Yoruba Theatre
In his pioneering study of
YorubaYoruba may refer to:* Yoruba name, name of a Yoruba person* Yoruba Culture, culture of the Yoruba tribe* Yoruba people, a West African ethnic group* Yoruba language, the language spoken by the Yoruba people...
theatre, Joel Adedeji traced its origins to the masquerade of the Egun or
EgungunEgungun is a part of the Yoruba pantheon of divinities. The Yoruba religious system is sometimes referred to as the 'Yoruba Religion' or simply 'Orisa Worship'. In the tradition of Orisa and ancestor worship, the Egungun represents the "collective spirit" of the ancestors. Ancestor worship or...
, the “cult of the ancestor.” The traditional Egun rite, which is controlled exclusively by men, culminates in a masquerade in which ancestors return to the world of the living to visit their descendants. In addition to a basis in ritual, Yoruba theatre can be “traced to the ‘theatrogenic’ nature of a number of the deities in the Yoruba pantheon, such as Obatala the god of creation, Ogun the god of creativeness and Sango the god of lightning” whose worship is imbricated “with drama and theatre and their symbolic and psychological uses.”
The
AláàrìnjóAláàrìnjó is a traditional dance-theatre troupe among the Yoruba.According to music historian Roger Blench, Aláàrìnjó dates back to the sixteenth century and probably developed from the Egúngún masquerade. However, it soon became professional and split into competing groups. Improved roads allowed...
theatrical tradition sprang from the egun masquerade. The Aláàrìnjó was comprised of a troupe of traveling performers, who, like the performers in the egun rite, were masked. The Aláàrìnjó performers created satirical skits by drawing on a number of established stereotypical characters and incorporating mime, music and acrobatics. The Aláàrìnjó tradition in turn deeply influenced the Yoruba traveling theatre, which, from the 1950’s to the 1980’s was the most prevalent and highly developed form of theatre in Nigeria. From the 1990s on the Yoruba traveling theatre began working with television and film and now rarely gives live performances.
‘Total theater’ also developed in Nigeria in the 1950’s and was characterized by surrealist physical imagery, non-naturalistic idioms and linguistic flexibility. Later playwrights writing in the mid 1970’s valued ‘total theater’ but included “a radical appreciation of the problems of society.”
Major figures in contemporary Nigerian theatre continue to be deeply influenced by traditional performance modes. Chief
Hubert OgundeHubert Adedeji Ogunde was a Nigerian actor, playwright, theatre manager, and musician who founded the Ogunde Concert Party in , the first professional theatrical company in Nigeria.Ogunde starred in Mister Johnson, the 1990 motion picture which also featured Pierce Brosnan...
, sometimes referred to as the “father of contemporary Yoruban theatre,” was informed by the Aláàrìnjó tradition and egun masquerades.
Wole SoyinkaAkinwande Oluwole "Wole" Soyinka is a Nigerian writer, poet and playwright. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, the first African to be so honoured...
, who is “generally recognized as Africa’s greatest living playwright” gives egun a complex metaphysical significance in his work. Further in his essay, "The Fourth Stage: Through the Mysteries of Ogun to the Origin of Yoruba Tragedy," originally published in 1973, Soyinka suggests that “no matter how strongly African authors call for an indigenous tragic art form, they smuggle into their dramas, through the back door of formalistic and ideological predilections, typically conventional Western notions and practices of rendering historical events into tragedy.” Soyinka then contrasts Yoruban drama with Greek drama, as discussed by Nietzsche in
The Birth of Tragedy, establishing an aesthetic of Yoruban tragedy based, in part, on the Yoruban pantheon, including Ogun and Obatala.
Indian theatre
Folk theatre and dramatics can be traced to the religious ritualism of the
Vedic peoplesThe Vedic Period is the period during which the Vedas, the oldest sacred texts of the Indo-Aryans, were being composed. Scholars place the Vedic period in the second and first millennia BCE continuing up to the 6th century BCE based on literary evidence.The associated culture, sometimes referred...
in the 2nd millenium BC. This folk theatre of the misty past was mixed with dance, food, ritualism, plus a depiction of events from daily life. It was the last element which made it the origin of the classical theatre of later times. Many historians, notably D. D. Kosambi, Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya, Adya Rangacharaya, etc. have referred to the prevalence of ritualism amongst
Indo-AryanIndo-Aryan is an ethno-linguistic term referring to the wide collection of peoples united as native speakers of the Indo-Aryan branch of the family of Indo-European languages. Today, there are over one billion native speakers of Indo-Aryan languages, most of them native to South Asia, where they...
tribes in which some members of the tribe acted as if they were wild animals and some others were the hunters. Those who acted as mammals like goats, buffaloes, reindeer, monkeys, etc. were chased by those playing the role of hunters.
In such a very simple and crude manner did the theatre originate in India during Rig Vedic times. There also must have existed a theatrical tradition in the
HarappanThe Indus Valley Civilization was a Bronze Age civilization which centred mostly in the western part of the Indian Subcontinent and flourished around the Indus river basin....
cities, but of this we lack material proof.
Natya Shastra
Bharata MuniBharata was an ancient Indian musicologist who authored the Natya Shastra, a theoretical treatise on ancient Indian dramaturgy and histrionics, dated to between roughly 400 BC and 200 BC. Indian dance and music find their root in the Natyashastra...
(fl. 5th–2nd century BC) was an ancient Indian writer best known for writing the
Natya Shastra of Bharata, a theoretical treatise on Indian performing arts, including
theatreTheatre is a branch of the performing arts. While any performance may be considered theatre, as a performing art, it focuses almost exclusively on live performers creating a self contained drama. A performance qualifies as dramatic by creating a representational illusion...
,
danceDance is a sport and art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
,
actingActing is the work of an actor or actress, which is a person in theatre, television, film, or any other storytelling medium who tells the story by portraying a character and, usually, speaking or singing the written text or play...
, and
musicMusic is an art form whose medium is sound. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
, which has been compared to
AristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.Together with Plato and Socrates , Aristotle is one of...
's
Poetics. Bharata is often known as the father of Indian theatrical arts. His
Natya Shastra seems to be the first attempt to develop the technique or rather art, of drama in a systematic manner. The Natya Shastra tells us not only what is to be portrayed in a drama, but how the portrayal is to be done. Drama, as Bharata Muni says, is the imitation of men and their doings (loka-vritti
). As men and their doings have to be respected on the stage, so drama in Sanskrit is also known by the term roopaka which means portrayal.
The Natya Shastra
is incredibly wide in its scope. It consists of minutely detailed precepts for both playwrights and actors. Bharata describes ten types of drama ranging from one to ten acts. In addition, he lays down principles for stage design, makeup, costumeThe term costume can refer to wardrobe and dress in general, or to the distinctive style of dress of a particular people, class, or period. Costume may also refer to the artistic arrangement of accessories in a picture, statue, poem, or play, appropriate to the time, place, or other circumstances...
, danceDance is a sport and art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
(various movements and gestures), a theory of aestheticsAesthetics is commonly known as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
(rasas
and bhavaBhava is the Sanskrit and Pāli word for "becoming" in the sense of 'ongoing worldly existence', from the root bhū "to become".Synonyms:*有 Cn: yǒu; Jp: u; Vi: hữu*Tibetan: srid.pa...
s
), actingActing is the work of an actor or actress, which is a person in theatre, television, film, or any other storytelling medium who tells the story by portraying a character and, usually, speaking or singing the written text or play...
, directing and musicMusic is an art form whose medium is sound. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
, each in individual chapters.
Bharata sets out a detailed theory of drama comparable to the PoeticsAristotle's Poetics is the earliest-surviving work of dramatic theory and the first extant philosophical treatise to focus on literary theory...
of AristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.Together with Plato and Socrates , Aristotle is one of...
. He refers to bhavas
, the imitations of emotions that the actors perform, and the rasas
(emotional responses) that they inspire in the audience. He argues that there are eight principal rasas
: love, pity, anger, disgust, heroism, awe, terror and comedy, and that plays should mix different rasas
but be dominated by one. According to the Natya Shastra
, all the modes of expression employed by an individual viz. speech, gestures, movements and intonation must be used. The representation of these expressions can have different modes (vritti
) according to the predominance and emphasis on one mode or another. Bharatamuni recognises four main modes: speech and poetry (bharati vritti
), dance and music (kaishiki vritti
), action
(arabhatti vritti
) and emotions (sattvatti vritti
).
Classical Indian theatre
The RamayanaThe Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is attributed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon . The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India, the other being Mahabharata...
and MahabharataThe Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the . The epic is part of the Hindu itihāsa , and forms an important part of Hindu mythology....
can be considered the first recognized plays that originated in India. These epics provided the inspiration to the earliest Indian dramatists and they do it even today. Indian dramatists such as BhasaBhāsa is one of the earliest and most celebrated Indian playwrights in Sanskrit. However, very little is known about him.Kālidāsa in the introduction to his first play Malavikagnimitram writes -...
in the second century BC wrote plays that were heavily inspired by the Ramayana
and Mahabharata
.
KālidāsaKālidāsa was a renowned Classical Sanskrit writer, widely regarded as the greatest poet and dramatist in the Sanskrit language. His floruit cannot be dated with precision, but most likely falls within the Gupta period, probably in the 4th or 5th century or 6th century.His place in Sanskrit...
in the first century BC, is arguably considered to be ancient IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
's greatest Sanskrit dramatist. Three famous romantic plays written by Kālidāsa are the MālavikāgnimitramMālavikāgnimitram is a Sanskrit play by Kālidāsa. It is his first play.The play tells the story of the love of King Agnimitra, the Shunga king of Vidisha , for the beautiful hand-maiden of his chief queen. He falls in love with the picture of an exiled servant girl named Mālavikā...
(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 is the most famous. It was the first to be translated into
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
and
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
. In comparison to Bhasa, who drew heavily from the epics, Kālidāsa can be considered an original
playwrightA playwright, also known as a dramatist, is a person who writes dramatic literature or drama. These works are usually written to be performed in front of a live audience by actors...
Medieval Indian theatre
The next great Indian dramatist was
BhavabhutiBhavbhuti was an 8th century scholar of India noted for his plays and poetry, written in Sanskrit. His plays are considered equivalent to the works of Kalidas. Bhavbhuti was born in a Deshastha Brahmin family of Padmapura, Vidarbha, central India, in Gondia district, on Maharashtra and MP...
(c. 7th century). 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, the entire epic of Ramayana
. The powerful Indian emperor HarshaHarsha or Harshavardhana or "Harsha vardhan" was an Indian emperor who ruled Northern India for forty one years. He was the son of Prabhakar Vardhan and younger brother of Rajyavardhan, a king of Thanesar...
(606-648) is credited with having written three plays: the comedy RatnavaliRatnavali is a Sanskrit drama about a beautiful princess named Ratnavali, and a great king named Udayana. It is attributed to the Indian emperor Harsha . It is a Natika in four acts...
, PriyadarsikaPriyadarsika is a Sanskrit play attributed to king Harsha .-External links:*, translated by G. K. Nariman and A. V. Williams Jackson...
, and the Buddhist drama NaganandaNagananda is a Sanskrit play attributed to king Harsha .Nagananda is one of the best Sanskrit dramas in five acts dealing with the popular story of Jimutavahana's self-sacrifice to save the Nagas...
. Many other dramatists followed during the
Middle AgesThe Middle Ages of European history is a period of European history covering roughly a millennium in the 5th century through 16th centuries. More specific starting and ending points are sometimes adopted by scholars to suit their respective specializations or current focus...
.
Shang theatre
There are references to theatrical entertainments in China as early as 1500 BC during the
Shang DynastyThe Shang Dynasty or Yin Dynasty was, according to traditional sources, the second Chinese dynasty, after the Xia Dynasty. They ruled in the northeastern regions of the area known as "China proper", in the Yellow River valley...
; they often involved music, clowning and acrobatic displays.
Tang theatre
The Tang Dynasty is sometimes known as 'The Age of 1000 Entertainments'. During this era, Emperor Xuanzong formed an acting school known as the Children of the
Pear GardenThe Pear Garden or Liyuan , the first known royal acting and musical academy in China. It was founded during the Tang Dynasty by Emperor Xuanzong . It may be the first institutional Academy of Music in the world....
to produce a form of drama that was primarily musical.
During the Han Dynasty, shadow puppetry first emerged as a recognized form of theatre in China. There were two distinct forms of shadow puppetry, Cantonese southern and Pekingese northern. The two styles were differentiated by the method of making the puppets and the positioning of the rods on the puppets, as opposed to 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. Cantonese shadow puppets were the larger of the two. They were built using thick leather which created more substantial shadows. Symbolic color 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 a very colorful 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 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 attached at 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 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.
Sung and Yuan theatre
In the Sung Dynasty, there were many popular plays involving acrobatics and
musicMusic is an art form whose medium is sound. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
. These developed in the
Yuan DynastyThe Yuan Dynasty , or Great Yuan Empire was both the continuation of the Mongol Empire and the Mongol founded historical state in Mongolia and China, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. Although the dynasty was established by Kublai Khan, he had his grandfather Genghis Khan placed on the...
into a more sophisticated form with a four or five act structure.
Yuan drama spread across China and diversified into numerous regional forms, the best known of which is Beijing Opera, which is still popular today.
Thai theatre
In
ThailandThe Kingdom of Thailand is an independent country that lies in the heart of Southeast Asia.It is bordered to the north by Laos and Burma, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the west by the Andaman Sea and Burma...
, it has been a tradition from the Middle Ages to stage plays based on plots drawn from Indian epics. In particular, the theatrical version of Thailand's national epic
RamakienThe Ramakien is Thailand's national epic, derived from the Indian Ramayana epic. A number of versions of the epic were lost in the destruction of Ayutthaya in 1767. Three versions currently exist, one of which was prepared in 1797 under the supervision of King Rama I. His son, Rama II,...
, a version of the Indian RamayanaThe Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is attributed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon . The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India, the other being Mahabharata...
, remains popular in Thailand even today.
Khmer and Malay theatre
In CambodiaThe Kingdom of Cambodia , formerly known as Kampuchea , is a country in South East Asia with a population of over 14 million people. The kingdom's capital and largest city is Phnom Penh...
, at the ancient capital Angkor WatAngkor Wat , is a temple complex at Angkor, Cambodia, built for the king Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious centre since its foundation—first Hindu,...
, stories from the Indian epics Ramayana
and MahabharataThe Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the . The epic is part of the Hindu itihāsa , and forms an important part of Hindu mythology....
have been carved on the walls of temples and palaces. Similar reliefs are found at
BorobudurBorobudur is a ninth-century Mahayana Buddhist Monument in Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia. The monument comprises six square platforms topped by three circular platforms, and is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues...
in
IndonesiaThe Republic of Indonesia is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia comprises 17,508 islands. With an estimated population of around 237 million people, it is the world's fourth most populous country, with the world's largest population of Muslims.Indonesia is a republic, with an...
.
Noh
During the 14th century, there were small companies of actors in Japan who performed short, sometimes vulgar comedies. A director of one of these companies, Kan'ami (1333-1384), had a son,
Zeami MotokiyoZeami Motokiyo , also called Kanze Motokiyo , was a Japanese aesthetician, actor and playwright.-Acting:...
(1363-1443) who was considered one of the finest child actors in Japan. When Kan'ami's company performed for
Ashikaga Yoshimitsuwas the 3rd shogun of the Ashikaga shogunate who reigned from 1368 to 1394 during the Muromachi period of Japan. Yoshimitsu was the son of the second shogun Ashikaga Yoshiakira....
(1358-1408), the Shogun of Japan, he implored Zeami to have a court education for his arts. After Zeami succeeded his father, he continued to perform and adapt his style into what is today
Noh, or is a major form of classical Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Many characters are masked, with men playing both the male and female roles. The repertoire is normally limited to a specific set of historical plays...
. A mixture of
pantomimePantomime is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in Great Britain, Canada, Jamaica, Australia, South Africa, Japan, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is usually performed during the Christmas and New Year season.-History:A pantomimos in Greece was...
and vocal acrobatics, this style has fascinated the Japanese for hundreds of years.
Bunraku
Japan, after a long period of civil wars and political disarray, was unified and at peace primarily due to shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu (1600-1668). However, alarmed at increasing Christian growth, he cut off contact from Japan to Europe and China and outlawed Christianity. When peace did come, a flourish of cultural influence and growing merchant class demanded its own entertainment. The first form of theatre to flourish was Ningyō jōruri (commonly referred to as
Bunraku, also known as Ningyō jōruri , is a form of traditional Japanese puppet theater, founded in Osaka in 1684.Three kinds of performers take part in a bunraku performance:* Ningyōtsukai or Ningyōzukai - Puppeteers* Tayū - the chanters* Shamisen players...
). The founder of and main contributor to Ningyō jōruri,
Chikamatsu MonzaemonChikamatsu Monzaemon was a Japanese dramatist of jōruri, the form of puppet theater that later came to be known as bunraku, and the live-actor drama, kabuki....
(1653-1725), turned his form of theatre into a true art form. Ningyō jōruri is a highly stylized form of theatre using puppets, today about 1/3d the size of a human. The men who control the puppets train their entire lives to become master puppeteers, when they can then operate the puppet's head and right arm and choose to show their faces during the performance. The other puppeteers, controlling the less important limbs of the puppet, cover themselves and their faces in a black suit, to imply their invisibility. The dialogue is handled by a single person, who uses varied tones of voice and speaking manners to simulate different characters. Chikamatsu wrote thousands of plays during his lifetime, most of which are still used today.
Kabuki
Kabuki began shortly after Bunraku, legend has it by an actress named Okuni, who lived around the end of the sixteenth century. Most of Kabuki's material came from Nõ and Bunraku, and its erratic dance-type movements are also an effect of Bunraku. However, Kabuki is less formal and more distant than Nõ, yet very popular among the Japanese public. Actors are trained in many varied things including dancing, singing, pantomime, and even acrobatics. Kabuki was first performed by young girls, then by young boys, and by the end of the sixteenth century, Kabuki companies consisted of all men. The men who portrayed women on stage were specifically trained to elicit the essence of a woman in their subtle movements and gestures.
Ancient Egyptian theatre
The earliest recorded theatrical event dates back to 2000 BC with the passion plays of
Ancient EgyptAncient Egypt was an ancient civilization of eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. The civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, and...
. This story of the god
OsirisOsiris was an Egyptian god, usually called the god of the Afterlife, underworld or dead.Osiris is one of the oldest gods for whom records have been found; one of the oldest known attestations...
was performed annually at festivals throughout the civilization, marking the known beginning of a long relationship between theatre and religion.
Medieval Islamic theatre
The most popular forms of theater in the
medieval Islamic worldThe Islamic Golden Age or the Islamic Renaissance, is traditionally dated from the 9th to 13th centuries for 400 years C.E., but has been extended to the 15th century by recent scholarship...
were
puppetA puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by a puppeteer. It is usually a depiction of a human character, and is used in puppetry, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre...
theatre (which included hand puppets,
shadow playShadow play or shadow puppetry is an ancient form of storytelling and entertainment using opaque, often articulated figures in front of an illuminated backdrop to create the illusion of moving images. It is popular in various cultures...
s and
marionetteA marionette is a puppet controlled from above using wires, formerly strings but dropped due to increased durability of wires; a marionette's puppeteer is called a manipulator. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or revealed to an audience by using a vertical or horizontal control...
productions) and live
passion playA Passion play is a dramatic presentation depicting the Passion of Christ: the trial, suffering and death of Jesus Christ. It is a traditional part of Lent in several Christian denominations, particularly in Catholic tradition.-The Easter play:...
s known as ta'ziya
, where actors re-enact episodes from Muslim historyMuslim history involves the history of the Islamic faith as a religion and as a social institution. The history of Islam began in Arabia with Muslim Prophet Muhammad's first recitations of the Qur'an in the 7th century....
. In particular, Shia Islamic plays revolved around the shaheedShaheed may refer to:* Ash-Shaheed , one of the 99 names of Allah* Martyr , from the Arabic word شَهيد meaning both witness and martyr* Political assassination, especially in Pakistan* Shaheed, male given nameFilms:...
(martyrdom) of Ali' was the cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and ruled over the Islamic Caliphate from 656 to 661...
's sons Hasan ibn AliAl-Hasan ibn ‘Alī ibn Abī Tālib was the grandson of Muhammad, son of ‘Alī ibn Abī Tālib and Fātimah al-Zahraā...
and Husayn ibn AliḤusayn ibn ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib was the son of ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib and Fātimah Zahrā...
. Live secular plays were known as akhraja
, recorded in medieval adabAdab, in the context of behavior, refers to prescribed Arabic-Islamic etiquette: "refinement, good manners, morals, decorum, decency, humaneness". While interpretation of the scope and particulars of Adab may vary among different cultures, common among these interpretations is regard for personal...
literature, though they were less common than puppetry and ta'ziya theater.
Greek theatre
The vast majority of Ancient Greek theatrical texts have not survived intact. A small number of works from four Greek playwrights writing during the fifth century B.C. remain fully intact.
- Aeschylus
Aeschylus was an ancient Greek playwright. He is often recognized as the father of tragedy, and is the earliest of the three Greek tragedians whose plays survive, the others being Sophocles and Euripides...
- Sophocles
Sophocles was the second of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus and earlier than those of Euripides...
- Euripides
Euripides was the lastof the three great tragedians of classical Athens . Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety-five plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias...
- Aristophanes
Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a prolific and much acclaimed comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays have come down to us virtually complete...
The above-mentioned playwrights are regarded as the most influential by critics of subsequent eras including Aristotle. The tragic and sartyr plays were always performed at the festival (City Dionysia) where they were part of a series of four performances (a "tetralogy
"): the first, second and third plays were a dramatic trilogy based on related or unrelated mythological events, and the culminating fourth performance was a
satyr playSatyr plays were an ancient Greek form of tragicomedy, similar to the modern-day burlesque style. They always featured a chorus of satyrs and were based in Greek mythology and contained themes of, among other things, drinking, overt sexuality , pranks and general merriment...
, a play on a lighter note, with enhanced celebratory and dance elements. Performances lasted several hours and were held during daytime.
The dramas rarely had more than three actors (all male), who played the different roles using masks. There was a chorus on the stage most of the time which sang songs and sometimes spoke in unison. As far as we know, most dramas were staged just a single time, at the traditional drama contest. Such contests were always held in the context of major religious festivals, most notably those in honor of the god Dionysos, and competed for an honorific prize (such as a tripod and a sum of money) awarded by a panel of judges - usually these were the sacerdotal and civil officers presiding over the particular religious festival. The prize was awarded jointly to the producer, who had financed the staging, and the poet, who was at the same time the author, composer, choreographer and director of the plays.
The actors wore large masks, which were very colourful. These masks did not amplify the actors voice as has been previously thought. Actors also wore thick, padded clothing, and shoes with thick soles. This made them seem larger, so the audience could see them better when seated in the uppermost rows of the amphitheatre.
Roman theatre
The theatre of ancient
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
was heavily influenced by the Greek tradition, and as with many other literary genres Roman dramatists tended to adapt and translate from the Greek. For example,
SenecaLucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero...
's Phaedra
was based on the Hippolytus of
EuripidesEuripides was the lastof the three great tragedians of classical Athens . Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety-five plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias...
, and many of the comedies of
PlautusTitus Maccius Plautus , commonly known as Plautus, was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are among the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by the innovator of Latin literature, Livius Andronicus...
and
TerencePublius Terentius Afer , better known in English as Terence, was a playwright of the Roman Republic. His comedies were performed for the first time around 170–160 BC, and he died young probably in Greece or on his way back to Rome...
, the most famous Roman comic playwrights, were direct re-elaborations of works by
MenanderMenander , Greek dramatist, the best-known representative of Athenian New Comedy, was the son of well-to-do parents; his father Diopeithes is identified by some with the Athenian general and governor of the Thracian Chersonese known from the speech of Demosthenes De Chersoneso...
.
When comparing and contrasting ancient Roman theatre to that of Greece it can easily be said that Roman theatre was less influenced by religion. Also, Roman theatre was more for aesthetic appeal. In Roman theatre war was a more common thing to appear on stage as opposed to the Greek theatre where wars were more commonly spoken about. This was no doubt a reflection of Roman culture and habits.
The audience was often loud and rude, rarely applauding the actors, but always shouting insults and booing. Because the audience was so loud, much of the plays were
mimeA mime most frequently refers to a mime artist who uses a theatrical medium or performance art involving the acting out of a story through body motions without use of speech...
d and repetitive. The actors developed a kind of code that would tell the audience about the characters just by looking at them.
- A black wig meant the character was a young man.
- A gray wig meant the character was an old man.
- A red wig meant the character was a slave.
- A white robe meant the character was an old man.
- A purple robe meant the character was a young man.
- A yellow robe meant the character was a woman. (Needed in early Roman theatre, as originally female characters were played by men, however as the Roman theatre progressed, women slaves took the roles of women in plays.)
- A yellow tassel meant the character was a god.
Plays lasted for two hours, and were usually comedies. Most comedies involved mistaken identity (such as gods disguised as humans).
Medieval European theatre
In Europe in the
courtsThe court of a monarch, or at some periods an important nobleman, is a term for the extended household and all those who regularly attended on the ruler or central figure...
of kings and noblemen scripted re-enactments of the Arthurian legends and other
romancesAs a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about the marvelous adventures of a chivalrous, heroic knight errant,...
, usually associated with
joustingJousting is a sport played by two knights mounted on horses. It consists of martial competition between two mounted knights using a variety of weapons, usually in sets of three per weapon , often as part of a tournament.Jousting was just one of a number of popular martial games...
or
tournamentsA Round Table was a festive event during the Middle Ages that involved jousting, feasting, and dancing in imitation of King Arthur's legendary court. Named for Arthur's famed Round Table, the festivals generally involved jousts with blunted weapons, and often celebrated weddings or victories...
, were popular the early 13th century until the middle of the 14th. By the 16th century the practice had developed into staged theatrical events.
In the
Middle AgesThe Middle Ages of European history is a period of European history covering roughly a millennium in the 5th century through 16th centuries. More specific starting and ending points are sometimes adopted by scholars to suit their respective specializations or current focus...
, after the fall of
Roman civilizationThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor,...
, cities were abandoned, southern and western Europe became increasingly more agricultural. After several hundred years, towns re-emerged. The Roman Catholic church dominated religion, education and often politics. Theatre was reborn as
liturgical dramaLiturgical drama or religious drama, in its various Christian contexts, originates from the mass itself, and usually presents a relatively complex ritual that includes theatrical elements....
s performed by priests or church members. Then came vernacular drama spoken in the
vulgar tonguesThe Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family comprising all the languages that descend from Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
(i.e the language of the people as opposed to Church Latin); this was a more elaborate series of one-act dramas enacted in town squares or other parts of the city. There were three types of vernacular dramas.
MysteryMystery plays and Miracle plays are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the representation of Bible stories in churches as tableaux with accompanying antiphonal song...
or cycle plays, like the
York Mystery PlaysThe York Mystery Plays are an English cycle of forty-eight mystery plays, or pageants, which cover sacred history from the creation to the Last Judgement. These were traditionally presented on the feast day of Corpus Christi . They were performed in the city of York, from the Middle Ages until 1569...
or Wakefield Cycle were series of short dramas based on the
Old TestamentIn Christianity, the Old Testament is the collection of books that form the first of the two-part Christian Biblical canon. These works correspond to the Hebrew Bible , with some variations and additions. In the Eastern Orthodox Church the comparable texts are known as the Septuagint, from the...
and
New TestamentThe New Testament is the name given to the second major division of the Christian Bible, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament, both terms being associated with Supersessionism...
organized into historical cycles. Miracle plays dealt with the lives of saints.
Morality playThe Morality play is a genre of Medieval and early Tudor theatrical entertainment. In their own time, these plays were known as "interludes," a broader term given to dramas with or without a moral theme. Morality plays are a type of allegory in which the protagonist is met by personifications of...
s taught a lesson through allegorical characters representing virtues or faults. Secular plays in this period existed, but medieval religious drama is most remembered today.
Plays were set up in individual scenic units called mansions or in wagon stages which were platforms mounted on wheels used to move scenery. Often providing their own costumes, amateur performers in England were only men, but other countries had female performers. The platform stage allowed for abrupt changes in location which was an unidentified space and not a specific locale.
Among the more notable religious plays were "The Summoning of
EverymanIn literature and drama, the term everyman has come to mean an ordinary individual, with whom the audience or reader is supposed to be able to identify easily, and who is often placed in extraordinary circumstances...
" (an allegory designed to teach the faithful that acts of Christian charity are necessary for entry into heaven),
passion playA Passion play is a dramatic presentation depicting the Passion of Christ: the trial, suffering and death of Jesus Christ. It is a traditional part of Lent in several Christian denominations, particularly in Catholic tradition.-The Easter play:...
s (such as the later
Oberammergau Passion PlayOberammergau Passion Play is a passion play performed since 1634 as a tradition by the inhabitants of the village of Oberammergau, Bavaria, Germany.- Oberammergau Passion Play 2010 :...
, which is still performed every ten years), and the great cycle plays (massive, festive wagon-mounted processions involving hundreds of actors, and drawing pilgrims, tourists, and entrepreneurs)
York Corpus Christi Play Simulator. The morality play and mystery play (as they are known in English) were two distinct genres.
Since many of the more theatrically successful medieval religious plays were designed to teach Catholic doctrine, the
Protestant ReformationThe Protestant Reformation was a Christian reform movement in Europe which is generally deemed to have begun with Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses in 1517 although a number of precursors such as Jan Hus predate that event...
targeted the
English Renaissance theatreEnglish Renaissance theatre, also called early modern English theatre, refers to the theatre of England, largely based in London, that occurred between the Reformation and the closure of the theatres in 1642...
, in an effort to stamp out allegiance to Rome.
Whereas most churches carefully watched over the scripts of their dogmatic plays, in order to ensure that the faithful were being taught the accepted doctrine, by the end of the 1500s Queen Elizabeth I was controlling the stage just as effectively through a system of
patronagePatronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings or popes have provided to musicians, painters, and sculptors...
, licensing, and censorship.
HamletThe Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601. The play, set in Denmark, recounts how Prince Hamlet exacts revenge on his uncle Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet's father, the King, and then...
's reference to a frenetic performance that "out-Herods Herod" refers to the tradition of presenting King Herod as a bombastic figure, suggesting that Shakespeare expected his audience to be familiar with this particular medieval tradition, long after the religious landscape in England had changed.
PuritanA Puritan of 16th and 17th-century England was an associate of any number of religious groups advocating for more "purity" of worship and doctrine, as well as personal and group piety. Puritans felt that the English Reformation had not gone far enough, and that the Church of England was tolerant...
opposition to the stage – informed by the arguments of the early Church Fathers who had written screeds against the decadent and violent entertainments of the Romans – argued not only that the stage in general was pagan, but that any play that represented a religious figure was inherently idolatrous. In 1642, at the outbreak of the
English Civil WarThe English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists. The first and second civil wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third war saw fighting between supporters of...
the Protestant authorities banned the performance of all plays within the city limits of London. A sweeping assault against the alleged immoralities of the theatre crushed whatever remained in England of the dramatic tradition.
Commedia dell'Arte
Commedia dell'Arte troupes performed lively improvisational playlets across Europe for centuries. It
originated in Italy in the 1560s, and differed from conventional theatre in that it was neither professional nor open to the public. Commedia dell'Arte required only actors at its heart, no scene and very few props were considered absolutely essential. Plays did not originate from scripts but scenarios
, which were loose frameworks of productions providing only the situations, complications, and outcome of the work. The actors improvised most dialogue and comedic interludes(called lazzi). The plays were based around a few stock characters, which could be divided into three groups: the lovers, masters, and servants. The lovers had different names and characteristics in most plays and often were the children of the master's character. The role of master was normally based on one of three stereotypes: Pantalone, an eldery Venetian merchant who wore his pajamas most often; Dottore, Pantalone's friend or rival, a doctor or lawyer who acted far more intelligent than he really was; and Capitano, who was once a lover's character, but evolved into a man who bragged about his exploits in love and war, but was often terrifically unskilled in both. He normally carried a sword and wore a cape and feathered headdress. The servant character type (called zanni) had only one recurring role: Arlecchino (also called Harlequin). He was both cunning and ignorant, but an accomplished dancer. He typically carried a wooden stick with a split in the middle so it made a loud noise when striking something. This "weapon" gave us the term "slapstick."
A troupe typically consisted of 13 to 14 members. No women were allowed to act in theater at this time. So there were absolutely no female performers. Most actors were paid by taking a share of the play's profits roughly equivalent to the size of their role was in its peak from 1575-1650, but even after that time new scenarios were written and performed.
Carlo GoldoniCarlo Osvaldo Goldoni was a celebrated Venetian playwright and librettist, whom critics today rank among the European theatre's greatest authors. His works, along with those of the modernist Luigi Pirandello, include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the...
wrote a few scenarios starting in 1734, but since he considered the genre too vulgar, he refined the topics of his own to be more sophisticated. He also wrote several true plays starring Commedia characters. By 1775, however, the genre of Commedia dell'Arte had lost public interest and died out. Improvisation today is very close to the Commedia.
Renaissance theatre
In Spain theatre thrived during its Golden Age, a period that lasted from c. 1580 to 1680. Three types of drama were popular: the religious one acts called autos sacramentales, the secular full- length comedias nuevas, and also the musical zarzuelas (Wilson 211-21). The writers of the comedias nuevas frequently called for female characters to cross-dress as men. In Spain women were first allowed to act in religious plays and later became present in secular performances (Wilson 221). Prior to this men and boys played women onstage. The Catholic Church at the time was against theatre and especially the presence of female performers (Wilson 221). They believed female actors were prostitutes (Shergold 523).
The Spanish government passed many laws concerning gender and theatrical performance. In 1587 the music died and a law was enacted that made it legal for women to act while simultaneously making it illegal for boys to play women, many attempts to legislate the stage followed this (Heise 385). In 1596 female actors were banned again and shortly after in 1598 the theatres were shut down only to be brought back in 1599, along with women being allowed back onstage (Heise 358). In 1600 the Council of Castile created a document of recommendations to the King that stated women could be onstage, but again boys could not play women, nor could they wear make-up. It was also stipulated that all female actors must be married and have their husband or father with them at the theatre (Heise 359). In the years following 1600 ordinances were put forth which regulated the types of dancing women were allowed to do onstage as well as how they were to dress (Shergold 519). In 1653 a law said that when the script required women to cross-dress, they could only do it on the upper half of their body (Shergold 520).
References:
Heise K, Ursula. “Transvestism and the Stage Controversy in Spain and England, 1580-
1680.” Theatre Journal 44.3 (1992): 357-74.
Shergold, N.D. A History of the Spanish Stage: From Medieval Times Until the End of
the Seventeenth Century. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1967.
Wilson, Edwin, and Alvin Goldfarb. Living Theatre: A History. Boston: McGraw Hill,
2000.
Neoclassical theatre
NeoclassicismNeoclassicism is the name given to quite distinct movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw upon Western classical art and culture...
was the dominant form of theatre in the eighteenth century. It demanded
decorumDecorum was a principle of classical rhetoric, poetry and theatrical theory. The term is also applied to prescribed limits of appropriate social behavior within set situations.-In rhetoric and poetry:...
and rigorous adherence to the
classical unitiesThe classical unities or three unities are rules for drama derived from a passage in Aristotle's Poetics. In their neoclassical form they are as follows:...
. Neoclassical theatre as well as the time period is characterized by its grandiosity. The costumes and scenery were intricate and elaborate. The acting is characterized by large gestures and melodrama.
Theatres of the early 18th century – sexual farces of the Restoration were superseded by politically satirical comedies, 1737 Parliament passed the Stage Licensing Act which introduced state censorship of public performances and limited the number of theatres in London to just two.
Late modern theatre
Late Modern, and especially
twentieth century theatreTwentieth-century theatre describes a wide range of movements in the theatrical culture of the 20th century, including Naturalism, Realism, and Expressionism.Landmarks of the period include:* Constantin Stanislavski and his system....
, often continues the project of realism. However, there has also been a great deal of
experimental theatreExperimental theatre is a general term for various movements in Western theatre that began in the 20th century as a reaction against the then-dominant conventions governing the writing and production of drama, and against naturalism in particular. The term has shifted over time as the mainstream...
that rejects the conventions of realism and earlier forms. Examples include:
Epic theatreEpic theatre was a theatrical movement arising in the early to mid-20th century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners, including Erwin Piscator, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold and, most famously, Bertolt Brecht...
,
absurdistAbsurdism is a philosophy stating that the efforts of humanity to find meaning in the universe ultimately fail , because no such meaning exists, at least in relation to the individual...
theatre, and postmodern theatre. Key figures of the century include:
Luigi PirandelloLuigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934,for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage." Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and c. 40 plays, some of which are written in...
,
Bertolt Brecht' was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director. An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the Berliner...
,
Antonin ArtaudAntoine Marie Joseph Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud was a French playwright, poet, actor and theatre director...
,
Konstantin StanislavskiKonstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski , was a Russian actor and theatre director. His innovative contribution to modern European and American realistic acting has remained at the core of mainstream western performance training for much of the last century...
,
Harold PinterHarold Pinter, CH, CBE , was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor, director, political activist and poet. He was among the most influential British playwrights of modern times...
,
Eugene O'NeillEugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright, and Nobel laureate in Literature. His plays are among the first to introduce into American drama the techniques of realism, associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August...
,
Samuel BeckettSamuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish writer, dramatist and poet. Beckett's work offers a bleak outlook on human culture and both formally and philosophically became increasingly minimalist....
,
Dario FoDario Fo is an Italian satirist, playwright, theater director, actor, and composer. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997. In 2007 he was ranked Joint Seventh with Stephen Hawking in The Telegraphs list of 100 greatest living geniuses...
and
Tony KushnerTony Kushner is an American playwright and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1992 for his play, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, and co-authored with Eric Roth the screenplay for the 2005 film, Munich.-Early years:Kushner was born in Manhattan, New York...
.
A number of
aestheticAesthetics is commonly known as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
movements emerged in the 20th century, including:
- Naturalism
Naturalism is a movement in European drama and theatre that developed in the late 1st and early 20th centuries. It refers to theatre that attempts to create a perfect illusion of reality through a range of dramatic and theatrical strategies: detailed, three-dimensional settings Naturalism is a...
- Realism
- Dadaism
- Expressionism
Expressionism was a cultural movement originating in Germany at the start of the 20th-century as a reaction to positivism and other artistic movements such as naturalism and impressionism. It sought to express the meaning of "being alive" and emotional experience rather than physical reality...
- Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
- Absurdism
The Theatre of the Absurd is a designation for particular plays written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, as well as to the style of theatre which has evolved from their work....
- Postmodernism
Postmodern theatre is a recent phenomenon in world theatre, coming as it does out of the postmodern philosophy that originated in Europe in the 1960s. Postmodern theatre emerged as a reaction against modernist theatre...
See also
- Professional Stagehands (IATSE
The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employes, or I.A.T.S.E., is a labor union representing technicians, artisans and craftspersons in the entertainment industry, including live theatre, motion...
)
- History of literature
The history of literature is the historical development of writings in prose or poetry which attempts to provide entertainment, enlightenment, or instruction to the reader/hearer/observer, as well as the development of the literary techniques used in the communication of these pieces. Not all...
- Play (theatre)
Sources
- Adejeji, Joel, "Traditional Yoruba Theatre." African Arts 3.1 (1969): 60-63.
- Banham, Martin et al., eds. The Cambridge Guide to African and Caribbean Theatre. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
- Freund, Philip, The Birth of Theatre, London : Peter Owen, 2003. ISBN 0720611709
- Freund, Philip, Oriental theatre : drama, opera, dance and puppetry in the Far East, London, Peter Owen, 2005. ISBN 072061208X
- Noret, Joel. “Between Authenticity and Nostalgia: The Making of a Yoruba Tradition in Southern Benin.” African Arts 41.4 (2008): 26-31.
- Soyinka, Wole. “The Fourth Stage: Through the Mysteries of Ogun to the Origin of Yoruba Tragedy.” The Morality of Art: Essays Presented to G. Wilson Knight. 1973.
- Wilson, Edwin. Goldfarb, Alvin. Theater: The Lively Art. Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 4 edition (June 21, 2001). ISBN 0-07-246281-7
External links
- Theatre Collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, with information and archive material
- University of Bristol Theatre Collection, University of Bristol
The University of Bristol is a university in Bristol, England. One of the so-called "red brick" universities, it received its Royal Charter in 1909, although its predecessor institution, University College, Bristol, had been in existence since 1876...
- History of London's West End Theatres Information and archive material on London's Historic West End Theatres.
- Music Hall and Theatre History Vast site with details on the 'Lion Comique' of British Music Hall, Arthur Lloyd. Also contains an archive of historical information and material on British Theatre and Music Hall buildings.
- Long running plays (over 400 performances) on Broadway, Off-Broadway, London, Toronto, Melbourne, Paris, Vienna, and Berlin
- (Ancient Greek Theatre)
- Communitas and classical Greek ritual theatre on www.mysticism.nl
- The Ancient Theatre Archive, Greek and Roman theatre architecture - Dr. Thomas G. Hines, Department of Theatre, Whitman College
Whitman College is a co-educational, non-sectarian residential undergraduate liberal arts college in Walla Walla, Washington.- History :In 1836, the missionaries Marcus and Narcissa Whitman established a medical mission and a school a few miles from the modern-day city of Walla Walla to serve the...
- Women's Theatre History : Online Bibliography and Searchable Database Langara College
Langara College is located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and has more than 23,000 students. Programs were first offered in 1965 at King Edward Centre as part of Vancouver City College. The current site at 100 West 49th Avenue has housed the programs since 1970. The college was established...