Convention in the Theatre

Collected lecture/discussion notes. Some parts are very fragmented, but offered here as a study aid, not a primary learning source. Citations are lost. None of the thoughts are original.

Conventions:
    Presentational vs. representational
    (theatrical vs realistic)

Styles approaches:
    Realistic
    Stylized
    Abstract
    Suggestive
Abstract-concrete continuum:
    Picasso's Women of Avignon.

Conventions:
    Conventional vs. unconventional

• Where does realism stop? Thereafter we agree it's real. [At skin, at clothes, etc., at hand props, at furniture, at floor, at walls.]
• Asides, soliloquis, fourth wall, diction and selective language.
• Have students name conventions [oriental face painting, puppets]

Conventions are systems of techniques whose meaning is agreed upon by audience and artist alike. They may also represent the rules by which the audience understands the play (this isn't meaningful, that is, etc.).

Conventions set up internal logic.

• Everything in a play makes sense within itself.
• Nothing can be left out or added without altering the experience.
• The ending is usually a logical and direct conclusion.

Whatever takes place must strike us as authentic. Must believe it while it happens and on its own terms. ["willing suspension of disbelief"]

Corrigan:

"Conventions are mutual agreements about the meanings of actions, gestures, and words that let us interpret and understand the social behavior of others almost spontaneously." Conventions are the "rules of the game" by which we understand what goes on. They are also accepted deviations from empirical reality.

"Conventions are the grammar of the theatre. They are the rules that govern a play's composition. One might even go so far as to say that in a very real way, the history of the theatre is a history of conventions. There are conventions of language and movement; conventional character types, conventions of theme; conventions of form; conventions of staging, design, and costumes even conventions regarding the relationship of the audience to the stage."

Problems arise when audiences are asked to agree to or play by new rules they haven't learned yet.

Use of Chorus

Origin: In dithyramb of 7th Century BC: Sang, chanted, danced legends, stories and lyrical odes.

During Sophocles' period:
    -15 members
    -usually in unison
    -occasionally 2 semi-choruses of 7 each, dividing speeches or exchanging as if responding to each other.

Functions of the chorus

1. As an actor: Advises, threatens to interfere, allied with protagonist.
2. Establishes ethical framework: may speak for author to set standards for judgement of actions of protagonist.
3. Ideal spectator: leads audience in the ideal response to the events.
4. Help set mood and heighten dramatic effects: Provides contrast, irony, intensifies with lamentations, etc.
5. Adds color, movement, spectacle. Choral interludes were sung and danced, may have been accompanied.
6. Establishes rhythm: retards forward progress of plot to allow reflection, intensification.

Costumes:

Masks:

• -made of lightweight linen, cork, wood
• -Each speaking character wore mask, some evidence even chorus, especially in comedy.
• -Purposes: Allowed males to play females; allowed 3 actors to do all speaking roles.
• -Mouths open for audibility (no evidence of use for megaphone) and otherwise not greatly distorted. (No use of onkos headress until later period.)

Dress:

• -Varied according to role and occasion
• -chiton == long sleeve, ankle length, embroidered for supernatural and non Greek.
• -daily dress generally worn - patterned but simple knee- or ankle-length chiton.
• -Also mourning dress, ragged clothes, distinctions of nationality.
• -Soft flexible high-topped boot (not cothurnus of later period).