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Year 10 Drama- Semester 2

Key Concepts:

Terms in this set (25)

Verfremdungseffekt
The distancing effect is a technique used in theatre that prevents the audience from losing itself completely in the narrative, instead making it a conscious critical observer.
Epic Theatre
The form of episodic drama associated with Bertolt Brecht and aimed at the intellect rather than the emotions
Episodic Structure
Made up of a series of chapters or stories linked together by the same character, place, or theme but held apart by their individual plot, purpose, and subtext.
Theater of the Oppressed
Started it in brazil after a coup - using theatre as a weapon - advocated for freedom of expression and independence - all about change and liberation
Spectactors
What the audience become when they enter the dramatic action in order to transform its outcome. It is an innovation used mainly for political purposes by Augusto Boal and others.
Image Theatre
Using body, movement and stillness to create pictures of oppression
Forum Theatre
The audience suggest changes to a drama in order to affect outcomes
Invisible Theatre
Actors seemingly spontaneously present a socially relevant piece in public place
The Joker
Identifies 'magic' in a performance and leads the audience through the piece of forum theatre
Theatre of Cruelty
Originated by Antonin Artaud, stylized, ritualized performances intended to attack spectators' sensibilities and purge them of destructive tendencies.
Involving the audience
In Artaud's theatre the audience would be placed in the centre with the action taking place all around them. The audience would feel part of everything that happened.
Assaulting the Senses
He wanted the theatre of cruelty to hypnotise the audience, putting them into a trance like state, in which they could be shocked into confronting themselves, their way of life, and the meaning of all existence. He would do this using lights, music and sound.
Theatre of the Absurd
Tries to capture the absurdity of the human condition; man is in charge and god is absent, lack of humanity-no meaning to life, actors are clown-like, no hope
Existentialism
A philosophy based on the idea that people give meaning to their lives through their choices and actions
Waiting for Godot
A play about two tramps waiting in a lifeless void. Written by Samuel Beckett
Repetition
An absurd technique where scenes, sounds, words, phrases or character movement is presented again and again, to highlight the point of futility
Placards
A Brechtian convention- where words, dates or ideas are presented to the audience in written form
Didactic theatre
Instruction and teaching in a Brechtian play, aimed to change views of the audience
Transformation of Time
Performances can move around in time as well as in place. Sometimes performances can occur in a linear or chronological timeline. Others move backwards and forwards in time from a central point.
Transformation of Character
The actor manipulates expressive skills to create multiple characters in performance.
Transformation of Object
An object(s) is endowed with a variety of meanings by the actor.
Bertolt Brecht
German dramatist and poet who developed a style of epic theatre (1898-1956)
Augusto Boal
Theatre artist, theorist, and creator of the Theatre of the Oppressed who designs theatre events for the downtrodden to encourage and support social change
Antonin Artaud
Playwright, director, theorist; who believed in the "Theatre of cruelty"; Physical, spiritual theatre; Don't separate the audience from the play; surround them with it; make them a part of the action
Samuel Beckett
Wrote Waiting for Godot
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