Similar Posts
Resources for Theatre’s Problem Play
The problem play, or play of ideas, contains strong characterisation and topical social issues. The genre is typically thought to have reached its maturity in the late 1800s with some of the works of Henrik Ibsen such as A Doll’s House (1879), Ghosts (1882), and An Enemy of the People (1882). These realistic social dramas frankly portrayed current social issues on the stage.
Fantasy
Though the fantasy genre in its modern sense is less than two centuries old, its antecedents have a long and distinguished history. Elements of the supernatural and the fantastic were an element of literature from its beginning. The hallmarks that distinguish the modern genre from tales that merely contain fantastic elements are the logic of…
Minstrel Show
The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface. Minstrel shows lampooned black people as dim-witted, lazy, buffoonish, superstitious, happy-go-lucky, and musical. The minstrel show began with brief burlesques and…
Biomechanics
Biomechanics was a system of actor training developed by Vsevolod Meyerhold. Its purpose was to widen the emotional potential of a theater piece and express thoughts and ideas that could not be easily presented through the naturalistic theater of the period. The techniques of Biomechanics were developed during the rehearsals of a series of plays…
Burlesque
Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects. The word derives from the Italian burlesco, which, in turn, is derived from the Italian burla – a joke, ridicule or mockery. Burlesque overlaps in meaning with…