Representation Of Life Research Articles

About Visual Language, Drunken Women, Jesters and Escaping the World

Visual communication employs language different than literature. The economy of viewing calls for elements of representation familiar to the viewer, which, when shown in a recurring order, become comprehensible. For us, recognising these elements is often difficult as they can be entirely absent from the literary text. The person of the jester, whose appearance corresponds to the vidūṣaka of the Nāṭyaśāstra, is found frequently in narrative scenes depicted through visual means. His presence often indicates that another figure in the picture is about to withdraw from worldly life. The jester then expresses utter disapproval of his master’s decision. The viewer is able to recognise the meaning of the scene because the jester is shown also in erotic and humorous scenes, perhaps representative of the sensual atmosphere of theatre life, or related to the nāyaka and the vidūṣaka of the Kāmasūtra.

Who’s the Dupe? A Farce

Who’s the Dupe? A Farce

Crimean Tableaux of Catherine II’s Court as the Visual Record of the Russian Empire’s Southern Expansion

This article analyzes celebrations of Russian military victories over the Ottoman Turks during Catherine II’s reign on the examples of pictures (tableaux) featured in fireworks, illuminations, triumphal arches, processions, and instances of live theater. Performing the Crimean conquest via these artistic displays, from the early 1770s—the time when Crimea first begins to appear in them—and until Catherine’s final years, served as a way of incorporating the peninsula as a part of the imperial design and of announcing the Crimean Tatar as the latest member of the Russian Empire’s supporting cast. This paper argues that Crimea’s changing status in the ceremonial culture of Catherine’s court is reflected in these tableaux with their focus on the territory (Crimea) as opposed to its people (Crimean Tatars).

Dream by the Royal Shakespeare Company: a dystopian experience of live performance, between avatars and virtual reality

If, by definition, the performing event could not do without the co-presence in space and time of spectators and actors (Brook 21), history has shown us how profound reflections on the possibility of shifting the fundamental axes of theater have nevertheless come about. The increasingly substantial presence of video within performances, even if filmed in real-time, is one example that has called into question the fundamental concept of hic et nunc. The creation of performances for a single spectator has altered the anthropological binomial community/ritual in addition to the "non-human" entity of the performer, from metal theater to cyborg performance (Schrum). The Royal Shakespeare Company's new production (2021) Dream will be analyzed to discuss the particular artistic experimentation that has become widespread in the Covid era. This production, which is a technological performance watched by more than 20,000 people worldwide in just three days, brings performance and gaming technology together to explore new ways for the audience, a remote spectator, to experience live theater (Aebischer 21). As live play performances and readings continually crowd virtual platforms, theater is undergoing a radical shift from stage to screen and cyberspace. However, will these new formats survive in the post-pandemic times?

'Staying True to Theatrical Life': Bicycle Theatre Group in Northern Sri Lanka

During the war in the northern part of Sri Lanka, theatre committees functioned on a monthly allowance basis. This activity has been going on continuously for many years. These theatre groups have travelled relying on people. The people have fed them. Here the salary allowance was not paid according to the quality of the actor in the theatre group, but according to the number of his family members. Instead of 'qualified wages', the allowance of 'wages as per requirement' has been given. A group of equal numbers of women and men have cycled and staged plays. The play has been staged in at least three places every day, travelling day and night continuously for 22 days in a month. The actors, who went on bicycles professionally and staged plays, performed real life on stage. They saw the reality of the stage in life. There are no differences between fiction and reality in this theatre journey. The real story becomes a drama. A drama story becomes a reality. Here the dramaturgy fits in with many true stories and becomes visions of realities. At the same time, after a play is over, more plays are created. Moreover, more and more have evolved. Here, the play has helped the affected people reach the stage of 'despair'. It leads to a state of repentance, collective empathy, gaining confidence, and a desire to live. This study is based on the stage definition of liberation, on the basis of the ethnographic point of view, on the basis of which the researcher himself lived at a given time, and on the basis of witnessing the plays. But there are gaps in this study. To further enrich the study, the fonts of the plays produced by the theatre groups recorded sound, and cinematography is also required. Observation studies are also required. They are limited in the context of a military crisis.

Following Puck virtually in the Royal Shakespeare Company's Dream experiment: Live theatre and high-tech innovations

The thirty-minute experiment titled Dream represented a collaborative effort between the Royal Shakespeare Company and Audience of the Future. It fused live performance with motion capture technology, 3D graphics, and interactive gaming techniques, and let the audience remotely guide Puck through a virtual forest. Inspired by A Midsummer Night's Dream, it focused on Puck and the fairies. If, for online audiences, the virtual fairies moving through a digital forest suggested a video game, the eight performances were delivered live and in real time. This Dream represents a new format for Shakespeare’s performance that evolved during (rather than emerged from) the COVID-19 pandemic.

Comparison of Two Entertainment Industry COVID-19 Programs.

This article follows two entertainment industry COVID-19 worker safety programs from inception through implementation. The first plan was developed by the four major film industry unions in concert with their expert consultants. The second plan for live theater was initiated by the Broadway League, a national trade association for the theater owners, operators, producers, presenters, and general managers in North American cities and their suppliers of goods and services. The efficacy of the plans to provide cast and crew with proper industrial hygiene measures such as ventilation and protective masks is compared by the author.

Carola Neher – zapomniana ofiara Wielkiego Terroru

Aurelia Kotkiewicz’s article is devoted to the tragic story of Carola Neher’s life. Carola Neher was an extraordinary German actress and a close associate of Bertolt Brecht. In the 1930s, she escaped from the Nazi regime to the Soviet Union, there to become one of the victims of the Great Terror. The fate of Carola Neher was the inspiration for an exhibition put up by the International Memorial Society in 2017 called “Carola Neher’s Theater of Life” and for the theatrical spectacle Memoria, staged by the Меyerhold Center in Moscow and directed by Anastasia Patlai.

Some Would Call This Living

Some Would Call This Living

Welded

Welded

Death of a Salesman

Death of a Salesman

Welded 2022: A Conversation

To say that the theater landscape shifted during the COVID era is an understatement. Yet, even during these trying times for the arts, and for theater in particular, productions of O’Neill’s plays have continued, often in bold and innovative ways. For example, there was a virtual production of the Irish Repertory Theatre’s A Touch of the Poet just as the pandemic was beginning and an Audible Theater production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night as the pandemic (hopefully) was winding down. In the throes of COVID, however, where any end point to the international nightmare remained nebulous, there was the Eugene O’Neill Foundation and, specifically, Eric Fraisher Hayes.Hayes, swiftly and successfully, pivoted to new modes of production and new ways of storytelling for the performances of the O’Neill Foundation. In 2020 he directed and filmed COVID-safe, script-in-hand performances of three of O’Neill’s early one-act plays: The Web, Recklessness, and Abortion. At the start of 2021 he and the Foundation launched “The Ghosts of Tao House,” a series of short films featuring actors performing monologues from O’Neill plays. These films drew on the beauty of the exterior and interior spaces of Tao House. In the fall of 2021 Hayes directed a film of Beyond the Horizon. While other theater companies recorded stage productions, Hayes conceived his Beyond the Horizon as a film, fundamentally distinct from the staged production that he and the Foundation would mount at around the same time. Compelling close-ups, integrated and original music, distinct camera angles, and wide-sweeping views of the gorgeous San Ramon Valley and Las Trampas Hills combined with first-rate acting make this Beyond the Horizon a highly successful film.Along with his exciting, artistic experimentations, Hayes used theCOVID moment to expand and enhance the scholarly presence for the Foundation productions. He oversaw the filming of nearly two dozen videos for the Foundation’s website in which scholars discuss various aspects of Beyond the Horizon, O’Neill’s “lost plays,” the playwright’s life, and American theater history. He also brought me on as the dramaturg for the Foundation’s fall and early spring productions (Beyond the Horizon, fall 2021; Welded, spring 2021). In addition to serving as the official researcher for these productions, I developed an interactive engagement guide for Beyond the Horizon and appeared with Hayes in a virtual, pre-show talk. The “ghosts” and the scholarly presentations are accessible, gratis, on the Foundation’s website (eugeneoneill.org), where one may also access the film of Beyond the Horizon for a modest fee.The production of Welded marked the return of live, in-person, and indoor theater for the Foundation. The production took place at the Museum of the San Ramon Valley in January 2022. In early February we chatted about Hayes’s bold choice to stage this historicallyneglected play, our long-distance collaboration, and Welded in a modern context.

A post-occupancy study of ventilation effectiveness from high-resolution CO2 monitoring at live theatre events to mitigate airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2

Mass-gathering events were closed around the world in 2020 to minimise the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Emerging research on the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 emphasised the importance of sufficient ventilation. This paper presents the results of an indoor air quality (IAQ) monitoring study over 82 events in seven mechanically ventilated auditoria to support the UK government Events Research Programme. Indoor carbon dioxide concentration was measured at high resolution before, during, and after occupancy to allow for assessment of the ventilation systems. Generally, good indoor air quality was measured in all auditoria, with average IAQ found to be excellent or very good for 70% of spaces. In some auditoria, spatial variation in IAQ was identified, indicating poor mixing of the air. In addition, surface and air samples were taken and analysed for the presence of bacteria by culture and SARS-CoV-2 using RT-qPCR in one venue. SARS-CoV-2 RNA was detected on a small number of surfaces at very low copy numbers, which are unlikely to pose an infection risk. Under the ventilation strategies and occupancy levels investigated, it is likely that most theatres pose a low risk of long-range transmission of COVID-19.

Про перешкоди книговиданню, український театр та біографії: елементи власних спогадів у публіцистиці Михайла Комарова

The article is devoted to the journalistic heritage of one of the most prominent representatives of the Ukrainian community in the South of Ukraine, who is rightly considered a lawyer, translator, bibliographer, compiler of dictionaries, and public figure Mykhailo Fedorovych Komarov (1844–1913). He was the author of over sixty articles in the literary-critical, socio-political, and biographical context. In his works he often reported on his own experience in a particular case. And in these personal comments or recollections elements of memories of the figure are shown. The purpose of this article is to find out what personal memories the Odesa figure contained in his articles, the objective is to identify memories, determine their thematic direction and value. During the research, it was found out that M. Komarov’s journalism mainly concerned the issue of the arbitrariness of the Russian government in relation to Ukrainian culture and book publishing. His testimony, given the small amount of literature published in the late nineteenth century, is important in many political and bibliographic contexts. The coverage of theatrical life, which the activist joined as a spectator and bibliographer, was of popularizing importance, although it also contains some new facts, for example, regarding the desire of the Ukrainian Coryphaeuses Theatre to tour abroad. Among the new facts that reveal articles about the activities of M. Komarov himself: his pedagogical experience and his books were banned by censorship. Various recollections of biographical stories, both in the context of Taras Shevchenko and other figures, convey both the perception of these personalities at the turn of the century and add new evidence of them.

The Way of the Safe Gun in Live Theatre – Using Replica Firearms

The Way of the Safe Gun in Live Theatre – Using Replica Firearms

About the Authors

toby huelin is a PhD candidate at the University of Leeds investigating the use of library music in contemporary television. His research is funded by the AHRC via the White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities (WRoCAH). Toby's forthcoming publications include peer-reviewed journal articles for Critical Studies in Television and the European Journal of American Culture, alongside chapters in a number of edited volumes. Toby is also a media composer: his music is featured in the Emmy Award–winning series United Shades of America (CNN), the documentary Subnormal: A British Scandal (BBC One), and an advertising campaign for internet brand Honey.anna mcauley is a graduate of English and music from the University of Leeds, UK. She wrote her undergraduate thesis on the topic of the disembodied voice in the work of Shakespeare, analyzing the Royal Shakespeare Company's 2017 production of Titus Andronicus. Therein she highlighted the distinction between live theatre music and other performing genres by exploring the use of the human voice in incidental music for the stage. Her research interests include interdisciplinary study between performance and literature, phenomenology, and ecocriticism, particularly in dystopian fictions.trevor penoyer-kulin is currently a PhD candidate in musicology at McGill University and is a recipient of the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Graduate Scholarship. Prior to attending McGill, he received his master of studies in musicology at the University of Oxford and his bachelor of music at the University of Toronto. His doctoral work centers on French operetta and the historical dynamics surrounding its development during the nineteenth century, but his research interests extend to more contemporary subjects as well, including film music.edward venn is professor of music at the University of Leeds. His research focuses on the analysis and interpretation of twentieth-century and contemporary music. He is editor of the journal Music Analysis and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Music and Meaning. He has recently coedited Thomas Adès Studies (Cambridge University Press, 2022) with Philip Stoecker and is currently completing an AHRC-funded research project on the operas of Thomas Adès.

The Plat of Zion and Urban Development in Salt Lake City

The Plat of Zion and Urban Development in Salt Lake City

The 21st -Century Drama and the New Reality of Social Networks

The article examines the impact of social networks on modern theatre by looking at the case of drama transformation. Discussed are the peculiarities of reportage plays versus traditional plays, emphasizing the various forms of so-called Facebook plays. The author shows that while Facebook plays have become a major feature of theatrical life in the 21st century, their proliferation has also revealed social networks’ negative effects on social communication. This has found its apt reflection in dramatic texts. The study concludes with an argument that although the impact of social networks on drama has of late tended to wane, the changes that have occurred in the structure of texts over the last decade or so appear to be largely irreversible.

Deeper engagement with live theater increases middle school students’ empathy and social perspective taking

Building on research showing social-emotional benefits from a single live theater performance, this study tests for significant differences in pre to post social-cognitive outcomes among a racially and economically diverse sample of young audiences who attended the same theater performance with or without additional pre- and post-show educational experiences. We extend previous work by experimentally manipulating and testing a common artistic educational intervention: deeper engagement strategies including facilitated discussions and pre-performance guides. We also refine previous investigations into generalized social and emotional skills by specifically examining foundational social-cognitive abilities: social perspective taking and empathy. This study utilizes a pre-post design with randomized control and treatment groups. Several significant findings suggest that when paired with educational pre- and post-show experiences, students’ social perspective taking and empathy can be positively impacted through a single live theater performance.

ARTISTIC ORIGINALITY OF E. ZAGREBIN's PLAYS

One of the brightest representatives of the pleiad of Udmurt writers of the "Sixties" is Egor Egorovich Zagrebin (1937-2015), who left a deep mark on national literature and culture, especially in drama. The article examines the features of E. Zagrebin's creative individuality and dramatic skill based on the material of his most significant, representative plays: the drama "Mynam yaratone tatyn" ("My love is here"), the comedy (vaudeville) "Nastok no Istok" ("Stepan and Nastya"), the tragedy of "Esh-Terek". These plays are characterized by new substantive and formal elements that have become productive for the subsequent development of Udmurt drama. Without setting the task to comprehensively characterize the skill of E. Zagrebin as a playwright, the article attempts to highlight the following components of this issue: the author's worldview, the plot-compositional construction of the analyzed plays; the principles of typification of characters' images, and the structure of artistic conflict. E. Zagrebin's plays combine purely dramatic techniques with those of lyric poetry and prose, and theatrical conventions with real signs of the time. E. Zagrebin was one of the first in the Udmurt dramaturgy of the second half of the XX century who turned to understanding the life of the people through the analysis of everyda life of an ordinary person. A remarkable event in the literary and theatrical life of the republic at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries was the staging of E. Zagrebin's tragedy "Esh-Terek", which reflected the writer's interest in the role of a historical personality in critical epochs. With this play, the author implicitly addressed the topical issues of our time.