Exam 15: The Theatre of Asia

The most comprehensive and detailed theatrical treatise of the ancient world,detailing analyses of dramatic texts,the theatre building,acting,staging,music,and even theatre-company organization,is

The Mandarin term for Chinese Opera,xiqu,means

Imagine you are an actor getting ready for a Kabuki theatre performance.What do you think your training was like,who are you,walk us through the day of a performance until you walk off stage after the performance.(who is dressing you,doing your makeup,what is backstage like?)Use your imagination!

What type of theatre is characterized by the following description: a highly ceremonial,musical and dance drama,mysterious,tragic and usually supernatural;the 240 texts produced today were written by a father-son team five hundred years ago;its lines were designed to be sung rather than spoken?

Kabuki scenery provides

Bunraku's life-size puppets are manipulated by three handlers: one for the feet,one for the head,and one for the hands.

Kabuki dramatic types include history plays (jidaimono),domestic plays (sewamono),and dance-dramas (shosagoto).

Kabuki's greatest playwright was

Kabuki flowered during a period

In xiqu,men and women perform on the stage,although,since 1911,"gender" in this context is defined by makeup,costume,and the associations of the role.

The new etymology for the word "kabuki," reformulated by the end of the seventeenth century,was

Which of the following is true of theatre in Asia?

Kabuki actors must train for much of their lives,working from small parts to larger ones,inheriting major roles in their forties,and developing a "kabuki face" by their fifties.

By the end of the seventeenth century,kabuki

Although Bunraku was once performed for adults,the puppet shows today are performed exclusively for children's entertainment in Japan.

What is the role of the koken in kabuki? How do the koken add to the overall "philosophy" or themes of the kabuki form?

Compare and contrast the use of music in at least two of Asian theatre forms and two of American theatre forms.(Broadway,musicals,opera,etc. )

What drama,whose name means "story play," originated in rural villages in the province of Kerala in the seventeenth century and based itself on the stories from two great Indian epics,the Ramayana and the Mahabharata?

Which of the following is true of the relationship between ancient Eastern and Western theatres?

What statement best characterizes the relationship between Asian and Western theatre traditions today?