5 Written Questions

1. The cultural movement behind theatrical realism, it began around 1850 and popularized the idea that plays could be a force for social and political change.
2. Unstructured theatrical events on street corners, at bus stops, in lobbies, and virtually anywhere else people gather.
3. The result of techniques to keep the audience aware that what they are witnessing is only a play; used by Bertolt Brecht. Alienation techniques include having the actors address the audience out of character, exposing the lights, removing the proscenium arch and curtains, and having the actors perform on bare platforms or simple sets that are sometimes punctuated with political slogans.
4. A design style or theatre genre in which a certain piece of scenery, a costume, or light represent the essence of the entire environment.
5. A movement that was ignited by the atrocities of World War I and gained fame through staged performances designed to demonstrate the meaninglessness of life.

5 Matching Questions

1. box set
2. The Living Theatre
3. surrealism
4. Theatre of Cruelty
5. regional theatre

1. a Permanent, professional theatres located outside New York City.
2. b A genre of theatre that emphasizes the subconscious realities of the character, usually through design, and often includes random sets with dreamlike qualities.
3. c Originated by Antonin Artaud, stylized, ritualized performances intended to attack spectators' sensibilities and purge them of destructive tendencies.
4. d Commonly used in realistic plays, a true-to-life interior containing a room or rooms with the fourth wall removed so that the audience feels they are looking in on the characters' private lives.
5. e A famous twentieth-century experimental theatre using aesthetically radical techniques to shake up audiences about social and political issues; founded in 1946 by Julian Beck (1925-1985) and Judith Malina (b. 1926).

5 Multiple Choice Questions

1. Originally, small experimental theatres that sprang up in the late 1950s outside Times Square to put on plays about current issues. They typically have much smaller houses than Broadway theatres.
   1. fourth wall
   2. Off Broadway
   3. absurdism
   4. Off Off Broadway
2. Any work of art that is experimental, innovative, or unconventional.
   1. avant-garde
   2. Kafkaesque
   3. Dadaism
   4. epic theatre
3. A style of realism that is expressed through lyrical language.
   1. Realism
   2. surrealism
   3. Naturalism
   4. poetic realism
4. A play that expresses a social problem so that it can be remedied.
   1. fourth wall
   2. Realism
   3. Off Broadway
   4. problem play
5. An imaginary wall separating the actors from audience; an innovation of Realism in the theatre in the mid-1800s.
   1. surrealism
   2. box set
   3. Off Broadway
   4. fourth wall

5 True/False Questions

1. little theatre movement → Originated by Antonin Artaud, stylized, ritualized performances intended to attack spectators' sensibilities and purge them of destructive tendencies.

   True        False

2. epic theatre → Permanent, professional theatres located outside New York City.

   True        False

3. existentialism → A post-World War II philosophy that sees humans as being alone in the universe, without God, so they are entirely responsible for their destinies.

   True        False

4. Naturalism → An avant-garde "ism" that was the result of the two world wars. It has three types: atalist, existentialist, and hilarious.

   True        False

5. Off Off Broadway → Originally, small experimental theatres that sprang up in the late 1950s outside Times Square to put on plays about current issues. They typically have much smaller houses than Broadway theatres.

   True        False