form to the highest levels connects the artist to his society.