...definitionS of Pragmatic, Pragmatism, and the Pragmatic Theory of Drama in Plato and Aristotle. A University of Lagos, M.A Seminar Work By Larayetan, Raphael Segun, (Mat. No.139013058) COURSE: Theory of Drama LECTURER: Dr. Patrick Oloko Introduction: This paper attempts an exploration of pragmatics, pragmatism and pragmatic theory as perceived by scholars from different intellectual tradition with focus on drama as a genre of literature. From the classic to the contemporary period, dramatic theorists and dramatists have been involved in the polemics on functions of drama, whether it is an instrument of communicating ideas or just a genre of literature that only entertains. Whether drama entertains or bears the ideological or moral burdens which the author through his art intends to pass to the readers, drama unequivocally has a function which, according to Philip Sidney, is to “teach and to delight”. With this in mind, it can be established that every piece of drama sets out to achieve a function though critics and dramatists have disagreed on what the ideal function of drama should be. It is this light that the current paper explores the pragmatic theory of drama in Plato and Aristotle, or, simply put; how Plato and Aristotle perceive the ideal function of drama. Definition of Terms: Pragmatism is a theory that emphasises the dual function of a work of art. It stipulates the heuristic function...
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...A6-A Sabotaging Encounter Commentary Our group began the production, Dry Heave, by organizing each member’s role and identifying their involvement in each stage of the film. I chose director, in which my role was to oversee the film's artistic and dramatic aspects, while guiding the rest of the crew and actors. We did not have a scriptwriter, so I worked with the cinematographer and editor to create a realistic story, in terms of our equipment and cast. Being that our genre topic was Drama, we had a vision of it involving “high school drama.” We came up with the idea of two boys fighting over one girl, but we struggled in giving the film a meaningful ending. This is where the script supervisor and I came up with idea that the girl would be intentionally killed by one of the boys in revenge of her acting interested in both boys. I knew that we had to emphasis drama through facial expressions and body language, so I made sure to communicate with the cinematographer that in conversational shots we had to go CU or even ECU. Additionally, I collaborated with the set designer and cinematographer to construct a realistic high school environment. We agreed that we should utilize our schools locker area, workout facility, and parking lot to portray high school in a true sense. Once we moved into the production stage of the film, we found that construction noises were inhibiting the quality and consistency in the sound of the film. However, I suggested that we turn off the...
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...History of Early Greek Drama Typically all humans enjoy a good laugh. After all, “Laughter improves the function of blood vessels and increases blood flow, which can help protect you against a heart attack and other cardiovascular problems” (Smith). The attention of a human being is automatically grasped when it comes to dramatic and comedic situations. It is almost like the human brain has an on and off switched that is flipped on when drama is involved; or when something is funny. “Ancient greeks from the 5th century BC onwards were fascinated by the wuestion of the origins of tragedy and comedy” (Saskia). During the time origin of Athens greek theatre was still on the rise. Greek theater was in a way a celebration to honor the Greek Gods. “A Greek God, Dionysus, was honored with a festival called [by] ‘City Dionysia’” (Greece). At the Dionysus festival in athens there were three main people todirect and perform ech play. Usually the author of a play would be one of the cast members. There were three well known Greek tragedy play writers in the 5th century. A man by the name of Aeschylus was one of the manificent writers. “Aeschylus was the first of the 3 renowned prize-winning Greek writers of tragedy” (Gill). Because only three people were allowed to participate in a single play, Aeschylus acted in most of the plays he wrote. When Aeschylus died, it was allowed to replay his plays. The reason replying Aeshylus’s plays was because “…during the Classical perios, each tetralogy...
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...Name_____________Jawad Salman_________________________ Global Issue Response Form: Greek Drama (rev. 6/13) (The easiest way to complete the assignment is to download the Word file from CN or MyCourses, save it with your own filename, type your response into the Word document, save the document, and submit it. Please delete excess blank lines in each section.) Before completing this form, please see the sample Global Issue Response on CN and MyCourses (Bb) Submit your response via MyCourses Assignments in the correct folder for this response Check which one of the two relevant Global Studies learning outcomes best relates to your specific Global Issue topic. Your Global Issue response must be on one or more of the plays we have read in this course and the surrounding culture of 5th Century BCE Athens and Greece. _____ Describe and analyze a culture or society outside the United States, or describe and analyze some part or aspect of this culture or society in relation to the wider culture or society of which it is a part. (Choose this outcome for a topic that relates to the entire culture, such as religion, customs, and political structures.) __X___ Identify and analyze cultural or social diversity in a culture or society that is found outside the United States. (Choose this outcome for a topic that relates to some form of diversity within the culture, such as issues involving race, class, or gender.) Identify, in a sentence or two, your specific Global Issue...
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...theater season: the National Theater of Greece’s Medea, Joanne Akalaitis’ The Iphigeneia Cycle (a double bill that combines Euripides’ two Iphigeneia plays), a revival of Andrei Serban’s famous Fragments of a Greek Trilogy, and a four-and-a-half-hour adaptation of the Oedipus Rex were announced at the start of the season. Off-off Broadway versions will inevitably follow. The Brooklyn Academy of Music even hosted a dance/theatre piece based on the Eleusinian Mysteries. 1 The Classic Stage Company, an off-Broadway theater group devoted to performance and adaptation of Western classics, currently receives more scripts that re-work Greek tragedy than any other category of drama. 2 From a global perspective, New York is simply reflecting a trend set by important modern playwrights and directors worldwide. Greek drama now occupies a regular place in the London theater season. In the past twenty years, acclaimed productions have been mounted not only in Europe but also in Japan, India, and Africa. Translations are even beginning to proliferate in China, occasionally with unexpected results. A recent Chinese translator of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex referred to all the Greek gods generically as Apollo, since he could count on his audience’s ability to recognize this name from the United States space program. 3 The Greek theater festival at Delphi has played host to many of these performances, with the result that, for example, the Greek National...
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...Entertainment throughout the ages has remained the same, audiences are captivated by the morally gray areas, gory violence, and raunchy comedies with female leads (like Golden Girls and Sex in the City). With the way society has made us desensitized to almost all the twisted scenarios we see on tv and in the media it is not surprising that this thirst for debauchery is nothing new. I think the oedipus the king would be well received, and maybe even acclaimed with the way the story transitions smoothly, while it ties together the never ending drama that is presented throughout the play. The entire concept of Lysistrata can only be described as an old comedy. A old comedy by greek definition generally was political in nature, the statement being the need for an end to the war. Aristophanes did so in what can be considered one of the best comedies by having the woman, who were played by men, withhold sex from the Athenians to bring an end to the war. The play continues it’s jest on society and the war by having the chorus of old men and old women. The chorus of old men continually try to undermine the women, but the women usually being two steps...
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...DRAMA REACTION OF DEATH OF A SALESMAN ENG 125 DRAMA REACTION OF DEATH OF A SALESMAN Death of a salesman and Hamlet are both great stories and great dramas that over the age other than being taught in school has been left in the dust. The author of death of a salesman is Arthur Miller and his death of a salesman is known to be used in conveying social matter on the American society. Death of a salesman shows how the American dream can be harder to achieve than some people expect it to be. Arthur uses time to his advantage as he uses flashbacks to at one point have a conversation with his dead brother of a past conversation that he is showing other people as he is playing cards. They are used to show his brothers success to try and push him in the right direction for willies sake. His sons also go back to see their past and recollect. Gripping with a influence of the past is a theme that all literature has become in modern literature and of Death of a Salesman ("What Literary Devices Does Miller Use In "Death Of A Salesman"?", 2015). The American Dream The American dream in my eyes is for wealth and happiness and many people would have the same dream and thoughts of what the American dream is and how they would precede it. Willy is always looking for a way to fix his sons after their failures and he uses the aspect of foreshadowing to try and show that even with the best of wises there is not always a way to fix problems for people that do not want to be fixed or that cannot...
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...spirit!” (The Help, 2011). Audiences know what to expect from movies from their Genres,” they tell their audience up front what to expect from the product they are buying. If they like a particular kind of story, chances are they will like this particular film, especially if the writer and director give the expectations a little twist” (Truby, 2010). Genre theory is used in the examination of films in order to enable the classification of films. Genres are dependent on many influences, such as story line, what the audience expects and who the director is. Genre theory is how we describe films; it is the method of shortening literary works. Plot and Story The feature-length film I chose was The Help (2013), which is an American Drama film depicting the lives of black maids and their white employers exposing the racism that the black maids faced on a daily basis. The time is 1963 set in Jackson, Mississippi during the civil rights movement. The film that follows the lives of two black maids and a southern society girl (Emma Stone), who returns home from college, eager to launch her dreams of being a writer. Skeeter wants to write a book to explain that racism doesn’t just mean withholding of education and voting rights. It is told from the perspective of the black maids so it is narrated through the movie as the voice of black maids that suffered the racism from their employers. The interviewing of the black maids, who spent their lives taking care...
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...PHILIPPINE THEATER Theater in the Philippines is as varied as the cultural traditions and the historical influences that shaped it through the centuries. The dramatic forms that flourished and continue to flourish among the different peoples of the archipelago include: the indigenous theater, mainly Malay in character, which is seen in rituals, mimetic dances, and mimetic customs; the plays with Spanish influence, among which are the komedya, the sinakulo, the playlets, the sarswela, and the drama; and the theater with Anglo-American influence, which encompasses bodabil and the plays in English, and the modern or original plays by Fihpinos, which employ representational and presentational styles drawn from contemporary modern theater, or revitalize traditional forms from within or outside the country. The Indigenous Theater The rituals, dances, and customs which are still performed with urgency and vitality by the different cultural communities that comprise about five percent of the country’s population are held or performed, together or separately, on the occasions of a person’s birth, baptism, circumcision, initial menstruation, courtship, wedding, sickness, and death; or for the celebration of tribal activities, like hunting, fishing, rice planting and harvesting, and going to war. In most rituals, a native priest/priestess, variously called mandadawak, catalonan, bayok, or babalyan, goes into a trance as the spirit he/she is calling upon possesses him/her. While entranced...
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...Equus was first produced in 1973, a time when religion was no longer a given in a population, and people were getting used to having different views from their neighbours. In it’s original 1974 production it won the Tony Award, the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award and the New York Outer Critics Award for Best Play. Peter Shaffer uses contrast between images and aspects of characters to examine worship, and what effects it can have on a person. In spite of his crimes Alan is a normal boy, but can change dramatically when he is in worship. We mostly get to see him as normal when he’s with Jill; he has normal conversations with her and acts like a mostly normal boy. In contrast, he is often exhilarated and amazed whenever he hears about or interacts with horses, when he is in worship. His mother and father show some parts of his normal life; his father tries to make him read more and his mother teaches him, as she is an ex-school...
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...I remember when I realized I wanted to act for the rest of my life. Something just clicked in my brain and I knew that I had found my passion. I knew if I was to get any experience I had to start acting as soon as I entered high school. So once I became a freshman I signed up for Theatre Basics and Drama Club. However, the drama director at the time didn’t allow me a lot of experience since “freshman were to be seen, not heard”. Then, Mr. Smith stepped into the role of drama director my sophomore year. Of course working with him has really helped me grow as a person and entertainer. But I think the play that influenced me the most was The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie. That play brought me so close to the people of Drama Club, my director, and my current boyfriend. That play was the best two months of my life. The best nights before a play are dress rehearsals. This is the week before the first of our three performances. We get to stay in the library until ten at night and hang out and practice. That’s when we bond the most as a cast and make our play into an amazing show....
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...Plays are all about what people say and do, especially when we encounter them on the page instead of on the stage. First, read "Elements of Drama," which starts on page 1178 of your text. Then read August Wilson's Fences, which starts on page 1187. Think about what we learn about Troy and his sons through hearing them talk. They come from different generations, and each of them has had a unique experience of how the world works. Part of that difference derives from the fact that Troy grew to adulthood at the height of legal segregation, while the younger guys are coming of age during the Civil Rights movement. How does Wilson use dialogue to convey those differences? How does the idea of "manhood" show up in this play? Do these three men...
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...about humanity and about the human experience. The story has so much meaning to it, and for you to understand it you have to really analyze and dig deeper into this story. People seem to take reading this story into a whole different perspective. Even though the story may show different negative sides to humans you have to really understand the story to say this. Shakespeare is a very influential poet he persuades and explains to the readers a lot of different things in his poems and short stories. Shakespeare is basically in this story telling humans to be aware of their surroundings because you never know when something my go bad. While on the other hand Macbeth’s themes and other literary elements usually talks about the disaster of something or just tragedy. In my opinion, his whole story would be considered as a tragedy. In this play it shows a lot of drama and gives off a fiery but attractive tome that draws the reader into the theme in the play. Shakespeare’s is known as the encyclopedia of humanities as they examine the most realistic and controversial issues of human nature. Shakespeare’s describes Macbeth’s inhumanity and human nature, which continually struggles against the evils in his soul. “To be or not to be” is about the choices we make in our everyday lives. I think Macbeth sometimes shows the negative side of the human nature. This play shows the character of people. A poet once said, “Macbeth is an example of how power destroys personality and ruins one’s life...
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...tragedy. Each play depict the downfall of decent if flawed person, through some fatal error or misjudgment, leading to the protagonist death, and arousing pity on the part of the audience. The tragic nature of Hamlet is superior to Agamemnon in three key ways, hamlets status as the primary character compared to Agamemnon’s as mere secondary character. Hamlets siliques reveal his emotions while little is revealed of Agamemnon’s thoughts. Finally The most important reason that Hamlet is more tragic, in my opinion, is because the protagonist, Hamlet, is an integral part of the play and his character is much more developed. In Agamemnon, the protagonist, Agamemnon, is a secondary character to his wife who, in my opinion is the main character. Hamlet is a tragic hero, as is Agamemnon, following Aristotle’s criteria for the elements of a tragic hero. For example, they both evoke the audience’s pity and fear, have a major flaw of character and are destined to fall in some way (“Tragedy in Drama”). However, because Hamlet is the main character, we see, hear and understand more of his character. When Hamlet delivers his many dramatic soliloquies about mortality, betrayal, and the futility of life, he shows us his tortured world and the anguish, grief, and uncertainty which eventually takes over his life, leading to his death. As the reader, I felt so much sympathy for Hamlet and this made the play more tragic. On the other hand, the reader knows more about Agamemnon from the Chorus and other...
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...Drama 2 - Semester 1 Study Guide and Review FORMAT OF TEST Section 1: Fundamentals & Acting (50 points) 20 questions (30 points) 3 short response (20 points) Section 2: Tragedy & Comedy (50 points) 20 questions (30 points) 3 short response (20 points) Section 3: Shakespeare (50 points) 20 questions (30 points) 3 short response (20 points) Section 4: Performance (50 points) Students will perform a monologue separately for Mr. Finley and be scored via the rubric below. 200 Points Total 90 points from 60 multiple choice / 60 points from 9 short response / 50 points from performance For each short response section, there are four questions offered, and you will choose three to answer, leaving one unanswered. You may choose to answer one additional question on the test for extra credit. FUNDAMENTALS & ACTING VIDEOS Personal Aesthetic Voice and Articulation Viewpoints for Movement Acting – Three Things NOTES Basic Voice Terminology Voice Terms Audible – able to be heard Articulate – to shape the sound in the mouth for clarity Inflection – variety of vocal pitch Pitch – the relative highness or lowness of the voice Project – to send the voice out to the audience Rate – speed at which one speaks Resonance – a rich, warm speaking quality Volume – the relative loudness of your voice Parts of the Instrument Articulators – the parts of the mouth which shape and define sound Diaphragm – the muscle below the...
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