Modernism Notes @ Theatre with Anatoly, script analysis

May naturalism in the theatre die! ~ Evgeny Vakhtangov Modernism Notes @ Theatre with Anatoly, script analysis

2008 -- Quotes & Thoughts:

www.flickr.com

anatolant's theatre photoset

2008: 15 min Fest

... script.vtheatre.net/413/1/5

Modernism, Art Nouveau * Playscript Analysis of the Century * THR413 Playscript: 2006!

Drama:

amazon.com + groups.yahoo.com/group/dramlit must subscribe, if in class! * anatolant.spaces.live.com my T-blog

TOPICS: drama + comedy + postmodern + time + space + writer + play + plays/theory + death + sex + family + generations + wrong subjects + [ 0 ] [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ]

"Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?" -- George Bernard Shaw

[ advertising space : webmaster ] * MODERNISM'05: THR413 Playscript Analysis links: Artaud: Theatre of Cruelty

Manifestos (see Dada/Futurism Pages)

Realism

Drama

Postmodern

Notes for THR 413 class Playscript Analysis (we start this course with modernism) and THR 215 Dramatic Literature (we end with modernism).
THR 215 -- brown color texts (no way, see subdirectories, new).

20th Century Decades America

Spring 2003: Don Juan - Biomechanics & Comedy
Spring 2002: Dangerous Liaisons & Realism & Method eGroup
vTheatre-WebEvent

HamletWeb 2002

GeoAlaska: Theatre & Film

script.vtheatre.net listing

DVD: Drama & Art House, Studio Specials & Classics, New & Future Releases, Cult Movies

Fall 2002 THR215 Dramatic Literature: Bedford Compact Intro to Drama See!

theatre books

Drama Pages & 200X Files Aesthetics

Mailing List & News -- subscribe yourself *

Theory of Spectatorship

Method for Directors?
my calendar

Key Terms: glossary

ShowCases: 3 Sisters, Mikado, 12th Night, Hamlet, The Importance of Being Earnest, Dangerous Liaisons, Don Juan
prof. Anatoly Antohin Theatre UAF AK 99775 USA (907)474-7751

Hamlet2001

HamletDreams:

Theatre Dictionary I:

THR121 Fundamentals of Acting Textbook Spring 2003:
Acting in Person and in Style $63.55Subscribe to my Open Class @ 3sisters

THR221 Intermediate Acting (BM) Textbook Spring 2003:
Actors on ActingSubscribe to my Open Class @ 12night

Spring 2003: THR331 Fundamentals of Stage Directing Textbook:
The Director's EyeSubscribe to my Open Class @ Directing!

THR334 Film & Movies Textbook Spring 2003:
How to Read a FilmSubscribe to Open Class @ 200x Aesthetics

new: 2003 *

Reading List(s) :

Summary

Modernism
Traditionally equated with the new and progressive
Breakdown of the Enlightenment Project

Beliefs of Liberal Humanism

General
Absolute Truth
The world can be controlled and ordered
We can picture and represent the world
Belief in linear progress
Metanarratives supporting the main direction of history

10 Specific
Universality
Universality = no context outside of text
Universality means text must be studied in isolation (context, personal ideologies)
Human nature is unchanging
People's individuality (personality) is transcendent
Purpose = humanist enhancement of life
Form & content must be organic
Human-ness is in the work not the author
Show it don't tell it Criticism should mediate b/t the perceiver and the object

pomo [compare]

"Optimistic dialectic drives music out of tragedy with the scourge of its syllogisms: that is, it destroys the essence of tragedy, which can be interpreted only as a manifestation and illustration of Dionysian states, as the visible symbolizing of music, as the dream-world of Dionysian ecstasy." The Birth of Tragedy
And this is why Modernism came to its end.

Questions

Yes, in my timetable "Modernism" starts with Shakepeare, and what they call "1900-1945" I call "High Modernism"... Everything after -- postmodern, POMO, PM (Beckett and After).

Notes

Modern: 1900 to 1945? Contemporary: 1945 to present? And would we say a century from now?

brockett

"Theatre is not a mirror but a magnifying glass." Mayakovsky

2005: Total Acting & Total Directing * Fall 2003: Modern Drama: Selected Plays from 1879 to the Present Walter Levy, Pace University ISBN: 0-13-226721-7 Prentice Hall Paper; 985 pp Published: 10/21/1998

MODERNISM AND THE IDEA OF THE AVANT-GARDE: what makes a Modernist? End of the nineteenth century reinterpretations of the realist project: the late plays of Ibsen and Strindberg; Maeterlink, Wilde and the rise of 'symbolism'; an illustrative art-history on acetate of the impact of new ideas of representation in painting: 'The Shock of the New' (I) - realism, naturalism, impressionism and symbolism. [ My focus is Chekhov, strating point for XX c. ]

DECADES:

* "MANUFACTURING THE MYTH OF PROGRESS": futurism in Italy: Marinetti, manifestos and the denial of symbolism; Italian futurist plays; futurism in Russia: Mayakovsky; Meyerhold's modernist break with Stanislavsky and naturalism, and the development of constructivism in the theatre; illustrative art-history on acetate: futurist and constructivist paintings.

* WAR AND THE EXPLOSION OF THE MYTH OF PROGRESS: the post-war modernist reaction: Tzara, Ball, Richter, et al; dada: subversion, iconoclasm, nihilism, and the celebration of nonsense; the decline of dada and the rise of surrealism: Breton's manifestos; the search for revolutionary self-awareness: the arrival of Antonin Artaud; illustrative art-history on acetate: dada collages and surrealist paintings. dramatic theory [ I like the 14 weeks strusture in this UK course ]

* ARTAUD AND CRUELTY: the ideas and work of the theatrical visionary, Antonin Artaud; the theatre of cruelty: ritual, primitivism, spectacle; Artaud's influence on Brook; an 'Artaudian' playwright: Jean Genet. + POST-WAR EXPRESSIONISM: the expressionist experiment continued: Bruckner in Germany and Treadwell in America; the influence of expressionism on early Brecht.

* BRECHT, MARXISM AND MODERNISM: how is Brecht a modernist? How is Brecht a marxist? The importance of the aesthetic and political disputes between the modernists and the marxists; Brecht's work in theory and in practice.

I teach Theatre Classes (for more theory take Engl. or Philosophy or other classes)... Every time I teach "drama" classes, I move further away from lectures and even from the seminar's format. I wish it could be taught as WORKSHOPS, when actors, directors, designers, writers could experiment with the different styles of theatre. The "writing segment" I introduced recently at the end of the course is an expression of this thought.

* 2005 updates (subdirectories: 215 and 413)!

Use of Scientific method (method of observation & hypothesis to suggest solutions to problems) * and revolt against it!

Darwin: Evolution of Species in 1856, survival of fittest, humankind in evolutionary process, importance of heredity
Marx: Scientific method in economics, politics. All human behavior analyzed in terms of class struggle, good/services
Freud: Scientific method in study of human behavior, psychology; what motivates people to behave like they do; also interest in interior personality, dreams.

Ibsen and Early Modernist Theatre, 1890-1900 by Kirsten Shepherd-Barr; Greenwood Press, 1997

Twentieth-Century Theatre: A Sourcebook by Richard Drain; Routledge, 1995

... Ms. Julie

Script Index * Thr w/Anatoly Index * PLAYS * 215 DramLit * 413 Playscript Analysis * Themes Scripts subdirectory! *
Acting: Method * Biomechanics * Directing * Write * THR Books * Theatre Theory * Book of Spectator * 200X Aesthetics * Film * * FILM-NORTH * Film Books * Mining Film * Film & Drama * Shows * Virtual Theatre * Web * CLASSES * * My Nonfiction (webtexts): Theology of Technology * POV * PostAmeriKa * Father-Russia * Bookmark vTheatre! Mailing List & News -- subscribe yourself * Film600: Bad Theory, Wrong Subjects (new) * Anatoly's Blog *

Modernism is a cultural movement that generally includes progressive art and architecture, music and literature which emerged in the decades before 1914, as artists rebelled against late 19th century academic and historicist traditions. [see wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism]

attention to The explosion of modernism 1910�1930 and Modernism's second generation (1930-1945) + Modernism after the Second World War (1945-)

Modern art - Symbolism (arts) - Impressionism - Expressionism - Cubism - Surrealism - Dadaism - Futurism

20th century - Modernity - Existentialism

...Preceded by Romanticism (?)

"These ideas at first owed much to symbolism. The symbolists saw theatre as a potential crucible in which the arts of poetry, painting, music and dance might be harmoniously fused. Then it might manifest the dreams and yearnings of human life, freed from Its mere material conditions. Such ideas predate modernism proper, and are largely reserved for Part IV of this volume. But the vital part played by this early movement in establishing the artistic credentials of theatre cannot be entirely passed over here; for this is the base from which much theatrical modernism operates. Hence the inclusion here of Adolphe Appia and Gordon Craig. Appia is a crucial pioneer, seeking a theatre sensitive to �the spirit of music�, and a stage that could offer equivalent qualities of rhythm, tone and harmony in the unfolding movement of its actors in a space architecturally conceived, the whole freely moulded and accented by the play of variegated lighting. Such considerations were not only foreign to theatres of the time, but impossible to realise without a wholesale rethinking of current stage practice, and indeed equipment. Appia carried this through, preparing the way for Craig and others, and implicitly introducing the stage to the concept of abstract form." [ Richard Drain; Routledge, 1995 * Twentieth-Century Theatre: A Sourcebook, link -- bottom, right ]
- Part I: The Modernist Dimension - Introduction - 1: Alfred Jarry - 2: Adolphe Appia - 3: Gordon Craig ( biblio, books and, also, see history of theatre directing)

Review on Modernism

2004: 20th Century Page -- Modernism Timeline 1890-1940 (AmLit)

"... They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at Elysian Fields..."
20th Century = Crisis of Moderninty: view from the top -- back (THR215) and to the transition to postmodern (THR413)
[Definition] Chronology: 16th century (Shakespeare and Galileo), French and American Revolutions, High Modernity (turn of the century). How and why did we move into Postmodern (the Crisis of Ideology of modernism) From The Age of Revolution to the turn of the century (short historical overview).
Last 100 years of Modernism (high modernity): Re-Definitions. Modernism as a style. Where is the borderline?
Texts (413): * Albee, Williams, *Pinter, *Fugard, Chekhov pages, Brecht, Ibsen: similarities and differences (* are not in 215).
Two World Wars. The Cold War -- Pomo. Postmodern and Post-Pomism (from POV Files).
Old Themes: family, man and woman, I and the World (freedom, self-liberation)
Existential themes: no human nature (marxism), no essence, self-construct. Variations of socialist concepts. Including the present day formations.
Relations with time: past and present. Promising Future Arrived. Second look at the Idea of Progress
How do they look now those Six Principles of Aristotle? (See Shows Director's Notes)
STRUCTURE
1. New plots (New stories)
2. New Hero! (Inner conflict)
3. New Ideology (Society and Individual)
TEXTURE
4. Language (Realism)
5. Melody (Style)
6. Spectacle (New Theatre) Revolutions in Theatricality;
The Age of Directors. "Director's Theatre" Concept (Meyerhold).
SELF and its double. Our postmodern problematics. The weakness came out of the strength of the modernist ideology: humanism. The End of Man. (Fudjimoto "The End of History" and Hegel)
Different nature of dramatic complications: self-discovery, self-revelation.
Limitations of the modern (After the atomic age). Alienation and subjectivity in its extremes. (A-Effect in Epic Theatre, see Brecht page).
What is the postmodern?
Loytard: The Postmodern Condition (1979, engl. 1984), Just Gaming (1985; orig. 1979), The Difference (1988; orig. 1983). Later -- Foucault, Deleuse, Baudliard, Virilio.
No universal theory, no hierarchy, no common values, but plurality, multiplicity, horizontal connections. (Aftershocks of the revolution in science and technology).
The end of history (American Age), no progress? What is the new vision of "progress"? Principle of Uncertanty.
(New physics: Q Mechanics, Relativity), New Technology (Hiedegger) and new social conditions (globalism) (McLuhan).
(Refereneces: TECH (Theology of Technology). Did you read directory POV (Point of view or Viewpoints, film site) Pomo, drafts/chapters for Post-American Book -- Index). For students who want to know too much. Not required for your tests (even in film classes).
INTRO
(How to discuss/produce today; samples -- "Woolf" and "Reckless." Postmortems as post-production meetings. Trust the two: plays and audience. How to analyze? What is there for us? Can't arrive to the grounds of discussion -- the ideas. What is the whole thing about? Why do we put it on? To look at ourselves.)
POMO -- Theatre is missing 20 years of the recent major critical theories:
1. Foucault (knowledge/power, disciplines)
2. Baudrillard (simulacra), nihilism.
3. Derrida (de-construction),
4. Deleuze (society of control), rhizome
5. Virilio (dromology), military principle.
(Notes @ Theology of Technology)

Six Characters in Search of an Author
413. Shepard (Genre -- drama); modern and pm elements. American version. "West and Western" and American urbanism (Mamet).
Note for myself: how to separate 215 notes for students from 413? In Dramatic Literature class my throughline is the evolution of dramatic principles (Aristotle) from Oedipus to modern drama. Transformation of the concepts -- action, character and etc. In Playscript Analysis (THR 413) the territory is the modern and postmodern organization of drama. Since we are the citizens of postmodernity, students ask many pomo questions, view from the bridge "Today" -- I can't resist and answer them.

plays online

PS

* The page must be updated! (important to understand that the "Modernity" era began with Shakespeare (around the time of the National "Golden Ages" in Europe) and the "High Modernity" is Chekhov and the turn of the century (crisis); postmodern -- after 1968 (Beckett and After). Not only Beckett of course, Ionesco and the End of the Grand Illusions (The Great Society, Communism and other latest ideologies of the late modernity).

NB

Mostly THR413 (see new subdirectory): themes subdirectory to be developed when I teach class again. 20th century drama: from Chekhov to Beckett.

[ subjects :

forum

guests

folders

glossary

Bedford * Craft * Art * Theory * Write ]

[ I have to start a new Existential Page; too many references to Existentialism ( the diagram above) in the 20th century drama. ]

@1998-2001 script * Fall 2002 THR215 Dramatic Literature: subscribe to DramLit Forum *

�2004 filmplus.org *

Theatre Books:

PLAYS:

Don't forget to check your class page -- click here! Take notes while reading plays! Bring your notes to class! Take your notes IN CLASS! Get Site Info

2004 & After

Review

Overview

New key terms and definitions

Metaphor and Theme Analysis

Discussion

Reading

Homework

Links

Drama **

* Bedford Intro to Drama *

* Forum dramlit * subscribe!

Chekhov, Ibsen, Shakespeare

play writing amazon list *

Grammar of Drama, Themes:

THR413 -- From Modernism to Post-modernism (Chekhov to Beckett and around). Next time? [ This course will provide an introduction to major dramatists and dramatic movements of the modern period, from realism to the absurd. ]

URLS:

American Theatre history links http://www.cofc.edu/~kattwins/AmerThealinks.htm

Brockett's History of the Theatre, Digital Bibliography http://www.abacon.com/brockett/links.html

Voice of the Shuttle's Drama & Theatre Links http://vos.ucsb.edu/shuttle/english2.html#drama

Snagged Links: On Modern Drama

http://www.stetson.edu/departments/csata/snaglnk1.html

German Society for Contemporary Drama in English (CDE) Theatre & Drama links http://fb14.uni-mainz.de/projects/CDE/links.html

Theatre Studies: articles and resources: WWW-VL http://www.brookes.ac.uk/VL/theatre/studies.htm

The Ibsen Centre (English) http://www.hf.uio.no/ibsensenteret/index_eng.html

August Strindberg homepage http://www.extrapris.com/astrindberg.html

The Anton Chekhov Page http://eldred.ne.mediaone.net/ac/yr/Anton_Chekhov.html

Oskar Kokoschka's "Self-Portrait of a 'Degenerate Artist'" http://www.dwc.edu/users/wellman/OK_Self.html

Biographie of Oskar Kokoschka:

Images from Expressionist plays

http://www.cc.emory.edu/ENGLISH/DRAMA/HistDrama2/ExpressionImage.html

Eugene O'Neill http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc34.html

Antonin Artaud (English version) http://www.offroads.com/artaud/home.html

The Samuel Beckett Endpage http://beckett.english.ucsb.edu/

Godot photo-tour:

2006: Total Directing script: home * appendix * biblio * books * glossary * links * new * notes * guide * list * faq * popup * references * students * papers * cyber * archive * THEMES * 215 dramlit * flickr * virtual theatre domains * notebook * map * store * amazon.com/kindle * my shared page * * my live.com/theatre Chekhov Short-stories + a lot of web links!

Lijit Search 2005-2006 Theatre UAF Season: Four Farces + One Funeral & Godot'06
Film-North copyright. eCitations
� 2007 by vtheatre.net. Permission to link to this site is granted. books.google.com + scholar.google.com DRAMA Analysis amazon postmodern

* All scripts and texts on this site are intended for educational purposes only * my notebook THEATRE 2008 * google.com/bookmarks | knol.google.com/k/anatoly-antohin

keys: endnotes : profile.to/anatoly & Anatoly Antohin


	Web vtheatre.net

GeoAlaska: Theatre & Film

Drama Pages & 200X Files Aesthetics

Theory of Spectatorship

Method for Directors? my calendar

Summary

Questions

Notes

Review on Modernism

20th Century = Crisis of Moderninty: view from the top -- back (THR215) and to the transition to postmodern (THR413)

STRUCTURE

TEXTURE

What is the postmodern?

INTRO

PS

NB

Method for Directors?
my calendar