Theatre Traditions East and West - Lecture Notes

Chapter 7: Theatre traditions: east and west The origins of theatre The theatre began in Africa. The first known dramatic presentations occurred in northern Africa at least 4500 years ago and as early as 3300 B.C. African theatre is older than that. Ritual performances can be seen in hundred African tribal groups as far back as 6000 B.C. Ritual A ritual is a collective ceremony performed by members of a society. The most ancient rituals were intended to summon gods and influence nature. Tribal rituals also rose to worship important life events, such as the changing of the seasons, to provide public witness to life passages. Others rituals reenact defining moments of a culture’s religious history – such as birth, death or resurrection of divine beings – allowing adherents to experience the passion of their culture’s sacred heritage. The early tribal rituals grew to involve elements we now consider theatrical crafts, including staging, costuming, makeup, music, dance, formalized speech, chanting, singing as well as specific physical props. Not all rituals are based in religion. Secular rituals exist in Western culture to give a spiritual dimension to more worldly events. The most common collective ritual in Western culture is the wedding ceremony, with its formal costumes./188 Whether sacred or secular, rituals dignify the events they represent, giving them enhanced meaning and authority. Ritual is at the very origin of theatre. It is the act of performers recreating, intensifying, and making meaningful the myths, beliefs, legends, traditions common to their collective lives. Storytelling Coming after ritual is the art of storytelling. It is more personal and individual than collective ritual performance, as it relies on a single voice – therefore a single point of view: it requires an audience. Storytelling generates elements of character impersonation – the creation of voices, gestures and facial expression that reflect the personalities of the individual portrayed, and seeks means to convey character emotions to the hearer-spectators. It also seeks entertain=> provide a structured story – rather than a random series of observations, which makes the narrative flow to compel audience engagement through suspense, varied graphic details and a calculated momentum of escalating events./189 If ritual makes an event larger than life, storytelling makes it personal and affecting. Shamanism, Trance, Magic Ancient dramas began in the combination of ritual and storytelling first on the African continent and afterward in tribal cultures around the world. They continued to be performed in Siberia, South America…. Storytelling provided an audience-attracting narrative, a link to events in daily human life, the freshness of detail and in the individuality of each performer’s special creativity. Ritual provided the intensity of the celebrants who could commit to the impersonation of divine spirits and the reenactment. Belief in the power of such spirits to animate objects has been called animism, a catchall term describing the basic religious impulse of tribal culture. /190 Shamans have been identified in tribal cultures since at least 13000 B.C. He can cure the sick, aid the hunter, make the rain come and crops grow. He also appears as mediums, taking the form of spirit, often animal or demonic. In most shamanic practices, the shaman performs his mastery – his travel between the human and spirit worlds and his incarnation of spiritual presences. His performance takes on a magical appearance. Ecstatic dancing and rapturous chanting are features of shamanism, climaxing in violent shaking at astounding speeds. Genuine transformation, both physical and psychological takes place as well. The San Bushmen of Namibia and Botswana eat live snakes and scorpions during hunting rituals. Costumes, body paint, masks disguise the shaman-performer, sometimes transforming him into a spirit presence. The mask rived from the ecstatic contortion of the shaman’s face during trance and served to represent the particular spirit that the trance-liberated shaman inhabited. The mask outlives the rituals that spawned it and remains today as the primary symbol of drama around the world. The beginnings of traditional drama When spoken dialogue comes into shamanistic rites, true traditional drama begins. The dialogue creates suspense, conflict, danger and action. Traditional drama in Sub-Saharan Africa More than 800 languages are spoken in Africa. Each represents a culture with roots in the past and social community in the present. Many have long-standing traditions of dance-dramas. The Dogon performers of Mali are celebrated for their stilt walking and colored masks. The Senufo of the Ivory Coast have animal masks with the tusks of wild boars, teeth of alligators. /192 Egyptian Drama Theatrical performances began in sub-Saharan Africa but they soon drifted northward, down the Nile River to Egypt. The first written records are in Egypt. Known as the Abydos Passion Play, this drama was staged at each spring in a boat procession along the Nile with performances taking places at several temples along the way. Modern anthropology has made clear that this Egyptian springtime resurrection drama derives from even more ancient ritualized reenactment of the coming of spring that celebrated the rebirth of vegetation in the fields. Such tragedy, however painful, brings with it rejuvenation and hope. To emphasize the connection between the drama and nature’s annual process of renewal. Theatre in the West Drama did not continue to flourish in the Middle East. The ancient tradition there has disappeared by the third century B.C. Greek drama The drama of Athens stands as one of the greatest bodies of theatrical creation of all time. A magnificent and vigorous blend of myth, legend, philosophy, social commentary, poetry, dance, music, public participation and visual splendor, Athenian drama created the forms of both tragedy and comedy. Characters have become cultural archetypes in successive ears and laying thereby the foundation of Western drama and continuing debated as to how and what purposes. Greek tragedy derived from ancient, orgiastic rites, filled with wine-drinking, phallus-worshipping and he chanting of ancient poems, called dithyramb, in honor of the Greek Dionysus-the god of theater. Dionysus was the counter part of Egypt’s Osiris. When classic Greek dramas came to be staged on the Athenian acropolis by the latter part of the 6 th century B.C, It was at the Great Theatre of Dionysus that the demigod’s rebirth was celebrated. Dionysus has been considered the founding deity of Western drama. /193 Three great tragedians – Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides had written and produced close to 300 plays. There was a brilliant author of comic drama – Aristophanes. Other author of Greek comedy, including Menander, and literary theorists, including Aristotle plied their trades in the century that made for one of the richest bodies of dramatic work ever created. Greek tragedies explored the social, psychological and religious meanings of the ancient gods and heroes of Greek history and myth. /194 The comedies presented contemporary issues affecting all Athenians. Both types were first staged in a simple wheat-threshing circle on the ground ( the orchestra) with a dressing hut ( skene) behind it; the audience was seated on an adjacent hillside (the theatron). Ancient Greek actors were all male. They performed in masks to indicate the age, gender, personality of the characters they were playing and to amplify their voices/ (The word person derives from the Latin per sonum, or “for sound”). It became the root of the term dramatic personae or “cast of characters” –“ persons). Each tragic actor wore elevated shoes ( kothurnoi), an elaborate headdress (onkos) and a long colorful gown ( himation) with a tunic over it ( chlamys) to enhance the struggles between royal heroes, gods, and demigods. Plays were performed with only two actors /195 Greek tragedies was chanted or sung, not spoken. The music has not survived. Greek tragedy is the foundation of Western musical theatre, including opera. Greek comedy is the foundation of burlesque, satire, tv sitcoms. The plays of Aristophanes, referred to as Old Comedy, are filled with broad physical humor, gross sexual gags. The later plays of Menander, known as New Comedy, gave rise to “stock characters” and comic plot devices. The city dionysia was a weeklong of celebrations and dramatic competitions. 1st day: each playwright introduced his cast and the theme of his work 2nd day: featured procession, sacrifices. 3rd day: 5 comedies were played. 4th, 5th, 6th day: 3 completing playwrights presented 3 related tragedies ( trilogy), a comic variation or parody (a syr play) on the same theme. The authors served as the directors of their works. 7th day: judging took place, prizes for the best play and best leading actor. /196 Roman drama Created some astonishing stage building They also cut the orchestra in half and created tunnel entrances to it ( vomitoria) on both side. The simple Greek skene became an elaborate three-storey wall ( the frons scaenae) decorated by dozens of statues Romans dramatists almost always drew upon Greek sources for their work indeed most roman plays are about comic playwright Plautus and Terence. Quite popular in their time. Roman theatre degenerated into sheer spectacle and decadence by the end of the empire. Greek and Roman drama form a “classical theatre” Tradition. Medieval drama Both early Christian and the newly founded Islamic religions banned theatrical representation altogether in reaction to the excess of Roman theatre. The western drama reappeared before the year 1000. It was a different product sponsored by the same Christian Church once banned it. Medieval drama remained in church in liturgy for nearly 2 centuries but about 1250, Bible-based drama had moved outdoors into church yards and public streets in the emerging modern languages of French, English, Spanish, German, Italian rather than Latin. The actor were no longer monks but ordinary citizens sine if them who is the master had well-paid for their effort. The audience was highly prized by their community. Entire festival of such plays were presented in hundreds of European towns every springs, On the European continent, drama festival lasted for many days or even weeks, with huge cast performing on a series stages (know as mansion) set up. In England the plays were performed on wagon-mounted stage, one for each play. Ay 1st glance, these mystery plays may appear primitive. The Bible-based medieval theatre was a monumental enterprise that affected the lives of the entire culture that created and experienced it. Renaissance Drama Medieval drama was created in ignorance of its class called predecessors. Their influence proved overwhelming. It began in Italy. By the 1520, Florentine diplomat and essayist Niccolo Mchiavelli was famous for his learned comedies. By the middle of the 16 th century the semi improvised variation of that comedy known as comedia dell’arte was performed by itinerant professional actor. It brought the greatest dramatic master pieces in England. The royal theatre The 17th century theatre of this Royal era featured the dramas of Pedro Calderon de la Barca, the tragedies of Jean and Pierre Corneille and the comedies of Moliere under King Louis IXV Plays of the Royal era were aimed at the aristocracy than at the general populace and reflected the gentility pg the refined taste of courtly patrons. Rational sensibility dominated the times: theories of drama, adapted from Aristotle and hence called “neoclassic”, sought to regularize plays within “reasonable” frameworks of time and places. Indoor theatre replaced outdoor public theatre of earlier timed, providing more intimate and comfortable surroundings for an increasingly well-dressed audience. Protection from wind and weather permitted painted scenery and stage machinery. Style, wit, grace and class distinction became its chief subject, and the fan and snufÈox became signature props. /206 The romantic theatre The romantic theatre of the 18 th and 19th centuries was a bold rejection of the rational decorum of the preceding Royal era and its spirit of ordered, elegant. Romanticism was florid, exotic and imbued with the free-flowing spirit of the individual rather than the social organization of class. Compassion was central to the romantic creed, and authors, such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich von Schiller in Germany and Victor Hugo in France intrigued audiences with their deep humanitarian concerns in plays that dealt with devils and monsters, robbers and priests. Romanticism gave rise to melodrama and grand opera. The romantic quest for the foreign and exotic represented Western drama’s first serious reengagement with the theatre of the East Theatre in the East Asian dramatic forms adhere to many fundamental principles, in strong contrast to Western traditions: 1. Asian drama is almost never just “spoken”; it is danced, chanted, mimed, and very often sung. 2. Asian dramatic language is rhythmic and melodic it is appreciated for its sound as much as for its meaning. Alliteration, imagery, rhyme and verbal juxtaposition are often as important in Asian dramatic dialogue as logic and realism are in Western drama; and the sonic value of words is as valued by an Asian audience as their semantic value Is by a Western audience. 3. Asian theatre is more visual and sensual the literary or intellectual. Some Asian dramatists are known for their literary gifts. Most Asians would consider the act of reading a play a rather odd pastime. Asian drama is inextricable from the arts of performance that bring it to life: dance song, mime… 4. Asian theatre has a strong emphasis on story-telling and myth and rarely leads to escalating incidents. Stunning reversals. Asian theatres are at the very heart of Hindu and Buddhist cultures. Its appeal is more continuous and rapturous than cathartic or arresting. /206 5. Asian theatre is broadly stylized. 6. Actors train in traditional Asian dramatic forms through an intense apprentice system beginning in early childhood and lasting into early middle age. 7. The Asian theatre is deeply traditional. What is remarkable abt Eastern theatre is its near- universal consonance with folk history, ancient religions, and cultural myths. Indian Sanskirt Drama The treatise describes ten major genres of Sanskirt drama, including two primary ones: the nakata, which was based on well-known heroic stories of king or sages, and the prakarana, based on the, of love. Sanskirt theatre was performed indoors, within roofed buildings. Two door provided access to the dressing area behind the stage and for columns held up the roof or an upper pavilion. It died out around the 10 th century. /207 Indian Kathakali The most known of these regional dance-drama form is the kathakali (“story play”) which originated in rural villages in the province of Kerala in the 17 th century; it plays in many urban center and often abroad. It is a drama based on any of thousands of stories from the two great Indian epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Its performance is of an epic, with its outdoor performances lasting from 10 at night until well past dawn the next day. Audience members are free to leave, take naps, eat during the performance. In kathakali, the text is sung by 2 singers seated at the side. Actors dance and pantomime the dramatic action. Highly stylized makeup and costume also convey characterization and atÝtude: red-or-black-bearded characters represent evil, white bearded ones the divine. Plays are presented in arbitrary system with 4 poles defining the acting area. Chinese Xiqu Chinese theatre is more sung than spoken; it is based on tonal changes as well as syllabic pronunciation – all traditional Chinese theatre is known by the Chinese term xiqu (“tuneful theatre”)=> Chinese opera. The first well-defined opera form, known as zaju (“various plays”) appeared in China during the Song dynasty in the 10th century. ZAju was a comedic music-dance-drama, with acrobatics and clowning. By the end of the Ming dynasty, zaju had been succeeded by a more aristocratic and poetic opera known as kunqu, originating from the town of Kunshan. Many regional theatre styles, influenced by zaju, kunqu and clapper-opera forms, arose throughout the country. The most famous Chinese opera in modern times is Beijing opera. / 208 The stories and plots of Chinese opera are ancient and well known, the actual staging of such works becomes a celebration of the performer’s individual skills ( gong); actors must master the classic fourfold combination of singing ( chang), speech (nian), acting and movement (zuo), and martial arts and acrobatics (da). Nearly all Chinese opera performers are proficient in all four of these arts, the greatest performing artists mastering each of them to virtuoso standards. Chinese opera offers a spectacular visual feast, with dazzling costumes, huge glittery headdresses, and colorful face painting. Actors of both sexes wear multilayered gowns in bold primary colors; many of them have “water-sleeves”, which fall all the way to the floor. Chinese opera singing is accompanied by the near=constant clanging of gongs and cymbals, clapper claps, drumbeats. Movement skills include a rapid heel-to-toe walk contortionist bendings and swayings, sudden jerks and freezes, and thrilling displays of full-stage acrobatics. Chinese opera has never been dependent on scenery-an actor who enters holding a paddle behind him is assumed to be on a boar, but its storytelling conventions and its spectacular musical, visual, acrobatic displays offer audiences one of the world’s most thrilling and magnificent experiences. Japanese Nò: The island nation of Japan has created two great theatre forms: No and kabuki Each is virtually a living museum of centuries old theatre practice. No and kabuki are performed today in very much the same fashion as in earlier times. No is Japan’s most reversed and cerebral theatre. It is also the oldest continuously performed drama . Perfected in the 14 th and 15th century almost solely by a single father-son team. No is highly ceremonial drama, mysterious and tragic, that almost always portrays supernatural events and characters. All no plays center on a single character, the shite (the “doer”), who is interrogated, prompted, and challenged by a secondary character, called the waki. Whereas waki characters are always living male humans-usually minister, commoners or priest. Shite character might be gods, ghosts, women, animals. The shite roles, unlike the waki, is played on a mask, No actor-all of them are male-train for only one of these role types which they normally performed. Actual no stage is precisely measured squared of highly polished Japanese cypress flooring. A bridge like runway (hashigakari) provides stage access from stage right. It is used for solemn An ornate curved roof covers the stage was housed in separate building which the audience observed from a distance. The no roof is supported by 4 wooden pillars. 4 man orchestra- whose instrument provides continuous musical accompaniment at the rear of the stage and a chorus of six to ten singer chanters. No has never been theatre of mass entertainment, and 1 st time patrons today including many Japaneseoften find it bewildering. The language is medieval, elliptical and often forbiddingly obscure. The cast is small, the action relative static, and the pace by modern standard, nearly glacial: the basic no walk, said to be derived from tramping through rice paddies, is an agonizingly deliberate slip slide shufÒe, with the feet barely leaving the ground. The actors are trained to keep their faces immobile and expressionless at all times even when unmasked. No is producing more for enthusiasts than for the general public. It sublime mystery and serenity- reflective of deep Buddhist and Shinto values- resonate profoundly in contemporary Japanese life and have proven increasingly influential to Japanese as well as western dramatists of the current era. Japanese Kabuki Created 200 years ago, kabuki has always been a spectacular and accessible form of theatrical entertainment Kabuki is gaudy and exhilarating; it was created to delight large crowds of merchants, traders. Courtesans and ordinary city dwellers. Kabuki is a theatrical extravaganza of dazzling colors, dance and recitation, effects. Japanese audiences often respond by shouting their favorite actor’s namses or other words of encouragement in the play. It was created in 1600 by Izumo Okuni. The extravagance of Okuni’s costumes and the fact that women performed both male anf female parts invited the term Kabuki, meaning “askew” – punk. This entertainment was transformed by midcentury through a series of government edicts. More complex dramatic storytelling was adapted into the evolving format, a term made up of 3 major ingredients of kubuki: ka (“song”), bu (“dance”), ki(“skill”). Kabuki staging incorporated curtains and scenery, platwright’s names was printed in kabuki programs, creating 2 principal kabuki acting styles: wagoto (the elegant and naturalistic “soft style” of actor Sakata Toujurou I in Tokyo), and aragoto (the thundering “rough style” of Ichikawa Danjurou I in Edo). The tradition of both actors remain to central to kabuki to the present day. /212 There are many types of kabuki dramas, but the major works fall into 2 categories: history plays (jidaimono – period things) and domestic plays (sewamono – common things). The history plays dramatize major political events of the remote past: the historical distance was more than a protective cover for past playwrights and actors, who were reflecting various controversial issues of nobles and political ofÏcials of their own time. Domestic plays deal with the affair of the townpeople, lovers, of the playwright’d own era, focusing on the conflict between affairs of the heart and the call of duty. A great many domestic plays end in suicide, with the lovers vowing to meet again the world to come=> ban plays. Kabuki is mainly an actor’s theatre; many of its plays are unknown. Kabuki author Chikamatsu Monzaemon – the famous playwright of Japanese puppet theatre bunraku. /213