Arts and Entertainment^345
TRAGEDY
A classical Greek tragedy is a serious play
about the sufferings of an often mythical hero
or heroine. It showed how people behaved in
terrible situations, allowing the audience to
face their fears in the safety of a theatre.STAGE ARENA THRUST PROSCENIUMFIND OUT MORE. Opera 338 • Writers 348
COMEDY
Comedy is a play that makes us laugh. It
deals with people and their relationships
to each other. By laughing at the actors on
stage and through wit (jokes), we reach an
understanding of the characters’ foolishness.WHY DO PEOPLE WATCH TRAGEDY?
According to the Greek scholar Aristotle (384–322 BCE),
the audience shares in the sadness and fear of the
characters they are watching. At the end of the play,
the audience feels emotionally purified and uplifted by
the release of tension. This process is called catharsis.ARE THERE MODERN TRAGEDIES?
There are modern tragedies, but not many are similar
to Greek plays. Today tragedy is often the unhappy
story of an ordinary person with many faults. The
tragedy occurs, not because a hero has a tragic flaw,
but because beliefs or illusions are destroyed.IS SATIRE A TYPE OF COMEDY?
Satire is a cruel form of comedy that criticizes society
by showing the weaknesses of public figures. Satire
uses caricature (exaggeration of a person’s character)
and mockery (making fun of someone). The first great
writers of satire were the Ancient Romans.WHAT IS MIME?
Mime expresses a mood or an idea through gestures
and facial expressions, without using words. The
well-known mime characters Harlequin and Pierrot
developed in Italian theatre during the 16th century,
and later gave rise to the clown. In China, drama
contained no words until the 19th century.
IS DRAMA ALWAYS PERFORMED IN A THEATRE?
Street theatre is performed in public places and is
often free to those who watch. It aims to bring plays
to people who would not generally get the chance to
go to a theatre, and is a direct way of communicating
with local people about issues that affect them.
STAGE
In the theatre, a stage is a platform where plays are performed.
The Ancient Greeks watched drama in round, open-air theatres. The
Romans also had the same, but unlike the Greek theatres, they were
smaller and had retaining walls rather than being built into hillsides.ARE ALL STAGES THE SAME?
The most common type is the proscenium stage, where the audience is separated
from the framed, raised stage by a curtain. It was invented in Italy in the 18th
century. Other stage designs try to bring the audience and actors closer together.1 ELIZABETHAN COSTUME
Ben Jonson’s Volpone (1606) was one of many great English plays written
during or shortly after the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). To
conjure up the period the designer recreates Elizabethan costumes.
1 GREEK CHORUS
In Greek tragedy the chorus was
a group of performers who spoke
in unison and performed ritual
dance steps together. The role
of the chorus was to provide a
commentary on the main action.1 FARCE
Noises Off (1982) by English writer
Michael Frayn is a farce, a type of
comedy with very silly behaviour.TYPES OF STAGE 3
The arena stage is modelled on
the Greek theatre. The thrust
stage was very popular
in the Elizabethan period.AUDIENCE16–17th Shakespeare
century (England)17th Molière
century (France)
18–19th Goethe
century (Germany)
19th Wilde
century (England)
19–20th Chekhov
century (Russia)19–20th Ibsen
century (Norway)
20–21st Miller
century (USA)
20–21st Soyinka
century (Nigeria)KEY PLAYWRIGHTS