Overview of what I've learned

The Shawl by David Mamet: the con of theatre. Dialogue. The literature of theatre. Miss A and John. Miss A feels the need to be told what to do.
Trouble in Mind by ?: Wiletta Mayer – musician first. Frustrated. Henry – Irish stagehand. Old. John Nevins – educated black actor. Millie Davis. Sheldon Forrester – black actor. Been in the business a while. Has the moment of recollection that causes the crew to stop. Judy Sears – young inexperienced white actress. Al Manners – white director. Bosses everyone around and denies his racism. Eddie Fenton – stage manager. Bill O’Wray – famous white actor. Big name in the play. . Themes – conflict of actors and director. Collective but individual. Race. Melodrama. Meta-Theatre: Play within a play. Microcosm – smaller version of something larger.
Joe Turner’s Come and Gone by August Wison: Seth Holly – owner of boarding house. Bertha – his wife. Bynum Walker – rootworker. Everyone has their own song. Selig – white peddler. The “people finder.” Herold Loomis – main character. Revelation at the end cutting himself. Self-mortification of the flesh to purify sin. Shining like new money. Zonia Loomis – his daughter. Martha Loomis – his wife. Themes – collective identity. Stage complications in terms of the Juba – seeing the whole and its pieces at the same time – layers of meaning or “palimpsest.”
• Rent - Mark Cohen, a struggling documentary filmmaker, the narrator of the show and the person who creates a final movie which details his friends' lives and journeys throughout the story. Ex-Boyfriend of Maureen.
• Roger Davis, an HIV-positive musician who is recovering from heroin addiction; Mark's roommate and Mimi's love interest.
• Tom Collins, a philosophy teacher and anarchist with AIDS; friend and former roommate of Roger, Mark, Benny, and Maureen; Angel's love interest.
• Benjamin "Benny" Coffin III, landlord of Mark, Roger and Mimi's apartment building; ex-roommate of Mark, Collins, Roger, and Maureen. Now married to Alison Grey of the Westport Greys and thus considered a yuppie sell-out.
• Joanne Jefferson, a Harvard-educated lawyer; Maureen's lover; lesbian.
• Angel Dumott Schunard, a drag queen street percussionist/musician with AIDS; Collins' love interest.
• Mimi Marquez, an HIV-positive S&M dancer and heroin junkie; Roger's love interest
• Maureen Johnson, a performance artist; Joanne's girlfriend; Mark's ex-girlfriend
(wikipeida.com)
Not a typical musical. Idiom of music theatre. Role of music. Something a musical does that a rock song doesn’t – character’s goals are different. Ephemerality of life. Polyphony – multiple voices simultaneously singing the different things. “agon” from protagonist – struggle or game.
Rosmersholm: John Rosmer, a former clergyman and owner of Rosmersholm Rebecca West, a resident at Rosmersholm" Professor Kroll, Rosmer's brother-in-law. Ulrik Brendel. Peder Mortensgaard. Mrs. Helseth, housekeeper at Rosmersholm. Well made play or Scribean – depends on material evidence of which there is none in this play. White horses represent death. Ambiguity. Realism. Melodrama.
Fires in the Mirror by Anna Deavere Smith. Actor technique. Meansof communicating by presenting an encounter between those who might not otherwise interact.
Shakespear in Love – love and lust. Authenticity. Do I suspend my disbelief? During “what is theatre” portion.
Theatre: comes from Theatron – “to see” or “place of seeing.” Adj. and verb. Both the action and place. Subculture. The exchange of info on the occasion of an event. Actor pretends to be the character while the audience looks on or A pretends to be X while S looks on. A and S are fully aware of each other. Mimesis – representation, imitation. Reality – real place time and people. Audience is critical part. Only recently has theatre crowd differentiated itself from rock concert crowd. Ephemeral – nothing left of the actual event, only intangible recollections. Mimesis – representation and imitation.
Critics basic questions: Understanding – what were they doing? Effectiveness – How well? Worth – Was it worth doing? Why read a critics essay – find out more about the performance, to gain some insight (purpose, meaning), to hear an opinion (judgment, argument).
Phenomenology verses Semiotics: P – what happens on a basic level? Look at it. Real, concrete. S – big picture. Interpretation. Looking Through it.
Actor is own instrument – body voice thought imagination. Discipline observation control style. Key question the actor asks themselves – “WHAT IF?” Body, Voice, Thought, Discipline, observation, control – stimulate, recreate. Style. Creating a role: preparation – table work, read-through. Exploration – movement, blocking, speech, gesture, intonation, articulation. Memorization Performance.
MISE EN SCENE: director’s instrument. Cohesiveness of the play. The overall affect of the play as a whole.
Director: Transcription – loyal as possible to original text, faithful rendition. Translation – capture the spirit of the play, even if there is slight departure. Transformation – create a new play. Transcend – invent something new, known as “writing in the mise en scene.” Virtually eliminates the playwright. The script alone is inadequate as basis for other productions. Two styles. Authority – director envisions, everything else is to make that vision happen. Collaboration – opposite, process of input. Director controls the image and controls/seduces the actors. Seduces the audience. Roles: leader/observer, critic, disciplinarian, teacher, friend. Relationships with the team. 1. Partnership (saxe-meiningen) 2. Auteur/Visionary (wilson) 3. Collective (brook, LeCompte) 4. Playwright/Composer (mann, Mamet).
Melodrama: Drama with music. Accompanies the text. Current connotation” emphasis or intensification, often to excess. Melodramatic hero – fights circumstance. Clear good vs. evil. Black cars, bad guys in pursuit, etc. Tragic hero – role in their own destruction, divided against themselves.
Exstasis: out of body experience. Pleasure or pain, physical or emotional.
Realism: contrast to idealism. Movement in literature and theatre. In theatre, move to prose. Class conscious. Even if it’s reality, we want to see the extreme – a condensed reality. We look at it not through it.
Sturm and Drang: “storm and stress.” Perfect characters in perfect situations until this point. After we see imperfection in characters and content.
Dumbshow: brief, non-verbal summary of the play right before it, a synopsis.