WEEK 4-7: The Performance
EQ: How can we develop performances that stay true to the spirit of Lysistratra but still have an emotional impact on a modern audience?
RUBRIC FOR PERFORMANCE!
AIMS:
To create and share a reasonable rehearsal schedule
To block out all scenes
To research and practice the Greek Physical style of acting
To memorize lines and blocking
To rehearse our scenes for pacing and performance
To costume our scenes
Daily Agenda:
Warm-Up (Physical and Vocal)
Group Rehearsal
Daily coaching by Caitlin (we will track progress via rehearsal schedule)
WEEK 3: The History
Asynchronous Week of Fun!
EQ: How can looking at the historical context of our play help us stage and interpret.
ASSESSMENT FOR THE WEEK!
This CHECKLIST will help guide you towards an MS/ES.
We will use it to coach with during the week!
Step 1: Choose a question that this play has brought up for you that is connected historically. Some examples might be...
What did the chorus actually look like while they were performing?
What costumes did the actors wear, where they realistic?
How did the actors use their bodies to perform?
What was the Peloponnesian war? Who was involved?
Step 2: Choose a presentation format.
Prezi
Power Point
Performance/Example
Step 3: Research and Questioning
1. Use the internet to google your question...
2. Start combing through the information and pick out the best
and most interesting.
3. Double check to make sure it's legit!
4. Put it together into some awesome presentation to share with the class!
Step 4: Coaching
Once you've got your topic chosen and you've put combed through it- come find me and we're gonna chat about what you've found.
Step 5: Finalize
Add any edits that I give you, add them in. Then get ready to present your work!
Step 6: Audience feedback
As you finish up- you'll present your work to a small group.
Here are some questions you can ask each other!
1. What implications does this have on your ideas of staging?
2. What parts of the play does your research directly connect to? How does it clarify our understanding?
3. What design choices might this effect? In what way?
WEEK 2: Aristotle's Poetics and Lysistrata
GREEK THEATER: A Brief Introduction
A bit more!
As you watched- was there anything that surprised you?
What connections were you able to make with your current understanding of theater?
Essential Question: How to we start to understand dramatic theory as it applies to the Ancient Greeks?
Aristotle's Poetics: The Essential Elements
Refers to the "structure of incidents" (actions). Key elements of the plot are reversals, recognition, and suffering. The best plot should be "complex" (i.e. involve a change of fortune). It should imitate actions arousing fear and pity. Thus it should proceed from good fortune to bad and involve a high degree of suffering for the protagonist, usually involving physical harm or death. Actions should be logical and follow naturally from actions that precede them. They will be more satisfying to the audience if they come about by surprise or seeming coincidence and are only afterward seen as plausible, even necessary. When a character is unfortunate by reversal(s) of fortune (peripeteia known today in pop culture as a plot twist), at first he suffers (pathos) and then he can realize (anagnorisis) the cause of his misery or a way to be released from the misery. It is much better if a tragical accident happens to a hero because of a mistake he makes (hamartia) instead of things that might happen anyway. That is because the audience is more likely to be "moved" by it. A hero may have made it knowingly (in Medea) or unknowingly (Oedipus). A hero may leave a deed undone (due to timely discovery, knowledge present at the point of doing deed). Character is the moral or ethical character in tragic play. In a perfect tragedy, the character will support the plot, which means personal motivations will somehow connect parts of the cause-and-effect chain of actions producing pity and fear.Main character should be
- good - Aristotle explains that audiences do not like, for example, villains "making fortune from misery" in the end. It might happen though, and might make the play interesting. Nevertheless, the moral is at stake here and morals are important to make people happy (people can, for example, see tragedy because they want to release their anger)
- appropriate–if a character is supposed to be wise, it is unlikely he is young (supposing wisdom is gained with age)
- consistent–if a person is a soldier, he is unlikely to be scared of blood (if this soldier is scared of blood it must be explained and play some role in the story to avoid confusing the audience); it is also "good" if a character doesn't change opinion "that much" if the play is not "driven" by who characters are, but by what they do (audience is confused in case of unexpected shifts in behaviour [and its reasons and morals] of characters)
- "consistently inconsistent"–if a character always behaves foolishly it is strange if he suddenly becomes smart. In this case it would be good to explain such change, otherwise the audience may be confused. If character changes opinion a lot it should be clear he is a character who has this trait, not a real life person - this is also to avoid confusion
- thought (dianoia)–spoken (usually) reasoning of human characters can explain the characters or story background
- diction (lexis)
- melody (melos)
- spectacle (opsis)
ARISTOPHANES: Our oldest comedian!
The most important Old Comic dramatist is Aristophanes, whose works, with their pungent political satire and abundance of sexual and scatological innuendo, effectively define the genre today. Aristophanes lampooned the most important personalities and institutions of his day, as can be seen, for example, in his buffoonish portrayal of Socrates in The Clouds, and in his racy anti-war farce Lysistrata. It is nonetheless important to realize that he was only one of a large number of comic poets working in Athens in the late 5th century, his most important contemporary rivals being Hermippus and Eupolis.
The Old Comedy subsequently influenced later European writers such as Rabelais, Cervantes, Swift, and Voltaire. In particular, they copied the technique of disguising a political attack as buffoonery. The legacy of Old Comedy can be seen today in political satires such as Dr. Strangelove and in the televised buffoonery of Monty Python and Saturday Night Live.