Masked Drama
One of the key features of the Greek theatre was the use of masks. Actors and the chorus all wore masks made of wood, cork and linen.
The Greeks already understood that there was more interest in portraying an unusual character than a usual character - that is the purpose of films and theatre. Isabelle Huppert |
MelodramaOnce one of the most popular forms of theatrical entertainment, melodrama reached its peak in the mid to late nineteenth century. It has its own particular types of plots, characters and situations.
The constraints of melodrama can be a great blessing, because they demand that all the characters involved - as absurd and extreme as they may initially seem - must stay utterly rooted in their own reality, or the whole project collapses. Stanley Tucci |
RealismA number of developments at the end of the nineteenth century encouraged a change in the way people thought about theatre and acting. One important influence was the development of psychology as a field of study.
Suddenly we saw that you could do plays about real life, and people had been doing them for some time, but they weren't always getting to the audiences. They were performed in little, tiny, theatres. |
Expressionist Theatre
This movement developed in Germany in the early 1900's. Artists and writers reacted to what they saw as the mechanisation of human society and produced non-realistic artwork to challenge those changes.
Those of us born into vitalist and expressionist cultures must hope that governments will draw back from shutting down the modernist project of exploring, experimenting, and imagining - of voyaging into the unknown - that has been essential for rewarding lives. Edmund Phelps |
Theatre of the Absurd
The theatre of the absurd was a short-lived yet significant theatrical movement, centred in Paris in the 1950s. Largely based on the philosophy of existentialism, absurdism was implemented by a small number of European playwrights.
The absurdist is concerned with the search for meaning in the Universe. He believes this search to be meaningless - hence the disintegration of plot, character, and language in absurdist drama. Order is a falsehood that we, God, those who came before us, have imposed on a random universe. However, the absurdist is confronted with a curious paradox: though he believes the Universe to be meaningless, he cannot abandon the search for meaning - or he will die. Walter Wykes |
Physical Theatre
The kind of theatre associated with this concept can include dance-theatre, acrobatics, circus, stage combat, mask work, buffoons, comedia dell'arte, clowning, mime or the accentuated or stylised physical characterisations that are associated with melodrama or Greek tragedy
Physical theatre (or living theatre) exists at the intersection of the performing arts. It draws on traditions that are universal and blends techniques, styles and themes across a spectrum of theatre, movement, and gestural art. School of Physical Theatre UK |