Theatrical Stage Research Articles

THE TOPICAL ISSUES OF THE TECHNICAL RENOVATION AND TECHNICAL EQUIPMENT OF THE KAZAKH THEATER STAGE

The article deals with the problems of technical renovation of the Kazakh theater stage. The relevance of the problem raised in the article is connected with the need for timely changes in the staging practice of theaters of the republic. These issues required a comparative and historical-cultural analysis of the problems of improving the technique of the stage and equipping the stage with equipment in the modern era. The global development of technology has forced many theater professionals to seriously think about the relationship between technology and art. After all, the technical equipment of the stage changed and developed along with the change in the tasks assigned to the theater by society. These problems arose in the theater in ancient times and accompanied the theater throughout its development. From this point of view, the question arises: is it necessary to look for new types of mechanical equipment, or has the theater reached the point where technology threatens art? In order to answer many questions put forward by time, it is necessary first of all to understand how stage technique developed and what role it played in the theater at different stages of its development. This requires a comparative analysis of the use of past and present technologies. It is also necessary to establish the boundaries of the use of technical means and the areas in which they are currently used.

A low-cost smartphone fluorescence microscope for research, life science education, and STEM outreach

Much of our understanding of cell and tissue development, structure, and function stems from fluorescence microscopy. The acquisition of colorful and glowing images engages and excites users ranging from seasoned microscopists to STEM students. Fluorescence microscopes range in cost from several thousand to several hundred thousand US dollars. Therefore, the use of fluorescence microscopy is typically limited to well-funded institutions and biotechnology companies, research core facilities, and medical laboratories, but is financially impractical at many universities and colleges, primary and secondary schools (K-12), and in science outreach settings. In this study, we developed and characterized components that when used in combination with a smartphone or tablet, perform fluorescence microscopy at a cost of less than $50 US dollars per unit. We re-purposed recreational LED flashlights and theater stage lighting filters to enable viewing of green and red fluorophores including EGFP, DsRed, mRFP, and mCherry on a simple-to-build frame made of wood and plexiglass. These devices, which we refer to as glowscopes, were capable of 10 µm resolution, imaging fluorescence in live specimens, and were compatible with all smartphone and tablet models we tested. In comparison to scientific-grade fluorescence microscopes, glowscopes may have limitations to sensitivity needed to detect dim fluorescence and the inability to resolve subcellular structures. We demonstrate capability of viewing fluorescence within zebrafish embryos, including heart rate, rhythmicity, and regional anatomy of the central nervous system. Due to the low cost of individual glowscope units, we anticipate this device can help to equip K-12, undergraduate, and science outreach classrooms with fleets of fluorescence microscopes that can engage students with hands-on learning activities.

Working Backstage: A Cultural History and Ethnography of Technical Theater Labor by Christin Essin

Reviewed by: Working Backstage: A Cultural History and Ethnography of Technical Theater Labor by Christin Essin David B. Vogel He/Him Working Backstage: A Cultural History and Ethnography of Technical Theater Labor. Christin Essin. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2021; pp. 273. In Working Backstage, Christin Essin writes passionately about the value and honor of the work done behind the scenes in theatrical productions. Coming from a background as a lighting technician in her college years, she brings first-hand experience to her research. She writes about the lives and careers of backstage workers who are at best ignored as superfluous and at worst maligned as underworked and overpaid union members. Working Backstage blends personal narratives from interviews with careful historical research to reveal the union stagehands, dressers, technicians, and childminders "whose labor fuels the city's live performance industry" (7), but who revel in their anonymity and invisibility to audiences. The book offers praise and encouragement to these skilled, dedicated, and hard-working technicians, while granting a deeper understanding of their work experiences. Essin structures the book so the reader can peruse what is most pertinent to their study, but I recommend reading straight through for the best experience. Part I describes the culture of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) and its variety of local unions across the US and Canada, then delivers interviews of New York City stagehands from within those locals. The author's strength lies in her insistence on going right to the source by directly interviewing workers, learning their unique stories, and weaving their narratives together into a clear picture of what backstage work is truly like. Essin demonstrates, through stories both personal and public, the value backstage workers add to the theatrical experience in the shifting of scenery or lighting, the management of heavily used costumes, or the care of children in a professional world—all this despite (and perhaps because of) remaining unseen by the audience. Part II takes a deep dive into histories of the stagehand unions, as seen from within and without. IATSE being as central to the working life of the New York City stagehand as it is, an uncensored history of the union can offer significant lessons from its past—if it is known. Essin takes on the question of what is included or omitted in the writing of a commemorative history as she considers an essay researched and published by IATSE's Local One (New York City) for their own centennial gala in 1986. Originally founded in 1886 as New York's Theatrical Protective Union, decades of struggle and internal conflicts transpired before it became the integrated and equity-minded organization it is in the twenty-first century. Essin documents how many of the more difficult parts of the union's history—racial and gender segregation, connections to crime syndicates—are left out of the anniversary history, which focuses instead on celebrating its successes and values. Essin takes the opportunity here to explore and share some of this missing material, including the fight to include African Americans as full and integrated members, as well as the decision to finally welcome women in the late twentieth century. Despite these struggles, Essin doggedly endorses the union's tireless work over more than a century to ensure a better quality of life—fair pay, reasonable hours, appropriate job security—for all its members. As she considers the union's role in the backstage worker's life and career, Essin addresses head-on the notion of union as "family," seen by some as nepotistic. She writes, "For outsiders, the union's traditional father-to-son professional inheritance denotes a history of systematic exclusion, especially for women or people of color" (90). But she goes on to describe how to many union members, "it is a history that bespeaks their devotion to family—those with whom they live … as well as those with whom they work" (91). An entire chapter in Part II is devoted to union stagehands and the media, considering their decades-long difficulty in getting anything but negative press. Essin writes, "Because unions only become 'newsworthy' when a strike looms or contract negotiations become ugly, the...

Senegalese Stagecraft: Decolonizing Theater-Making in Francophone Africa by Brian Valente-Quinn

Senegalese Stagecraft: Decolonizing Theater-Making in Francophone Africa by Brian Valente-Quinn

A Crowd of Shadows: Performances, Protests, Streets and Stages

Using performance and visual studies methodologies, this article responds to the interwoven and contextually specific happenings of the pandemic and histories of Black consciousness and antiblackness in Montreal’s theatres. In doing so, it creates parallels between past and present events as surrogates, ghostings, or performative encounters of Black experiences on theatrical stages in a white Quebecois landscape. It argues that the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests were a product of a longstanding local cultural economy of obfuscated antiblackness, an embodied, spatially ingrained, and reinforced set of historical paradigms that have been present in Quebecois life and more specifically on Montreal stages for centuries. The architecture of Montreal theatre, its actors, and spectres of recent events are theoretically framed as both racism and resistance, antiblackness and forms of Black consciousness, a view onto the past from the present, and a repository of performances, living archives, and embodied collective imaginaries.

Analysis of the Image of Clown A in Hamlet

The "clown A" in Hamlet is an extreme marginal character, but a closer look at the text and its presentation on the stage reveals the unique value of this character. It is possible to analyze the optimism and equality that Shakespeare gives to this small character, as well as his inspiration to Hamlet in life and time. The most significant thing is that this character fits the main theme of Hamlet's madness. From the meaning of clown A on the theater stage to make viewers laugh, we can also appreciate the role breaks the "fourth wall" between the stage and the audience, highlighting the superiority of the audience.

WE/Time/Trembling/Softly

The choral body is heterogeneous and homogeneous, it is composed of many parts into one mass - for a time. It emerges, fades away and emerges anew in a different place. It is migratory by nature, forming structures of mutual reinforcement and resonance. It brings knowledge from external spheres into other, even foreign or intimate contexts. And it makes itself heard: many voices become one. Anne Brannys and Edith Kollath take its constitution, its techniques and mechanisms as a starting point for their investigation "WE/Time/Trembling/Softly: Chorus for ten voices out of 173467349034879236587595356416534“, which focuses on the chorus as a form of democratic expression. Different situations are illuminated in which the chorus appears: ancient places of cult, the theater stage, the Thingspiele of the German national socialists, political meetings and demonstrations, current art exhibitions and last but not least the space that is formed between the interacting beings of our environment. On a formal level, the text is structured into ten voices that represent the different aspects of the reflection on the chorus. Each of these voices has its own tempo, its own timbre. One can imagine how these sound one after the other or with each other, how they harmonize, interfere, complement or cancel each other, how a chorus shapes itself in each reader.

Cool. Awkward. Black by Karen Strong

Reviewed by: Cool. Awkward. Black by Karen Strong Quinita Balderson Strong, Karen, ed. Cool. Awkward. Black. Viking, 2023 [336p] Trade ed. ISBN 9780593525098 $18.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780593525111 $10.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 5-9 Strong presents a stunning multigenre collection of short stories by writers of color who use their gift to inspire a new generation of young Black people to venture into spaces where diversity is often lacking but sorely needed, such cosplay conventions, the theater stage, and entire sci-fi realms. The collection offers plenty of examples of Strong’s assertion that “Blackness has no boundaries,” with nods to well-known authors like Octavia Butler, a pioneer in science fiction, and Faith Ringold (Tar Beach, BCCB 03/91) who made quilting revolutionary, and the newer artists are every bit as talented in their mastery of storytelling as their forebearers. The collection features exclusively Black main characters and various gender identities and yet it moves beyond representation to inspiration, serving as a touchstone for young readers and writers to build on creatively. The intentional blending the rules of genre fiction magnifies the idea of authorship–your story, your rules, societal expectations be damned. [End Page 164] Copyright © 2022 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Pikaso i pozorište - od Arlekina do Pegaza - modernistički likovni i teatarski obrt

Following the method of interdisciplinary studies, this paper analyzes Pablo Picasso's relation to theater through his paintings, theater work, and the influence of theater not only on the themes of his paintings but also on the affirmation of the Avant-garde, the Cubist experiments and practices, the breakthrough of Cubist ideas across the medium of theater. The entire Picasso's art is presented in the light of several major artistic Avantgardes of which he was the founder and ideologist (the "father" of Cubism, inventor of Collage, the first Ready-mades and Constructivist sculptures, initiator of so-called Primitive Art, early Surrealism, etc.). However, it seems that the most significant field of his work, the "Cubist Revolution", has entered a new dimension through the presentation-performance-on the theater stage and in high culture circles. The influence of the stage and the early "Total Design" concept on his art and the perception of space/ object within Cubism and beyond are exceptional, as is the performative act and the presentation of his ideas through the language of the stage. In this case, one medium, by its nature the more communicative one (theater), takes the role of presenting the other, more hermetic one (fine art). That influenced, in multiple ways, the affirmation and acceptance of Pablo Picasso's art. Starting with the early fascination with characters such as Harlequin, Pierrot, circus horse riders, dancers, and jugglers, present in his paintings ("Blue Phase" 1901-1904, "Pink Phase" 1905-1907, and beyond), this paper focuses on his collaboration with Serge Diaghilev and the "Russian Ballet" ("Ballets Russes", 1917-1924), the elite troupe of Russian dancers who settled in Paris as the epicenter of modern art and started their productions there. Picasso was chosen to design the stage, the Cubist costumes, and the monumental theater curtains. Among other ballets, an outstanding piece, "Parade" by Erik Satie (1917), is seen today as a borderline performance, a turning point in ballet art, the start of its revolutionizing process towards contemporary ballet. By creating costumes resembling totems and the stage design based on Cubist division and perception of space, made from geometric shapes and particles ("facettes"), Picasso has taken the theater back to its primordial origins, its shamanic character. The paper elaborates on the relation of the ballet "Parade" with the ideas and theater theories of the theatrologist and sociologist Richard Schechner. Additionally, it addresses the question of a slow, postponed social reception and the (un)acceptance of Picasso's work and his comrades, a theme elaborated by the philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard in the field of aesthetics and post-aesthetics.

Mobilizowanie i relatywizowanie przemocy. Interakcyjny wymiar przemocy w stojącej przed dylematem moralnym grupie, w której pozycja żadnej osoby nie jest uprzywilejowana

Using the perspectives of microsociology, ethnomethodology and Goffman's sociology, the author analyzes the relationship between artificiality (theatricality) of decision-making, the affective dynamic of a laboratory situation (the theatre stage) and interactions between participants. In order to uncover silent methods of coordinating actions (contrary to overtly adhering to institutional rules), I decide to use an innovative methodology. Together with performance artists, I created a simulation of a research situation (an interactive theatre play), in which six people are faced with a moral dillema. The interactions were filmed and analysed with the use of a videograph. No person's position was privileged. What happens when two strangers, occupying an equal position, face a moral dillema? The article focuses on an analysis of violence, which appears in groups or violence which the groups have to face. The author demonstrates how violence is used in social circumstances and rendered relative in order to maintain an interactional order.

ПРОБЛЕМЫ СОВРЕМЕННОЙ ОТЕЧЕСТВЕННОЙ ОПЕРЫ: ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНЫЙ ПРОЕКТ

The purpose of the article is to draw attention to modern Russian opera, its multifaceted study in university courses. In this regard, the operatic heritage of Russian composers of the last decades of the twentieth century is a significant artistic phenomenon. Note an undoubtedly important point: the search for new forms of synthesis on the musical and theatrical stage is not an end in itself for Russian masters, but rather an opportunity to embody current topics and ideas through the artistic prototypes they choose. At the same time, one of the characteristic trends of the end of the last century was the peculiar immersion of opera in its own historical past, which contributed to the disclosure of the deep properties of its genre components. Let us name just a few works that have attracted the attention of directors, conductors, performing musicians, and researchers. These are “Mary Stuart”, “Visions of Ivan the Terrible” and “Hamlet” by S. Slonimsky, “Till Ulenspiegel” and “The Mystery of the Apostle Paul” by N. Karetnikov, “Lolita” by R. Shchedrin and “The Foam of Days” by E. Denisov, “The Prophet” and “Young David” by V. Kobekin, “Antigone” by V. Lobanov and “When Time Runs Out of the Banks” by V. Tarnopolsky. On the example of N. N. Karetnikov’s large-scale opuses "Till Ulenspiegel" and "The Mystery of the Apostle Paul", the modern principles of musical and theatrical dramaturgy and features of genre formation are revealed.

Digital Media Technology on the Theatre Stage

Digital Media Technology on the Theatre Stage

Балет в театрах князей Радзивиллов в XVIII столетии

The appearance of the first ballet productions and the emergence of professional education for dancers on the territory of Belarus in the 18th century is associated with the activities of the theaters of the magnates — the wealthiest representatives of the highest nobility of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Russia and Zhmud, which included present-day Belarusian lands. The theater stages, equipped with complex mechanisms and decorations for creating a variety of sound and visual effects, were where the leading choreographers and dancers of their time worked. The most durable and large-scale activities were those of private theaters created and functioning at the expense of the ‘uncrowned kings’ of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the princes Radziwiłłs. The representatives of this family demonstrated sincere interest in art and made their courtyards the center of cultural life and artistic education of their time. To teach the art of the ballet to their own children, people close to the court and cadets of the ‘Knight’s Academy’ created by the Radziwiłłs based on the model of the Saxon educational institution for the military, the princes invited famous professional dancers from France and the Italian kingdoms to work. In order to form permanent dance troupes at their theaters in Slutsk and Niasviž, the Radziwiłłs established ballet schools. The heyday of the art of ballet on the theater stages belonging to the Radziwiłłs dates back to 1777–1790. During this period, along with choreographers from European countries, Belarusian dancer Antony Loiko began engaging himself in productions of ballet divertissements and interludes. Student of ballet reformer Jean-Georges Noverre, Francesco Caselli staged several ballet performances with detailed dramatic plots, one of which was Orfeusz w piekle (Orpheus in Hell) to the music of the German composer and leader of the Niasviž Chapel, Jan Dawid Holland. The activities of the theaters belonging to the Radziwiłłs in the 18th century were of great significance for the development of the art of dance, as well as education for people of different social strata. Because of the latter’s personal participation in performances, not only representatives of the nobility, but also peasants, bourgeois and soldiers were introduced to classical European music and ballet. Children who successfully completed their studies at schools with leading European choreographers acquired a profession that allowed them to later work in different theaters and provide themselves with a comfortable existence.

Fyodor Chaliapin in Latin America. To the 150th anniversary of birth

The article traces the creative path of the great Russian singer Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin and his role in establishing ties between Russia and Latin American countries – Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Brazil. Despite the difficulties in relations with the Soviet government, F.I. Chaliapin carried a sense of national pride for Russia and Russian art in his speeches around the world. The article is accompanied by reviews of Chaliapin's performances on the stages of opera theaters.

Балетные «двойники» в русском театре екатерининского — александровского времен

The European Ballet Theater has a long tradition of replenishing its repertoire with plots of operas, dramas and popular ballet productions. So on the stages of the capital's Russian theaters, since the formation of the ballet genre in the XVIII century, twin performances with the same names have appeared. This phenomenon of transformation of the work is almost not studied. In this regard, questions arise: what in the new version of the play can be considered original material, and what is borrowed? Does the plot, music, and set design remain in it? To solve these tasks, documentary sources are involved: unknown librettos, musical manuscripts of the studied ballets and compositions that form the basis of new theatrical versions. The original ways of «processing» are revealed, including with and without preserving the plot, with musical quoting of fragments of the original source and without quoting. It is proved that the presence or absence of borrowings is confirmed only by a scrupulous reconciliation of literary and musical texts of the original and derived compositions.

МАРІУПОЛЬСЬКА ДРАМА: МЕМОРАТИВНІ ПРАКТИКИ, СВІДЧЕННЯ, ІДЕНТИЧНІСТЬ, ТЕАТРАЛЬНИЙ КОД

The article examines the dramatic work "Mariupol Drama", created by Transcarpathian playwright Oleksandr Gavrosh based on interviews with actors Igor Kitrysh, Olena Bila, Dmytro Murantsev, Vira Lebedynska, who survived the bombing of the theater building in Mariupol and are now reviving the Ukrainian Mariupol Theater in Uzhhorod. It was found that the play was not intended to be performed on the stages of other theaters by other professional actors, so it is not printed and is not included in open electronic anthologies of modern dramatic works about the war. This is one of the first attempts to dramaturgically and theatrically memorize the tragedy of the Mariupol Theater as a Russian crime against humanity and as a war crime. Therefore, it is logical to apply the optics of memory studies to the interpretation of this work and place the "Mariupol drama" in the context of other visual artefacts of the marker identification of the memorial remembrance about the Mariupol drama theater (radio film-podcast "Let's meet at the Drama", investigative film "Russian Airstrike on the Mariupol Drama Theater, Part 1. City in the Theater", 3-D tour of the Mariupol Drama Theater, video interviews with eyewitnesses from various human rights groups) and about the tragedy of Mariupol in general (documentaries "Mariupol. Unlost hope", "Mariupol... out of the zone", "Mariupol. Chronicles of Hell", "We stepped over corpses", "Mariupol. Human stories", "20 days in Mariupol", "Mariupol 2"). It was established that the leading intentions of the "Mariupol Drama" correspond to a large array of documentary and commemorative sources, many of which appeared before the anniversary of the tragedy of the Mariupol Theater. It was found out that the playwright and actors managed to fully implement several discourses very important for the Ukrainian collective memory in a small dramatic work: Mariupol, which resisted the aggressor while being completely surrounded; wars as unprocessed collective traumas and cancellation of narratives imposed by Russian propaganda; of the new collective Ukrainian identity, which is formed in this war; after all, the theater as a special mystical space. Unlike the story about the building of the theater, from which only a ruined facade remains, the story of the human community inside this building is endowed with a colossal vitalistic potential, largely connected with how a new collective Ukrainian identity emerges in the crucible of war in a former pro-Russian city. Since crimes against humanity, as well as war crimes, do not have a statute of limitations, and their fixation and research are very important for further work with collective memory and the traumatic past, the documentary play "Mariupol Drama" is a valuable artistic material for modern Ukrainian studies of memory, which are quickly included in the development of the events of the new phase of the Russian-Ukrainian war, offer relevant angles of their interpretations, supported by eyewitness accounts and documentary commemorative practices. Key words: war, theater, identity, memory, collective trauma, coming of age of a nation, commemoration.

Cosmopolitan Capito: architectural benefaction by a Roman official in Late Julio-Claudian Miletus

AbstractThis article explores the architectural benefactions of Gnaeus Vergilius Capito, a wealthy resident of Late Julio-Claudian Miletus, who held a number of positions in the Roman imperial administration prior to constructing the baths and theatre stage building in his home city. Through a detailed study of the archaeological and epigraphic evidence associated with Vergilius Capito, this article sheds light on when and why he built his public monuments and will demonstrate how members of the provincial elite like Capito, who had also been involved in local and wider imperial society, were represented through architecture. It will also show how culturally bilingual individuals could play a fundamental role in promoting Roman cultural influence in Greek provincial settings and will advocate a more individual-focussed approach when discussing the influence of Rome on its provinces. The article concludes that Capito’s Roman-Milesian citizenship enabled him to mediate between the world of the Greek polis and that of the Roman imperial system and uses the medium of architectural benefaction as a vehicle for driving cultural change in provincial settings.

Диалог гигантов: как Бродвей и Голливуд «спасли» американскую мультипликацию (а она —их). (Kunze, Peter C. Staging a Comeback: Broadway, Hollywood, and the Disney Renaissance. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2023. 224 р.)

Peter Kunze’s book Staging a Comeback: Broadway, Hollywood, and the Disney Renaissance is a (overwhelmingly) well-researched study of the transmedial migration of popular narratives in the 1980s and the 1990s. Focused on Disney’s appropriation of the Broadway integrated musical (H. Ashman, A. Menken), the study demonstrates how the musical theatre conventions improved the quality of Disney’s main product — the animated film. Kunze engages in close reading of an extended episode from the history of cultural production (the Disney Renaissance), showing the complexity and unpredictability of various media convergences. For instance, the book reconfigures the roles of managerial and creative labourers behind the Disney transformation, wittily (and convincingly) bringing to the forefront 1982 as annus mirabilis, which triggered immense changes in the cultural sector. After discussing Disney's appropriation of the musical Broadway, the book reveals how the updated animated musical comes back to the theatrical stage and transforms ‘respectable’ Broadway by alternative styles and agendas (Julie Taymor’s The Lion King). Apart from other sources, the research uses hardto- access archival materials, the author's interviews with the practitioners and their entourage.

Источники к реконструкции творческой биографии П. Б. Ламбина

The present article is devoted to analysis of the sources for the reconstruction of the artistic biography of the S. Petersburg-based theater artist Piotr Brisovich Lambin (1862–1923). The research makes use of methods of reconstruction, the biographical and the iconographic method, as well as the method of artistic-stylistic analysis. On the basis of the archival documents of the RGIA (Russian State Historical Archive) the main landmarks of Lambin’s life and artistic activities have been revealed: information about his parents, his christening, his education and academic progress at the Academy for the Arts, his promotion up the career ladder to the position of decorator of the Imperial Theaters during the period from 1885 to 1919, his state awards, his material and family positions. The reference edition “Ves’ Peterburg” [“All of St. Petersburg”] (1895–1916) has made it possible to ascertain the addresses of Lambin’s residences and to reveal that they were situated at close proximity to the Mariinsky Theater. The study of the graphic sources (over 500 sketches by the artist) from various museum funds has made it possible to assemble a list of theatrical productions (of which there are presently 141) on which the master hand worked. An analysis of the sketches makes it possible to come up with the conclusion that Lambin, while being a continuer of the official romantic-academic tradition on the stages of the Imperial theaters, had a responsive approach to the influences of his time, absorbing alternative stylistic tendencies (the Symbolist, the Impressionist, the World of Art trend) which it was not possible to manifest in full measure on the mainstream theatrical stage. The article illuminates for the first time the main landmarks of the paths of life and art of Piotr Lambin, whose legacy has not become an object of academic interest up to the present time. Lambin, undoubtedly, was not in the vanguard of the artistic processes, he pertained to the artists of the “second echelon” without whom the work of the Imperial theaters of the late 19th and the early 20th centuries would be unthinkable.

Seeing Puppetry: Winter Report from New York City

Seeing Puppetry: Winter Report from New York City