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112-472: Medieval theatre often had a hellmouth prop or mechanical device which was used to attempt to scare the audience by vividly dramatizing an entrance to Hell . These seem often to have featured a battlemented castle entrance, in painting usually associated with Heaven . The Hellmouth was intended to remind a Christian audience of the danger of damnation . Those shown entering, or already inside, are typically shown naked, their clothing not having survived

224-410: A collective form of reception. The structure of dramatic texts , unlike other forms of literature , is directly influenced by this collaborative production and collective reception. The early modern tragedy Hamlet (1601) by Shakespeare and the classical Athenian tragedy Oedipus Rex ( c.  429 BCE ) by Sophocles are among the masterpieces of the art of drama. A modern example

336-709: A biblical story that referenced their profession. For instance, a baker's guild would perform a reenactment of the Last Supper . In the British Isles , plays were produced in some 127 different towns during the Middle Ages. These vernacular " mystery plays " were written in cycles of a large number of plays: York (48 plays), Chester (24), Wakefield (32) and Unknown (42). A larger number of plays survive from France and Germany in this period, and some type of religious dramas were performed in nearly every European country in

448-406: A dancing floor (orchestra), dressing room and scene-building area (skene). Since the words were the most important part, good acoustics and clear delivery were paramount. The actors (always men) wore masks appropriate to the characters they represented, and each might play several parts. Athenian tragedy—the oldest surviving form of tragedy—is a type of dance -drama that formed an important part of

560-474: A distinct dramatic form around 1400 and flourished until 1550. One notable example is The Castle of Perseverance which depicts mankind 's progress from birth to death. Though Everyman may possibly be the best known of this genre, it is atypical in many ways. Everyman receives Death 's summons, struggles to escape and finally resigns himself to necessity. Along the way, he is deserted by Kindred , Goods , and Fellowship – only Good Deeds goes with him to

672-527: A particular type. Kālidāsa in the 1st century BCE, is arguably considered to be ancient India 's greatest Sanskrit dramatist. Three famous romantic plays written by Kālidāsa are the Mālavikāgnimitram ( Mālavikā and Agnimitra ), Vikramuurvashiiya ( Pertaining to Vikrama and Urvashi ), and Abhijñānaśākuntala ( The Recognition of Shakuntala ). The last was inspired by a story in the Mahabharata and

784-500: A play that is neither a comedy nor a tragedy—for example, Zola's Thérèse Raquin (1873) or Chekhov's Ivanov (1887). In Ancient Greece however, the word drama encompassed all theatrical plays, tragic, comic, or anything in between. Drama is often combined with music and dance : the drama in opera is generally sung throughout; musicals generally include both spoken dialogue and songs ; and some forms of drama have incidental music or musical accompaniment underscoring

896-541: A playlet complete with directions for performance. The anonymous pagan play Querolus , written around 420, was adapted in the 12th century by Vitalis of Blois . Other secular Latin plays, such as Babio , were also written in the 12th century, mainly in France but also in England. It is also known that mimes , minstrels , bards , storytellers, and jugglers travelled in search of new audiences and financial support. Not much

1008-603: A re-working of the Wakefield Cycle and others. It was revived in 1985 (whereupon the production was filmed for Channel 4 Television ), and again as a part of the theatre's millennium celebration in 2000. The productions won Bill Bryden the "Best Director" title in both the Evening Standard Theatre Awards and the Olivier Awards for 1985, the year the three plays first appeared together in performance at

1120-519: A tool for developing dramatic work or skills or as a form for situational comedy. Spolin also became interested in how the process of learning improvisation was applicable to the development of human potential. Spolin's son, Paul Sills popularized improvisational theatre as a theatrical art form when he founded, as its first director, The Second City in Chicago. Having been an important part of human culture for more than 2,500 years, theatre has evolved

1232-421: A vehicle to tell a story qualify as comedies. This may include a modern farce such as Boeing Boeing or a classical play such as As You Like It . Theatre expressing bleak, controversial or taboo subject matter in a deliberately humorous way is referred to as black comedy . Black Comedy can have several genres like slapstick humour, dark and sarcastic comedy. Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that

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1344-435: A very colourful shadow. The thin rods which controlled their movements were attached to a leather collar at the neck of the puppet. The rods ran parallel to the bodies of the puppet and then turned at a ninety degree angle to connect to the neck. While these rods were visible when the shadow was cast, they laid outside the shadow of the puppet; thus they did not interfere with the appearance of the figure. The rods are attached at

1456-411: A whale's mouth: The whale has another trick: when he is hungry, he opens his mouth and a sweet smell comes out. The fish are tricked by the smell and they enter into his mouth. Suddenly the whale's jaws close. Likewise, any man who lets himself be tricked by a sweet smell and led to sin will go into hell, opened by the devil—if he has followed the pleasures of the body and not those of the spirit. When

1568-693: A wide range of different theories and practices. Some are related to political or spiritual ideologies, while others are based purely on "artistic" concerns. Some processes focus on a story, some on theatre as event, and some on theatre as catalyst for social change. The classical Greek philosopher Aristotle , in his seminal treatise, Poetics ( c.  335 BCE ) is the earliest-surviving example and its arguments have influenced theories of theatre ever since. In it, he offers an account of what he calls "poetry" (a term which in Greek literally means "making" and in this context includes drama — comedy , tragedy , and

1680-436: Is Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill (1956). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been contrasted with the epic and the lyrical modes ever since Aristotle 's Poetics ( c.  335 BCE ); the earliest work of dramatic theory . The use of "drama" in the narrow sense to designate a specific type of play dates from the 19th century . Drama in this sense refers to

1792-666: Is Hans Sachs (1494–1576), who wrote 198 dramatic works. In England, The Second Shepherds' Play of the Wakefield Cycle is the best-known early farce. However, farce did not appear independently in England until the 16th century with the work of John Heywood (1497–1580). A significant forerunner of the development of Elizabethan drama was the Chambers of Rhetoric in the Low Countries d Henry VII both maintained small companies of professional actors. Their plays were performed in

1904-515: Is Satan nemned. [they] never come out of the pit of snakes and of the throat of the dragon which is called Satan. The whale-monster Leviathan (translated from Hebrew , Job 41:1, "wreathed animal") has been equated with this description, although this is hard to confirm in the earliest appearances. However, in The Whale , an Old English poem from the Exeter Book , the mouth of Hell is compared to

2016-623: Is a separate image, and the Hellmouth should not be considered to be the mouth of Satan, although Hofmann is inclined to disagree with this. The Hellmouth never bites the damned, remaining wide open, ready for more. In general the motif had fallen from favour in Italy and the Netherlands by the late 14th century, and is rarely seen in the many Last Judgement s in Early Netherlandish painting , but in

2128-657: Is an ancient form of storytelling that renowned for its elaborate puppet/human and complex musical styles. The earliest evidence is from the late 1st millennium CE, in medieval-era texts and archeological sites. The oldest known record that concerns wayang is from the 9th century. Around 840 AD an Old Javanese (Kawi) inscriptions called Jaha Inscriptions issued by Maharaja Sri Lokapala from Mataram Kingdom in Central Java mentions three sorts of performers: atapukan, aringgit, and abanol. Aringgit means Wayang puppet show, Atapukan means Mask dance show, and abanwal means joke art. Ringgit

2240-644: Is described in an 11th-century Javanese poem as a leather shadow figure. Theatre in the medieval Islamic world included puppet theatre (which included hand puppets, shadow plays and marionette productions) and live passion plays known as ta'ziyeh , where actors re-enact episodes from Muslim history . In particular, Shia Islamic plays revolved around the istishhād (martyrdom) of Ali 's sons Hasan ibn Ali and Husayn ibn Ali . Secular plays were known as akhraja , recorded in medieval adab literature, though they were less common than puppetry and ta'ziya theatre. Theatre took on many alternative forms in

2352-404: Is known about these performers' repertoire. One of the most famous of the secular plays is the musical Le Jeu de Robin et Marion , written by Adam de la Halle in the 13th century, which is fully laid out in the original manuscript with lines, musical notation, and illuminations in the margins depicting the actors in motion. Adam also wrote other plays. Performance of religious plays outside of

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2464-526: Is known primarily from the substantial papyrus fragments of Menander . Aristotle defined comedy as a representation of laughable people that involves some kind of blunder or ugliness that does not cause pain or disaster. In addition to the categories of comedy and tragedy at the City Dionysia, the festival also included the Satyr Play . Finding its origins in rural, agricultural rituals dedicated to Dionysus,

2576-487: Is performed throughout the world in Lent . Theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses , to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage . The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture , speech, song, music , and dance . It

2688-419: Is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude: in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions. Aristotle's phrase "several kinds being found in separate parts of the play" is a reference to the structural origins of drama. In it

2800-467: Is the most famous. It was the first to be translated into English and German . Śakuntalā (in English translation) influenced Goethe 's Faust (1808–1832). The next great Indian dramatist was Bhavabhuti ( c.  7th century CE ). He is said to have written the following three plays: Malati-Madhava , Mahaviracharita and Uttar Ramacharita . Among these three, the last two cover between them

2912-624: Is the oldest form of drama , though live theatre has now been joined by modern recorded forms. Elements of art, such as painted scenery and stagecraft such as lighting are used to enhance the physicality, presence and immediacy of the experience. Places, normally buildings, where performances regularly take place are also called "theatres" (or "theaters"), as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον (théatron, "a place for viewing"), itself from θεάομαι (theáomai, "to see", "to watch", "to observe"). Modern Western theatre comes, in large measure, from

3024-594: Is their preservation of many classical Greek texts and the compilation of a massive encyclopedia called the Suda , from which is derived a large amount of contemporary information on Greek theatre. In the 6th century, the Emperor Justinian permanently closed the theatres. Theatres were considered by many to be a diabolical threat to Christianity , especially because new converts continued to attend. Church fathers such as Tatian , Tertullian and Augustine characterized

3136-508: Is why actors are commonly called "Children of the Pear Garden". During the dynasty of Empress Ling, shadow puppetry first emerged as a recognized form of theatre in China. There were two distinct forms of shadow puppetry, Pekingese (northern) and Cantonese (southern). The two styles were differentiated by the method of making the puppets and the positioning of the rods on the puppets , as opposed to

3248-537: The 20th century in the realism of Stanislavski and Lee Strasberg , the political theatre of Erwin Piscator and Bertolt Brecht , the so-called Theatre of the Absurd of Samuel Beckett and Eugène Ionesco , American and British musicals, the collective creations of companies of actors and directors such as Joan Littlewood 's Theatre Workshop , experimental and postmodern theatre of Robert Wilson and Robert Lepage ,

3360-585: The Charterhouse in London. Poel then partnered with British actor Ben Greet to produce the play throughout Britain, with runs on the American Broadway stage from 1902 to 1918, and concurrent tours throughout North America. These productions differed from past performances in that women were cast in the title role, rather than men. Film adaptations of the 1901 version of the play appeared in 1913 and 1914, with

3472-501: The City Dionysia as an audience member (or even as a participant in the theatrical productions) in particular—was an important part of citizenship . Civic participation also involved the evaluation of the rhetoric of orators evidenced in performances in the law-court or political assembly , both of which were understood as analogous to the theatre and increasingly came to absorb its dramatic vocabulary. The Greeks also developed

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3584-604: The Eastern Roman Empire , later called the Byzantine Empire . While surviving evidence about Byzantine theatre is slight, existing records show that mime , pantomime , scenes or recitations from tragedies and comedies , dances , and other entertainments were very popular. Constantinople had two theatres that were in use as late as the 5th century A.D. However, the true importance of the Byzantines in theatrical history

3696-576: The General Resurrection of the Dead that is often part of the same image. Some, even if naked, wear headgear indicating their rank at the top of society, with the papal tiara , king's crown and bishop's mitre the most common. Far rarer are indications of people being non-Christian, such as the Jewish hat . The oldest example of an animal Hellmouth known to Meyer Schapiro was an ivory carving of c. 800 in

3808-650: The Gosforth Cross and other pieces of Anglo-Scandinavian art. In the assimilation of Christianised Viking populations in northern England, the Church was surprisingly ready to allow the association of pagan mythological images with Christian ones, in hogback grave markers for example. In the Anglo-Saxon Vercelli Homilies (4:46-8) Satan is likened to a dragon swallowing the damned: ... ne cumaþ þa næfre of þæra wyrma seaðe & of þæs dracan ceolan þe

3920-638: The Late Middle Ages . Many of these plays contained comedy , devils , villains and clowns . The majority of actors in these plays were drawn from the local population. For example, at Valenciennes in 1547, more than 100 roles were assigned to 72 actors. Plays were staged on pageant wagon stages, which were platforms mounted on wheels used to move scenery. They allowed for abrupt changes in location. Often providing their own costumes, amateur performers in England were exclusively male, but other countries had female performers. Morality plays emerged as

4032-733: The Lyceum Theatre . An adaptation of Harrison's play was staged at Shakespeare's Globe in 2011 as The Globe Mysteries . In 2001, the Isango Ensemble produced an African version of the Chester Cycle at the Garrick Theatre in London as The Mysteries – Yiimimangaliso , performing in a combination of Xhosa , Zulu , English, Latin and Afrikaans . They revived an adapted version of the production at Shakespeare's Globe in 2015 as The Mysteries . In 2004, two mystery plays (one focusing on

4144-554: The Persian response to news of their military defeat at the Battle of Salamis in 480 BCE—is the notable exception in the surviving drama. When Aeschylus won first prize for it at the City Dionysia in 472 BCE, he had been writing tragedies for more than 25 years, yet its tragic treatment of recent history is the earliest example of drama to survive. More than 130 years later, the philosopher Aristotle analysed 5th-century Athenian tragedy in

4256-554: The Sundanese and wayang kulit (leather shadow-puppet play) of the Javanese and Balinese —draw much of their repertoire from indigenized versions of the Ramayana and Mahabharata . These tales also provide source material for the wayang wong (human theatre) of Java and Bali , which uses actors. Some wayang golek performances, however, also present Muslim stories, called menak . Wayang

4368-592: The United Kingdom as well as the U.S., such as the annual Mummers Parade in Philadelphia . What relation they may bear to their medieval antecedents is unknown. The surviving texts of this oral tradition were recorded in the 18th century, at a time when the Industrial Revolution began to break up the rural communities in which the plays were performed. Mystery plays are still produced regularly throughout

4480-731: The United Kingdom . The local cycles were revived in both York and Chester in 1951 as part of the Festival of Britain , and are still performed by the local guilds. The N-Town cycle was revived in 1978 as the Lincoln mystery plays , and in 1994 the Lichfield Mysteries were inaugurated (now the largest community theatre event in the United Kingdom). In 1977, the National Theatre commissioned Tony Harrison to create The Mysteries ,

4592-556: The Victoria and Albert Museum , and he says most examples before the 12th century are English. Many show the Harrowing of Hell , which appealed to Anglo-Saxon taste, as a successful military raid by Christ. Schapiro speculates that the image may have drawn from the pagan myth of the Crack of Doom , with the mouth that of the wolf-monster Fenrir , slain by Vidar , who is used as a symbol of Christ on

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4704-517: The great hall of a nobleman's residence, often with a raised platform at one end for the audience and a "screen" at the other for the actors. Also important were Mummers' plays , performed during the Christmas season, and court masques . These masques were especially popular during the reign of Henry VIII , who had a house of revels built and an office of revels established in 1545. Changing political and economic factors greatly affected theatre at

4816-546: The high-style , verbally elaborate tragedies of Seneca . Although Rome had a native tradition of performance, the Hellenization of Roman culture in the 3rd century BCE had a profound and energizing effect on Roman theatre and encouraged the development of Latin literature of the highest quality for the stage. The only surviving plays from the Roman Empire are ten dramas attributed to Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BCE–65 CE),

4928-609: The late medieval works by Hieronymous Bosch and his followers, where the wide interior of Hell is shown, there is often a Hellmouth leading to some special compartment. It continued in use in Germany and France. The Hellmouth appears, swallowing a bishop, at bottom left in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse , a famous woodcut by Albrecht Dürer (c. 1497–98). Medieval theatre Medieval theatre encompasses theatrical in

5040-511: The postcolonial theatre of August Wilson or Tomson Highway , and Augusto Boal 's Theatre of the Oppressed . Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance . The term comes from a Greek word meaning " action ", which is derived from the verb δράω, dráō , "to do" or "to act". The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience , presupposes collaborative modes of production and

5152-514: The satyr play —as well as lyric poetry , epic poetry , and the dithyramb ). He examines its "first principles" and identifies its genres and basic elements; his analysis of tragedy constitutes the core of the discussion. Aristotle argues that tragedy consists of six qualitative parts, which are (in order of importance) mythos or "plot", ethos or "character", dianoia or "thought", lexis or "diction", melos or "song", and opsis or "spectacle". "Although Aristotle's Poetics

5264-400: The theatre of ancient Greece , from which it borrows technical terminology, classification into genres , and many of its themes , stock characters , and plot elements. Theatre artist Patrice Pavis defines theatricality, theatrical language , stage writing and the specificity of theatre as synonymous expressions that differentiate theatre from the other performing arts , literature and

5376-484: The well-made plays of Scribe and Sardou gave way to the problem plays of Naturalism and Realism ; the farces of Feydeau ; Wagner's operatic Gesamtkunstwerk ; musical theatre (including Gilbert and Sullivan 's operas); F. C. Burnand 's, W. S. Gilbert 's and Oscar Wilde 's drawing-room comedies; Symbolism ; proto- Expressionism in the late works of August Strindberg and Henrik Ibsen ; and Edwardian musical comedy . These trends continued through

5488-463: The 10th century. These six plays are the first known plays composed by a female dramatist and the first identifiable Western dramatic works of the post-Classical era. In order to preempt criticism from the Church, Hrosvitha declared that she sought to imitate the "laudable" deeds of women in Terence's plays and discard the "shameless" ones. They were first published in 1501 and had considerable influence in

5600-583: The 1913 film being made in Kinemacolor , an early two color process. Another well-known version of the play is Jedermann by the Austrian playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal , which has been performed annually at the Salzburg Festival since 1920. The play was made into a film of the same title in 1961. A direct-to-video movie version of Everyman was made in 2002, directed by John Farrell, which updated

5712-465: The 1st century CE. It began after the development of Greek and Roman theatre and before the development of theatre in other parts of Asia. It emerged sometime between the 2nd century BCE and the 1st century CE and flourished between the 1st century CE and the 10th, which was a period of relative peace in the history of India during which hundreds of plays were written. The wealth of archeological evidence from earlier periods offers no indication of

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5824-407: The 5th century BCE have survived. We have complete texts extant by Aeschylus , Sophocles , and Euripides . The origins of tragedy remain obscure, though by the 5th century BCE it was institutionalized in competitions ( agon ) held as part of festivities celebrating Dionysus (the god of wine and fertility ). As contestants in the City Dionysia's competition (the most prestigious of

5936-540: The Corduba-born Stoic philosopher and tutor of Nero. These tragedies are known for their philosophical themes, complex characters, and rhetorical style. While Seneca's plays provide valuable insights into Roman theater, they represent only a small fraction of the dramatic repertoire that existed in ancient Rome. The first form of Indian theatre was the Sanskrit theatre , earliest-surviving fragments of which date from

6048-506: The Creation and the other on the Passion) were performed at Canterbury Cathedral , with actor Edward Woodward in the role of God. The large cast also included Daniel MacPherson , Thomas James Longley and Joseph McManners . The first modern stage production of Everyman did not appear until July 1901, when The Elizabethan Stage Society of William Poel gave three outdoor performances at

6160-750: The English cycle dramas, the York Mystery Plays , the Chester Mystery Plays , the Wakefield Mystery Plays , and the N-Town Plays , as well as the morality play known as Everyman . One of the first surviving secular plays in English is The Interlude of the Student and the Girl (c. 1300). Due to a lack of surviving records and texts, low literacy in the general population, and the opposition of

6272-539: The French had a larger distinction between comedy and tragedy, whereas the English fudged the lines occasionally and put some comedic parts in their tragedies. Common forms of non-comedic plays were sentimental comedies as well as something that would later be called tragédie bourgeoise , or domestic tragedy —that is, the tragedy of common life—were more popular in England because they appealed more to English sensibilities. While theatre troupes were formerly often travelling,

6384-503: The Romans first experienced theatre in the 4th century BCE, with a performance by Etruscan actors . Beacham argues that they had been familiar with "pre-theatrical practices" for some time before that recorded contact. The theatre of ancient Rome was a thriving and diverse art form, ranging from festival performances of street theatre , nude dancing, and acrobatics , to the staging of Plautus 's broadly appealing situation comedies , to

6496-725: The West between the 15th and 19th centuries, including commedia dell'arte from Italian theatre , and melodrama . The general trend was away from the poetic drama of the Greeks and the Renaissance and toward a more naturalistic prose style of dialogue, especially following the Industrial Revolution . Theatre took a big pause during 1642 and 1660 in England because of the Puritan Interregnum. The rising anti-theatrical sentiment among Puritans saw William Prynne write Histriomastix (1633),

6608-622: The Woods (1986), and The Phantom of the Opera (1986), as well as more contemporary hits including Rent (1994), The Lion King (1997), Wicked (2003), Hamilton (2015) and Frozen (2018). Musical theatre may be produced on an intimate scale Off-Broadway , in regional theatres , and elsewhere, but it often includes spectacle. For instance, Broadway and West End musicals often include lavish costumes and sets supported by multimillion-dollar budgets. Theatre productions that use humour as

6720-440: The arts in general. A theatre company is an organisation that produces theatrical performances, as distinct from a theatre troupe (or acting company), which is a group of theatrical performers working together. Modern theatre includes performances of plays and musical theatre . The art forms of ballet and opera are also theatre and use many conventions such as acting , costumes and staging. They were influential in

6832-582: The best known of which is Peking Opera which is still popular today. Xiangsheng is a certain traditional Chinese comedic performance in the forms of monologue or dialogue. In Indonesia , theatre performances have become an important part of local culture, theatre performances in Indonesia have been developed for thousands of years. Most of Indonesia's oldest theatre forms are linked directly to local literary traditions (oral and written). The prominent puppet theatres — wayang golek (wooden rod-puppet play) of

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6944-480: The church began sometime in the 12th century through a traditionally accepted process of merging shorter dramas into longer plays, which were then translated into vernacular and performed by laymen, and thus accessible to a wider segment of society inclusive of the working class. The use of vernacular enabled drama to be understood and enjoyed by a larger audience. The Mystery of Adam (1150) gives credence to this theory, as its detailed stage direction suggest that it

7056-548: The clergy, there are few surviving sources from the Early and High Medieval periods. However, by the late period, performances began to become more secularized; larger number of records survive. Because contemporary conceptions about theatre differ radically from the performance culture of the pre-modern world, it is difficult to find appropriate terms. First, "medieval" denotes a time period (500–1500) far too large and complex to understand in short descriptions. And within it, there

7168-552: The concepts of dramatic criticism and theatre architecture. Actors were either amateur or at best semi-professional. The theatre of ancient Greece consisted of three types of drama : tragedy , comedy , and the satyr play . The origins of theatre in ancient Greece, according to Aristotle (384–322 BCE), the first theoretician of theatre, are to be found in the festivals that honoured Dionysus. The performances were given in semi-circular auditoria cut into hillsides, capable of seating 10,000–20,000 people. The stage consisted of

7280-467: The dealings of the pantheon of Gods and their involvement in human affairs, backed by the chorus of Satyrs . However, according to Webster , satyr actors did not always perform typical satyr actions and would break from the acting traditions assigned to the character type of a mythical forest creature. Western theatre developed and expanded considerably under the Romans . The Roman historian Livy wrote that

7392-433: The development of musical theatre . The city-state of Athens is where Western theatre originated. It was part of a broader culture of theatricality and performance in classical Greece that included festivals , religious rituals , politics , law , athletics and gymnastics, music , poetry , weddings, funerals, and symposia . Participation in the city-state's many festivals—and mandatory attendance at

7504-535: The devil has brought them to hell, he clashes together the jaws, the gates of hell. No one can get out from them, just as no fish can escape from the mouth of the whale. Later in the Middle Ages, the classical Cerberus also became associated with the image, although it is hardly likely that the Anglo-Saxons had him in mind. Satan himself is often shown sitting in Hell eating the damned, but according to G.D. Schmidt this

7616-454: The dialogue ( melodrama and Japanese Nō , for example). In certain periods of history (the ancient Roman and modern Romantic ) some dramas have been written to be read rather than performed. In improvisation , the drama does not pre-exist the moment of performance; performers devise a dramatic script spontaneously before an audience. Music and theatre have had a close relationship since ancient times— Athenian tragedy , for example,

7728-429: The elements of theatre, the Treatise gives most attention to acting ( abhinaya ), which consists of two styles: realistic ( lokadharmi ) and conventional ( natyadharmi ), though the major focus is on the latter. Its drama is regarded as the highest achievement of Sanskrit literature . It utilised stock characters , such as the hero ( nayaka ), heroine ( nayika ), or clown ( vidusaka ). Actors may have specialized in

7840-449: The end of the Middle Ages and beginning of the Modern Era . First, the Protestant Reformation targeted the theatre, especially in England, in an effort to stamp out allegiance to Rome. In Wakefield , for example, the local mystery cycle text shows signs of Protestant editing, with references to the pope crossed out. It was not just Protestants who attacked the theatre: The Council of Trent banned religious plays in an attempt to rein in

7952-422: The entire epic of Ramayana . The powerful Indian emperor Harsha (606–648) is credited with having written three plays: the comedy Ratnavali , Priyadarsika , and the Buddhist drama Nagananda . The Tang dynasty is sometimes known as "The Age of 1000 Entertainments". During this era, Ming Huang formed an acting school known as The Pear Garden to produce a form of drama that was primarily musical. That

8064-493: The events which Christian ritual celebrates. The Whom do you Seek (Quem-Quaeritis) Easter trope, dating from ca. 925, is an example of performing the events surround Christ's empty grave. The text was sung responsively by two groups and was not considered to be "acting" in the sense of impersonation. Sometime between 965 and 975, Æthelwold of Winchester composed the Regularis Concordia (Monastic Agreement) which contains

8176-477: The existence of a tradition of theatre. The ancient Vedas ( hymns from between 1500 and 1000 BCE that are among the earliest examples of literature in the world) contain no hint of it (although a small number are composed in a form of dialogue ) and the rituals of the Vedic period do not appear to have developed into theatre. The Mahābhāṣya by Patañjali contains the earliest reference to what may have been

8288-420: The extrabiblical material. A revival of interest in ancient Roman and Greek culture changed the tastes of the learned classes in the performing arts. Greek and Roman plays were performed and new plays were written that were heavily influenced by the classical style. This led to the creation of Commedia dell'arte and influenced Renaissance theatre . A change of patronage also caused drastic changes to

8400-517: The festivals to stage drama) playwrights were required to present a tetralogy of plays (though the individual works were not necessarily connected by story or theme), which usually consisted of three tragedies and one satyr play. The performance of tragedies at the City Dionysia may have begun as early as 534 BCE; official records ( didaskaliai ) begin from 501 BCE, when the satyr play was introduced. Most Athenian tragedies dramatize events from Greek mythology , though The Persians —which stages

8512-612: The first improvisation form. Popularized by 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature winner Dario Fo and troupes such as the Upright Citizens Brigade improvisational theatre continues to evolve with many different streams and philosophies. Keith Johnstone and Viola Spolin are recognized as the first teachers of improvisation in modern times, with Johnstone exploring improvisation as an alternative to scripted theatre and Spolin and her successors exploring improvisation principally as

8624-499: The grave. The earliest secular drama is The Play of the Greenwood by Adam de la Halle in 1276. It contains satirical scenes and folk material such as faeries and other supernatural occurrences. Farces also rose dramatically in popularity after the 13th century. The majority of these plays come from France and Germany and are similar in tone and form, emphasizing sex and bodily excretions. The best-known playwright of farces

8736-596: The idea of the national theatre gained support in the 18th century, inspired by Ludvig Holberg . The major promoter of the idea of the national theatre in Germany, and also of the Sturm und Drang poets, was Abel Seyler , the owner of the Hamburgische Entreprise and the Seyler Theatre Company . Through the 19th century , the popular theatrical forms of Romanticism , melodrama , Victorian burlesque and

8848-659: The late 19th and early 20th century . After the Edwardian musical comedy that began in the 1890s, the Princess Theatre musicals of the early 20th century, and comedies in the 1920s and 1930s (such as the works of Rodgers and Hammerstein ), with Oklahoma! (1943), musicals moved in a more dramatic direction. Famous musicals over the subsequent decades included My Fair Lady (1956), West Side Story (1957), The Fantasticks (1960), Hair (1967), A Chorus Line (1975), Les Misérables (1980), Cats (1981), Into

8960-464: The most complete work of dramaturgy in the ancient world. It addresses acting , dance , music , dramatic construction , architecture , costuming , make-up , props , the organisation of companies, the audience, competitions, and offers a mythological account of the origin of theatre. In doing so, it provides indications about the nature of actual theatrical practices. Sanskrit theatre was performed on sacred ground by priests who had been trained in

9072-466: The most notorious attack on theatre prior to the ban. Viewing theatre as sinful, the Puritans ordered the closure of London theatres in 1642 . On 24 January 1643, the actors protested against the ban by writing a pamphlet titled The Actors remonstrance or complaint for the silencing of their profession, and banishment from their severall play-houses . This stagnant period ended once Charles II came back to

9184-411: The necessary skills (dance, music, and recitation) in a [hereditary process]. Its aim was both to educate and to entertain. Under the patronage of royal courts, performers belonged to professional companies that were directed by a stage manager ( sutradhara ), who may also have acted. This task was thought of as being analogous to that of a puppeteer —the literal meaning of " sutradhara " is "holder of

9296-410: The necks to facilitate the use of multiple heads with one body. When the heads were not being used, they were stored in a muslin book or fabric-lined box. The heads were always removed at night. This was in keeping with the old superstition that if left intact, the puppets would come to life at night. Some puppeteers went so far as to store the heads in one book and the bodies in another, to further reduce

9408-517: The occasion, and a certain amount of burlesque and comedy may have entered the liturgical drama as a result of its influence. Economic and political changes in the High Middle Ages led to the formation of guilds and the growth of towns, and this would lead to significant changes for theatre starting in this time and continuing into in the Late Middle Ages . Trade guilds began to perform plays, usually religiously based, and often dealing with

9520-437: The oldest surviving work of dramatic theory —his Poetics ( c.  335 BCE ). Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods, "Old Comedy", "Middle Comedy", and "New Comedy". Old Comedy survives today largely in the form of the eleven surviving plays of Aristophanes , while Middle Comedy is largely lost (preserved only in relatively short fragments in authors such as Athenaeus of Naucratis ). New Comedy

9632-565: The period between the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century and the beginning of the Renaissance in approximately the 15th century. The category of "medieval theatre" is vast, covering dramatic performance in Europe over a thousand-year period. A broad spectrum of genres needs to be considered, including mystery plays , morality plays , farces and masques . The themes were almost always religious. The most famous examples are

9744-574: The possibility of reanimating puppets. Shadow puppetry is said to have reached its highest point of artistic development in the eleventh century before becoming a tool of the government. In the Song dynasty , there were many popular plays involving acrobatics and music. These developed in the Yuan dynasty into a more sophisticated form known as zaju , with a four- or five-act structure. Yuan drama spread across China and diversified into numerous regional forms, one of

9856-443: The remainder of the Puritans and very religious of the time. The main question was if seeing something immoral on stage affects behaviour in the lives of those who watch it, a controversy that is still playing out today. The seventeenth century had also introduced women to the stage, which was considered inappropriate earlier. These women were regarded as celebrities (also a newer concept, thanks to ideas on individualism that arose in

9968-422: The satyr play eventually found its way to Athens in its most well-known form. Satyr's themselves were tied to the god Dionysus as his loyal woodland companions, often engaging in drunken revelry and mischief at his side. The satyr play itself was classified as tragicomedy, erring on the side of the more modern burlesque traditions of the early twentieth century. The plotlines of the plays were typically concerned with

10080-455: The scale of poetry in general (where the tragic divides against epic and lyric ) or at the scale of the drama (where tragedy is opposed to comedy ). In the modern era, tragedy has also been defined against drama, melodrama , the tragicomic , and epic theatre . Improvisation has been a consistent feature of theatre, with the Commedia dell'arte in the sixteenth century being recognized as

10192-448: The seeds of Sanskrit drama. This treatise on grammar from 140 BCE provides a feasible date for the beginnings of theatre in India . The major source of evidence for Sanskrit theatre is A Treatise on Theatre ( Nātyaśāstra ), a compendium whose date of composition is uncertain (estimates range from 200 BCE to 200 CE) and whose authorship is attributed to Bharata Muni . The Treatise is

10304-535: The setting to the early 21st century. An adaptation by Carol Ann Duffy , the British Poet Laureate , was performed at the National Theatre (UK) in 2015 with Chiwetel Ejiofor in the title role. Performances of Christ's Nativity are frequent during the Christmas season, and many schools and Sunday school groups regularly perform scenes from the bible with children. The reenactment of Jesus Christ's Passion

10416-614: The sixteenth century. Another nun who wrote plays was the abbess Hildegard of Bingen (d. 1179), who wrote a drama called Ordo Virtutum in 1155. Faced with the problem of explaining a new religion to a largely illiterate population, churches in the Early Middle Ages began staging dramatized versions of particular biblical events on specific days of the year. The dramatizations were included in order to vivify annual celebrations. Symbolic objects and actions ( vestments , altars , censers , and pantomime performed by priests) recalled

10528-588: The spoken parts were written in the Attic dialect whereas the choral (recited or sung) ones in the Doric dialect , these discrepancies reflecting the differing religious origins and poetic metres of the parts that were fused into a new entity, the theatrical drama . Tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western civilisation . That tradition has been multiple and discontinuous, yet

10640-672: The stage as an instrument of corruption, while acting was considered sinful because its imitation of life was considered a mockery of God's creation. Roman actors were forbidden to have contact with Christian women, own slaves, or wear gold. They were officially excommunicated , denied the sacraments , including marriage and burial , and were defamed throughout Europe. For many centuries thereafter, clerics were cautioned to not allow travelling actors to perform in their jurisdiction. Hrosvitha (c. 935–973), an aristocratic canoness and historian in northern Germany , wrote six plays modeled on Terence 's comedies but using religious subjects in

10752-461: The strings or threads". The performers were trained rigorously in vocal and physical technique. There were no prohibitions against female performers; companies were all-male, all-female, and of mixed gender. Certain sentiments were considered inappropriate for men to enact, however, and were thought better suited to women. Some performers played characters their own age, while others played ages different from their own (whether younger or older). Of all

10864-558: The term has often been used to invoke a powerful effect of cultural identity and historical continuity—"the Greeks and the Elizabethans , in one cultural form; Hellenes and Christians , in a common activity", as Raymond Williams puts it. From its obscure origins in the theatres of Athens 2,500 years ago, from which there survives only a fraction of the work of Aeschylus , Sophocles and Euripides , through its singular articulations in

10976-461: The theatre. In England, the monarch and nobility started to support professional theatre troupes (including Shakespeare's Lord Chamberlain's Men and King's Men ), which catered to their upper-class patrons' tastes. Finally, the construction of permanent theaters, such as The Theatre , signaled a major turning point. Permanent theaters allowed for more sophisticated staging and storytelling. Mummers plays are still performed regularly throughout

11088-453: The theatrical culture of the city-state. Having emerged sometime during the 6th century BCE, it flowered during the 5th century BCE (from the end of which it began to spread throughout the Greek world), and continued to be popular until the beginning of the Hellenistic period . No tragedies from the 6th century BCE and only 32 of the more than a thousand that were performed in during

11200-647: The throne in 1660 in the Restoration . Theatre (among other arts) exploded, with influence from French culture, since Charles had been exiled in France in the years previous to his reign. In 1660, two companies were licensed to perform, the Duke's Company and the King's Company . Performances were held in converted buildings, such as Lisle's Tennis Court . The first West End theatre , known as Theatre Royal in Covent Garden , London,

11312-519: The time because of his use of floor space and scenery. Because of the turmoil before this time, there was still some controversy about what should and should not be put on the stage. Jeremy Collier , a preacher, was one of the heads in this movement through his piece A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage . The beliefs in this paper were mainly held by non-theatre goers and

11424-429: The type of play performed by the puppets. Both styles generally performed plays depicting great adventure and fantasy, rarely was this very stylized form of theatre used for political propaganda. Japanese forms of Kabuki , Nō , and Kyōgen developed in the 17th century CE. Cantonese shadow puppets were the larger of the two. They were built using thick leather which created more substantial shadows. Symbolic colour

11536-519: The wake of Renaissance Humanism ), but on the other hand, it was still very new and revolutionary that they were on the stage, and some said they were unladylike, and looked down on them. Charles II did not like young men playing the parts of young women, so he asked that women play their own parts. Because women were allowed on the stage, playwrights had more leeway with plot twists, like women dressing as men, and having narrow escapes from morally sticky situations as forms of comedy. Comedies were full of

11648-475: The works of Shakespeare , Lope de Vega , Racine , and Schiller , to the more recent naturalistic tragedy of Strindberg , Beckett's modernist meditations on death, loss and suffering, and Müller's postmodernist reworkings of the tragic canon, tragedy has remained an important site of cultural experimentation, negotiation, struggle, and change. In the wake of Aristotle's Poetics (335 BCE), tragedy has been used to make genre distinctions, whether at

11760-532: The young and very much in vogue, with the storyline following their love lives: commonly a young roguish hero professing his love to the chaste and free minded heroine near the end of the play, much like Sheridan's The School for Scandal . Many of the comedies were fashioned after the French tradition, mainly Molière, again hailing back to the French influence brought back by the King and the Royals after their exile. Molière

11872-427: Was "a vast and varied spectrum of kinds of performances: ludus , jeu, ordo, representatio, officium, pagina, miraculum, mystère, processus, interlude, morality, mumming , disguising, and, of course, play." These had little to do with stage performance in the 21st century. As the Western Roman Empire fell into severe decay through the 4th and 5th centuries A.D., the seat of Roman power shifted to Constantinople and

11984-457: Was a form of dance - drama that employed a chorus whose parts were sung (to the accompaniment of an aulos —an instrument comparable to the modern oboe ), as were some of the actors' responses and their 'solo songs' ( monodies ). Modern musical theatre is a form of theatre that also combines music, spoken dialogue, and dance. It emerged from comic opera (especially Gilbert and Sullivan ), variety , vaudeville , and music hall genres of

12096-440: Was also very prevalent; a black face represented honesty, a red one bravery. The rods used to control Cantonese puppets were attached perpendicular to the puppets' heads. Thus, they were not seen by the audience when the shadow was created. Pekingese puppets were more delicate and smaller. They were created out of thin, translucent leather (usually taken from the belly of a donkey). They were painted with vibrant paints, thus they cast

12208-561: Was designed by Thomas Killigrew and built on the site of the present Theatre Royal, Drury Lane . One of the big changes was the new theatre house. Instead of the type of the Elizabethan era, such as the Globe Theatre , round with no place for the actors to prepare for the next act and with no "theatre manners", the theatre house became transformed into a place of refinement, with a stage in front and stadium seating facing it. Since seating

12320-422: Was no longer all the way around the stage, it became prioritized—some seats were obviously better than others. The king would have the best seat in the house: the very middle of the theatre, which got the widest view of the stage as well as the best way to see the point of view and vanishing point that the stage was constructed around. Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg was one of the most influential set designers of

12432-512: Was one of the top comedic playwrights of the time, revolutionizing the way comedy was written and performed by combining Italian commedia dell'arte and neoclassical French comedy to create some of the longest lasting and most influential satiric comedies. Tragedies were similarly victorious in their sense of righting political power, especially poignant because of the recent Restoration of the Crown. They were also imitations of French tragedy, although

12544-487: Was staged outdoors. A number of other plays from the period survive, including La Seinte Resurrection ( Norman ), The Play of the Magi Kings ( Spanish ), and Sponsus ( French ). The Feast of Fools was especially important in the development of comedy. The festival inverted the status of the lesser clergy and allowed them to ridicule their superiors and the routine of church life. Sometimes plays were staged as part of

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