Kind Of Drama Research Articles

استخدام العناصر الواقعية في هنرك ابسن بيت الدمى

Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) is considered Norway's most distinguished playwrights, besides being the father of modern drama. He started handling realistic themes around the last quarter of the nineteenth century after he had given up writing romantic plays. He turned to the problem play with The Pillars of Society (1877) and kept tackling realistic subject-matters especially in A Doll's House (1879), Ghosts (1881), An Enemy of the People (1882), and The Wild Duck (1884). In these particular plays, he relentlessly attacked the false values of society which made many people suffer. He used the prose dialogue in his realistic plays to replace the unrealistic elements of the previous romantic plays. In the realistic plays, Ibsen also subordinated action to thought since ideas are more important than action in this kind of drama. Thus, the action is more psychological than physical in A Doll's House, which is the central notion in this article. At the same time Ibsen's realistic plays came as a surprise to the people who were influenced by the existing conventions. It is no wonder that such plays were not appreciated by the censors and banned in some European countries, especially at the first time of their appearance. Ibsen surprised Europe when he volunteered to speak of subjects no other playwright dared to speak so openly and fearlessly. Thus Ibsen's Ghosts could not be staged in England until 1891, ten years after its introduction in Norway. It was J. T. Grein who helped to stage the English version of Ghosts in The Independent Theatre, a private theatre, in order to escape the censorship imposed on the public theatres. The play was already translated into English by William Archer. The subject-matter of Ghosts revolves on a hereditary issue when a son inherits a venereal disease from his father, and also on a conventional situation when a wife is forced to remain with an immoral husband whom she hates.

Staging New Wars: Representations of Violence and Conflict in Drama

The theatrical portrayal of the individual and war in a period of collapsing peace endeavors, as well as the dramatization of survival vs destruction which became the driving forces on the war stage, are the main topics of this paper. The 20th and 21st centuries have regressed into the nightmarish perpetual and indefinite predicament of warfare. War has ceased to be the exceptional state and has instead become "the primary organizing principle of society," as Giorgio Agamben's claims that the exception has become the rule. Ulrich Beck's World at Risk and Mary Kaldor's New & Old Wars (2005) are important works on modern conflict and civilization, in which they track the changing face of war in the last half century.
 The new wars plays range from adaptations of Greek tragedies to dramas that portray civil wars, inner-state conflicts, and the politics of fear, to verbatim-based and documentary plays that try to depict the trauma of war and theatrical recreation of the process of testimony giving and public endorsement of mourning.
 At the heart of this paper are questions like How can conflict be shown on stage? How do the plays investigate the role of sociological factors in shaping civilizations while simulating the sociological factors that lead to conflict and violence? In relevance to the age of globalization and its "New Wars" the paper also tries to demonstrate how these “ New Wars” necessitate a new kind of drama about war.

Literature, revolution and healing the society

Literature and revolution are motifs aimed at exploring the enormous contributions and roles played by the study of literature across Africa. This study is mostly centered on the dilemma tales of Ama Ata Aidoo‟s The Dilemma of a Ghost (1965) and Athol Fugard‟s Statement Plays (1972). The paper argues that the discipline is far above bibliolatry and it further examines the authority in which the discipline wields in the society. This preconceived power in the discipline is expressed through the study of themes and dramatic techniques as seen in the plays of the two playwrights from different regions of Africa exploring the socio-political wound that led to the reactions and concern of great writers and playwright like Athol Fugard and Ama Ata Aidoo. Fugard‟s Statement Plays (1972) especially the stapled parts appear to be neglected as a result of its complexities and dynamic socio-political situation that may be summarized as “apartheid”. The Dilemma of a Ghost (1965) delineates on folk drama in modern theatre. It is a dramatic art of storytelling where by the theatre or environment is combined with eating and drinking, poetry reading and plays. It is the techniques and convention that matter most in this kind of drama where issues of morals are examined. This plays can also be classified as dilemma tale; a tale which poses a difficult questions of moral or legal significance on older and younger generation. The two plays therefore are a response to the various anger and attack of different sorts arising from the social and political upheavals in the society. For proper evaluation and explication of this research the theoretical framework adopted for this study is the post-colonial theory which makes the work more relevant and appropriate for the evaluation of the issues that transcends between socio-political and economic life of Africans and further reinstates that literature uses revolution to heal all kinds of debilitating wounds whether political, social or emotional.

Actress training by Michael Saint-Denis: improvisation in a mask

The purpose of the article is to analyze the features of the theatrical and pedagogical activity of M. Saint-Denis and to reveal the specifics of the acting training "Improvisation in a mask" in the context of students' work with a neutral and characteristic mask. Methodology. The biographical method was applied (to cover the director's and pedagogical activity of M. Saint-Denis); the typological method (for identifying and determining the main features of the theatrical pedagogy of M. Saint-Denis in general and the methods of teaching the actor developed by him in particular); the method of comparative analysis (for the study of the training "Improvisation in a mask" with neutral and characteristic masks), etc. Scientific novelty. Studied the actor's training "Improvisation in the mask" of the leading theater director and teacher of the twentieth century. M. Saint-Denis and revealed the features of the work of student actors with a neutral and characteristic mask; analyzed the theatrical and pedagogical activities of M. Saint-Denis as a standardizer of theatrical practice in the context of the developed and implemented curricula for acting in drama schools founded with his assistance (London Theater Studio, Old Vic School, Strasbourg Higher School of Dramatic Art, Canadian National Theater School and the Juilliard Drama Department). Conclusions. M. Saint-Denis's holistic model of acting training is formed on the basis of an organic combination of a physical approach, in which the body learns to turn into an absolute expressive instrument, an internal approach, the so-called realistic characterization, and a comprehensive understanding of the style in the context of mastering physical, vocal, intellectual, creative and emotional skills, allows student actors to master all kinds of drama. The study revealed that the mask was considered by M. Saint-Denis as a temporary working tool that helps to reduce feelings of insecurity and awkwardness, enhance the ability of internal self-awareness, enhance expression and experimental activity, develop concentration of attention, self-control of a student-actor and a harmonious path from the inception of physical qualities. character to their external dramatic expression. The student's task is to fill the mask, to give it life and feelings. If the actor who animates the mask is convincing and sincere, it feels like he has his own facial expression. The aim of the training is: to eradicate cliché-manners; teach students to develop and release creative impulses; to teach students to work on classical roles or roles of the "big style" (according to M. Saint-Denis).

Delving into Emotional Wounds, Addressing Them as Issues to be Solved, as One of the Reasons We Choose to be Incarnated: with Personal Research into their Origins

As we all begin our lives by walking on to the stage in Act One/Scene One; and into the kind of Drama that’s usually entitled on the lines of ‘My Life, ‘ I’m going to begin with something that David Lorimar (one of the founders of the Scientific & Medical Network) once said: that the Anecdotal has as much worth as any other evidence, in scientific research. I’m not sure who first said: “Nothing‘s ever happened, until it‘s happened to you,” but they got that right!

Hollywood and Vienna: functions and connotations of atonalism in cinema and opera

In our investigation we make an approach to the uses of atonal music in the opera of the Vienese School and the cinema that became known in the second half of the 20th century. Likewise, we make a comparative study on the meanings in both media, that are constituted by the needs within this two kinds of drama that have certain similarities and differences.

Shakespearean Style and Technique in Modern Assamese Drama: A Study of Reception and Response

William Shakespeare's influence extends from theatre and literature to present-day movies and the English language itself. Widely regarded as the most excellent writer of the English language, and the world's preeminent dramatist, Shakespeare transformed the world literature. He was the main generative force behind the entire Indian dramatic literature in various languages including modern Assamese dramas. This influence of Shakespeare helped develop a new kind of drama that is unknown to Assamese dramatic literature. His technique, characterization, and style were borrowed, resulting in an emergence of a new type of drama in the Assamese literature. The Assamese dramas of the pre-independence period owe for its rapid growth to its contact with the West in general and Shakespeare in particular. The researcher in this paper aims to dive deep into the Assamese dramas and dig out the receptions and responses to Shakespeare by the Assamese playwrights concerning his style, technique, and characterization. The researcher, keeping in mind the voluminous of the area, has limited his research area and selected the dramas of the preindependence period for the study of reception and response to William Shakespeare. With the aid of the comparative method of investigation, the researcher finds that influences formerly Western and mainly Shakespearean played a cardinal role in the development of modern Assamese drama.

Shakespearean Style and Technique in Modern Assamese Drama: A Study of Reception and Response

William Shakespeare's influence extends from theatre and literature to present-day movies and the English language itself. Widely regarded as the most excellent writer of the English language, and the world's preeminent dramatist, Shakespeare transformed the world literature. He was the main generative force behind the entire Indian dramatic literature in various languages including modern Assamese dramas. This influence of Shakespeare helped develop a new kind of drama that is unknown to Assamese dramatic literature. His technique, characterization, and style were borrowed, resulting in an emergence of a new type of drama in the Assamese literature. The Assamese dramas of the pre-independence period owe for its rapid growth to its contact with the West in general and Shakespeare in particular. The researcher in this paper aims to dive deep into the Assamese dramas and dig out the receptions and responses to Shakespeare by the Assamese playwrights concerning his style, technique, and characterization. The researcher, keeping in mind the voluminous of the area, has limited his research area and selected the dramas of the preindependence period for the study of reception and response to William Shakespeare. With the aid of the comparative method of investigation, the researcher finds that influences formerly Western and mainly Shakespearean played a cardinal role in the development of modern Assamese drama.

“Being Human”: Edward Bond’s Theories of Drama

The playwright Edward Bond has recalled the impact of seeing photographs of Nazi atrocities at the end of World War Two: “It was the ground zero of the human soul.” He argues we need a different kind of drama, based in “a new interpretation of what it means to be human.” He has developed an extensive body of theoretical writings to set alongside his plays. Arguably, his own reflections on “what it means to be human” are based in his reaction to the Holocaust, and his attempt to confront “the totality of evil.”Bond argues we are born “radically innocent.” There is a “pre-psychological” state of being. The neonate does not “read” ideology; it has to use its own imagination to make sense of the world. To enter society, however, the child must be corrupted; its imagination is “ideologized.” Bond claims that “radical innocence” can never wholly be lost. Through drama, we can escape “ideology” and recover our “autonomy.” It leads us to confront extreme situations, and to define for ourselves “what it means to be human.” The terms of Bond’s theory are Manichean (innocent-corrupt, autonomous-ideologized etc.). His arguments are based in the assumption that there is a fundamental “humanity” that exists prior to socialization. In fact, the process of socialization begins at birth. As an account of child development, “radical innocence” does not stand up to close scrutiny. Arguably, however, Bond’s work escapes the confines of his own theory. It can be read, not in terms of the “ideologized” vs. the “autonomous” mind, but rather, in terms of “conscious” and “unconscious.” In Coffee (2000), Bond takes character of Nold on a journey into the Dantean hell of his own unconscious. He does not recover his “innocence,” but, rather, he has to face the darkness of both history and the psyche.

On the Original Construction of the Film-Image System in Chinese Films Based on the Concept of Film-Drama

Chinese films have their own national style, which has been identified by theoretical circles. However, the questions of how the “national style” is formed and how the image system is built have not been widely given further examination. The image system of the early films in China is built gradually and driven by the concept of film-drama. This concept focuses on the idea that the film is a kind of drama, i.e., drama-based and film-supported. This forms the theoretical basis of the Chinese film image system. In the 1920s, the Chinese film image showed its original type of style, which was mainly represented through aspects including: scene as the basic unit; an open spatial concept; stylized stage design, etc.

The Transformative Drama: The Case of Violence

The purpose is to discuss the project titles Work and dignity life for women victims of violence and especially drama written during the project. The main aim of the text is to present and define the new kind of drama - transformative drama and the way of use it in working with women-prisoners - the victim of violence. The text promotes the new, unknown method of therapy and the result of it - raising the women's consciousness and their self-reliance. It is also worth to underline the transformative drama is a new category of literature – it is an applied literature. The drama and the method of use it can be successfully and effective used in working with marginalized people.

Educando para a cidadania através do Drama-Processo

Drama as a literary art, beyond the aesthetic pleasure it can generate, can also be a tool in the educational process of people in all age groups. In this paper, we present fragments of an experiment in which a kind of drama, called Process Drama was used, during a semester, to help a class of year seven students at a rural school in the municipality of Tefé (Amazonas State) to develop a critical awareness of the reality surrounding them. Ultimately, the goal of the study was to introduce to those students critical thinking as an essential tool for the full exercise of citizenship. The study was based especially on Freirian critical pedagogy, but it also capitalized on other critical thinking works. For data collection, written tests and questionnaires with semi-opened questions were used. The seven categories of David Carraher’s critical thinker were the parameter against which the data was analyzed. The results indicated a modest development of critical thinking of the students participating in the experiment as a result of their engagement (although in minute proportions) in reflections about issues that affect or could affect their communities. Key words: literary art, Process Drama, Education, critical thinking,citizenship.

Indigenous Performing Traditions in Post-Revolutionary Iranian Theater

One of the major trends in experimental theater refashions the representational and presentational techniques of ancient rituals, medieval dramatic forms and popular performing traditions to create new forms of dramatic expression. In pre-revolutionary Iran, the proponents of this trend included those who worked with Iran National Theater and Theater Workshop. The 1979 revolution heralded the arrival of a different kind of drama in response to a host of new subjects and restrictions. However, unlike the political upheavals of previous periods which led to catastrophic discontinuity in the development of Iranian theater, it did not result in a complete breach. The post-revolutionary practitioners continued working with the templates devised by their pre-revolutionary colleagues, creating a dramatic tradition that has produced several masterpieces during recent decades. The purpose of this paper is to put the history of this experimental trend in perspective and examine the works of three of its major post-revolutionary practitioners. As such it will not focus on the history of indigenous forms or western-style theater in Iran, but on the recent history of this experimental mode and how its practitioners have refashioned Iranian performing traditions.

<i>The Provincetown Players and the Culture of Modernity</i> (review)

The Provincetown Players and Culture of Modernity. Brenda Murphy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. xix. + 282 pp. $85.00 (cloth). In late Fall of 1916, young physician and aspiring poet William Carlos Williams, married four years earlier and now establishing himself in a busy medical practice in Rutherford, New Jersey, traveled by train several times a week to MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village where, as an amateur actor, he was in rehearsals as one of three performers (the Husband) in poet and editor Alfred Kreymborg's short verse play, Lima Beans. The other actors in this Provincetown Players' inaugural New York production were writer Mina Loy (the Wife) and sculptor William Zorach (the Huckster). Kreymborg's work, subtitled A Scherzo Play in One Act, was scheduled to be on a bill that included Before Breakfast, by young Eugene O'Neill, and Two Sons, by Neith Boyce. Zorach designed minimalist set, which cost $2.50. In a passage in Williams's Autobiography, partially quoted by Brenda Murphy in her comprehensive new book, The Provincetown Players and Culture of Modernity, Williams recalls that experience was tough, but termed three performances (Murphy incorrectly quotes Williams as saying there were five) in December a qualified success (A 138-39). Kreymborg, according to Murphy, was more enthusiastic, remembering with pleasure a December 1 opening night with wild applause and sixteen curtain (Provincetown Players 108). Murphy calls Lima Beans an epithalamium, a kind of bridal song or parable about marital forbearance (1 09-1 0), and it is that, although helter-skelter free verse debate about whether string beans or lima beans should be served to Husband for dinner is in truth only a modest dramatic exercise. Nonetheless, Williams, hopeful about establishment of a new kind of drama, wrote that perhaps here lay (A 1 38). Murphy's book chronicles in thorough and sometimes complicated detail history and pivotal role that Provincetown Players had in shaping not only future of experimental American theatre in early part of twentieth century, but also importance of Players in helping to create what Murphy terms a self-conscious modernist (xv). Among other things, that aesthetic celebrated what Murphy calls non-representational art, including fragmentation of narrative trajectory, the abstraction of some characters into types or symbolic figures, and the theatrical equivalent of 'stream of consciousness' in fiction (xvi). Of course, playwright who would become most closely associated with Provincetown Players, Eugene O'Neill, practiced this aesthetic in many of his plays. But in very early years, many of poets and artists associated with Kreymborg's journal Others were also drawn to this unofficial movement, including Williams, Maxwell Bodenheim, Wallace Stevens, Djuna Barnes and later Edna St. Vincent Millay. And echoes of that aesthetic survived for decades in fringes of American theatre, most strikingly in Julian Beck's and Judith Malina's Living Theatre in late 1 950s and beyond. It is interesting to note that Williams's own unorthodox verse play, Many Loves, was produced by Living Theatre in New York in 1 959, and ran intermittently in repertory over next three years. As Murphy writes, origins of Provincetown Players were anything but auspicious. In July of 1915, a group of writers, artists, activists and hangers-on, drawn together while summering in Provincetown, at very tip of Cape Cod, decided to mount a single evening of theatre on veranda of home of Boyce and her journalist/anarchist friend Hutchins Hapgood. Two short plays were chosen: Constancy, by Boyce, and Suppressed Desires, co-authored by Susan Glaspell, already gaining a reputation as a writer of fiction, and professor and Utopian George (Jig) Cram Cook. …

Romance on the Early Modern Stage

AbstractIn Shakespeare studies, the term romance is widely understood to refer to a group of plays from the late period of the Shakespearean canon. In looking at two plays from the period of 1590–1610, Orlando Furioso and the Arthurian romance Tom a Lincoln, this essay identifies an earlier history for the genre. I term this kind of drama ‘stage romance’, a popular genre that originated in the earliest days of the Elizabethan theater. These plays demonstrate the emergence of ‘romance’ out of a global history: the social, intellectual, and economic changes prompted by England's increasing role in an expanding global economy.

O teatrze science fiction kilka uwag

The science fiction aesthetics has actually never created (formed) its own kind of drama and in spite of attempts undertaken several times it has not been feeling completely at home. Theoreticians (Theorists) of science fiction see the theatre as an inconvenient (troublesome) partner which "reveals the imitative character of the presented world and destroys the atmosphere of fantasticality". In the meantime the history of the science fiction drama reveals quite an astonishing regularity, namely it appears that the manner of creation of the science fiction stage illusion is completely independent of the degree of technical advancement of the theatrical machinery. The better the equipment of the theatre, the more modestly science fiction appears in it. Coexistence of fantasticality and theatricality in the works written for stage, however, does not occur without any conflict and is more often based on respecting of limitations (restrictions) resulting from the system rather than harmonious co-operation.

Liturgy as Drama

The purpose of this essay is to explore the case for understanding liturgy as a kind of drama. By “liturgy” here I mean religious action in contrast to religious contemplation. The contrast is an especially interesting one, because it cuts across some historically important differences between Christian traditions of worship, and in particular between Catholic and Reformed. The Catholic service of Benediction, for example, seems very far from the austere Calvinist service in which the sermon occupies central place. Yet the two share the same fundamental character in being contemplative, the first by the mystical contemplation of the Blessed Sacrament before the altar, and the second by the intellectual contemplation of the word of God. It hardly needs to be said that deep theological differences lie behind these alternative forms of Christian worship. Yet their essentially contemplative nature means that both allot the worshiper the largely passive role of recipient. In this respect, however far apart otherwise, both are to be contrasted with forms of worship in which things are done and not merely apprehended. These include acts of purification, investiture, and sacrifice, all of them instances of “making holy,” which is precisely what the etymology of the word “sacrifice” implies. The activity of “making holy” is central to a great many religions, but this essay will be concerned only with the sacramental activities of the Christian religion—such as baptizing, uniting in marriage, and ordaining to ministry—and above all its central and most enduring practice: celebrating Mass, the Eucharist, the Lord's Supper, or Holy Communion. I shall take the last of these to encapsulate the essence of liturgical action, and for convenience I shall use the relatively neutral term “Communion” to refer to it.

PETER HAPPE, Cyclic Form and the English Mystery Plays: A Comparative Study of the English Biblical Cycles and their Continental and Iconographic Counterparts. Pp. 349 (LUDUS: Medieval and Early Renaissance Theatre and Drama 7). Amsterdam and New York, Rodopi, 2004. Hardbound 80.00 (ISBN 90 420 1652 3); paperbound 30.00 (90 420 1662 0).

IN this clear and accessible book Peter Happé argues that cyclic form was an intentional creation of medieval drama. In order to explore the sophisticated effects created by this form, Happé performs an admirably thorough survey of the cyclic mode in iconography, continental drama, and later works such as John Bale's projected dramatic cycle. The breadth of Happé's study means that this book is full of interesting nuggets of information, such as the influence of Francisan thinking on this kind of drama, or the way in which the roof bosses of Norwich Cathedral create a unique version of cyclic form: the ribs of the ceiling forming an objective correlative to the web of allusion between the various episodes. Also by approaching medieval storytelling from this angle, Happé shows how embellishments of the biblical narrative can engage with the cyclic structure of the whole. For example, in both the Holkham Bible Picture Book and Passion Catalane–Occitane a childhood story which interacts with Christ's infancy is created for one of the actors in the Passion narrative. In the former, the pentitent thief prevents his father from robbing the holy family on their way into Egypt. In the latter, the Massacre of the Innocents compels Judas's mother to send him away, which results in him re-enacting the tragedy of Oedipus. Cyclic form, in both drama and iconography, encourages the creation of stories and images which circle round the central event of Christ's Passion.

A Companion to the Works of Friedrich Schiller (review)

Steven D. Martinson, ed., A Companion to the Works of Friedrich Schiller. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2005.333 pp. This collection of essays by twelve distinguished scholars, all published for the first time and five of them translated into English by editor and contributor Steven D. Martinson, places in the richest possible context of biographical, historical, textual and inter-textual readings with a minimum of repetition. Without polarizing Schiller's thought against postmodernist formulations, this virtual textbook of Schiller-in-his-age teases out multiple threads that weave throughout Schiller's monumental tapestry of major works in order to clarify the questions-and this collection is full of questions-raised by studying Schiller's works today. The detailed studies of individual works in this book's long middle section are bracketed by introductory discussions of Schiller's anthropology, his relation to antiquity, and his uses of history and by a concluding survey, full of its own kind of drama, of the twists and turns of Schiller's reputation in the twentieth century. Impressive for its coherence and timeliness, Martinson's collection is also immensely readable. Martinson's introduction, Schiller and the New Century, touches on all the elements of the Story: Schiller's original inclination to the ministry, his military school training, his ill health, his three dissertations on physiology-the third finally accepted-, the happy period in Dresden when composed his Ode to Joy, his self-conscious relationship with Goethe, his, discovery of Kant, his appointment as a professor of history at Jena, his ideal of a humane humanity(8) achievable through aesthetic education, his shock over the French Revolution, and his deep, abiding faith in love. And Martinson poses some of the questions implicit in these themes that will be explored by scholars in this collection: What is the relationship between law and freedom? What aspects of eighteenth-century culture and politics does critique? How do we read Schiller's later works in light of his earlier ones? What is the relationship between science and literature in Schiller's works? How do some of Schiller's most urgent concerns, like the fragmentation of society, reveal postmodern interests? Martinson's contributors demonstrate that reconfiguring Schiller's ideas is not always necessary to bring out their boldness; stating them with exact clarity is enough. Walter Hinderer explains that for love is based on a momentary exchange of personalities, a substitution of beings (31), accepts the corporeality of the soul, and equates thinking and imagination (32), and does not try to cover up the ruptures in his own thinking (42). Karl S. Guthke sees the darker side of heroes like Joan of Arc and William Tell; for Schiller, they are suffering and erring, struggling to come to terms with their failings and their guilt (228). …

Education and Society in Haiti 1804–1843

(2004). Education and Society in Haiti 1804–1843. Caribbean Quarterly: Vol. 50, Arcahaie, 18 Mai 1803, pp. 14-24.