Exam 18: The Modern Theatre: Antirealism

Characters in symbolist drama represent true-to-life individuals.

Verfremdung is a German word meaning

In Six Characters in Search of an Author,Pirandello uses theatricality itself as a theme of human existence to show that

Imagine you are directing King Lear by Shakespeare and you wanted to stage it as theatre of the absurd.Write a one- to two-page concept statement covering all the theatrical elements to start a dialogue with your design team.

Which of the following statements accurately captures the symbolist opposition to realism?

Which of the following antirealist movements dominated the theatre during the Cold War era?

This play presents a parable without a message,revealing a paradigm of human condition in which characters exchange songs,accounts of dreams,and try to make the best of a hopeless situation.

Which of the following is true of symbolism?

The constructivist who broke with Stanislavsky's style of realist performance to create a "biomechanical" style of acting and direction was

This theatre attempted to repudiate realistic conventions through stagecraft that called attention to its own artificiality and a didactic performance style that required the actor to "demonstrate," rather than "integrate with," his character.

Brecht's "alienation effect" attempts to bring the audience closer to the inner lives of the characters.

Because it ritualizes humanity's permanent condition,a play like Happy Days would be considered an example of "holy" theatre and is almost a one-woman show.

George Bernard Shaw's legacy of a witty,unsentimental,and fiercely intelligent verbal style has never been matched by other playwrights.

In the preface to his The Theater and Its Double,Artaud states that "to break through language in order to touch life is to create or recreate the theater." Starting with this quote,explore Artaud's relationship to the spoken and written word.Take a traditional play that you have already studied,such as Prometheus Bound,The Castle of Perseverance,or Romeo and Juliet and explain how it could be staged in the style of the theatre of cruelty.Think of how you would want the playwright's words communicated to your audience.

Which famously witty playwright-also a social reformer,street orator,essayist,and prodigious letter writer-used the stage as a vehicle for ideas by emphasizing dialogue that led to a superhuman verbal cascading?

Happy Days is a play about two tramps waiting for a happier day and ends very happily.

Explain how The Hairy Ape shows expressionist principles,and how these principles add to the themes of the play.

Of all the isms,expressionism has given rise to the most significant body of modern theatre.

Which type of drama,in vogue in Germany during the first two decades of the century,features shocking and gutsy dialogue,boldly exaggerated scenery,piercing sounds,bright lights,an abundance of primary colors,and heightened use of symbols?

The term avant-garde means,literally,"the major assault" or "shock troops."