Aristotle (Poetics) : 6 Elements/Principles Structure : Plot Character Thought Texture : Language Music Spectacle Cinema Get this widget! ... 2008 >> 2009 : lul.sellassie.info stagematrix + cine101

"A dramatist is one who believes that the pure event, an action involving human beings, is more arresting than any comment that can be made upon it." -- Thorton Wilder Broadway Tickets Lion King Tickets Spamalot Tickets Wicked Tickets Odd Couple Tickets [ advertising space : webmaster ] BANNERS + POPUPS + LINKS 2007 -- Film + Drama classes 200X D-Index Discussion Lists: 3 Sisters Directing'Y2K Dramatic Literature What are stage directions in the play? Aha! Writer's directions! His most obvious presence. Take a close look -- maybe you can see what he is trying to say. He wrote "night" -- why? He always trying to tell you something. He can't tell anything "straight" -- that would be telling, lecturing, talking... He wants you to discover it, to guess! Fall 2003: THR413 * Playscript Analysis Textbook: GeoAlaska: Theatre & Film Film Directing 101 if in class, must subscribe! groups.com/group/yahoo-cls-200x -- bookmark it! Back to THR200x syllabus Theory of Spectatorship DVD: Drama & Art House, Studio Specials & Classics, New & Future Releases, Cult Movies SHOWS: 12th Night

#3 -- Idea

Something which makes us remember, something whihc preoccupies our mind... and holds together what we saw. You see, STRUCTURE!

What does it mean? We are looking for reasons, we are built this way, our mind keep asking questions like this three-year-old semi-toddler. We are uncomfortable when we do not understand -- we have to know the motivations (characters) and the logic (events, plot)... Drama is based on this embebed in us ability for constant questioning. If I do not understand, I lose my interest.
The more I understand the more I get involved. That is the secret of all great plays.

We deal only with the great plays in our classes. The answers are in there. We learn HOW to READ the MEANING. How? Through understanding the FORMS (character, plot, exposition, scene, monologues, etc.) -- we have to study how the meaning is formed. There is no Meaning without Formalization of it (Expression of ideas).

The last structural principle, the trickiest: Idea or Message or Thought or Meaning. (Of course, this principle may be seen as the first or even the main one out of the three).
Important: without understanding plot and character(s) any analysis of the meaning of the play is meaningless.

The meaning can be seen only in observation of the entire play, reading through the deasing of composition (beginning, middle, end = exposition, climax, resolution).

Keep in mind that Aristotle define the other three (Language, Music, Spectacle) as texture!

Perhaps, the most complicated.
Long before we discovered "ideology" Aristotle pointed that there are no stories without meaning. Aha!

1. Plot
2. Character

The relations between the three: plot, character, idea. (Back to Spectator Theory).

"Idea-oriented" scripts. Titles. (You have to have several levels of interpretation)

Epic Theatre, Documentary, Political Performances. Elements of it always present in every play. The most visible presence of ideology; history is charged with the specific ideas, that makes it PERIOD (time, era, etc.).

Idea-through-character and idea-through-plot cases.

Theatre Theory Pages...

Use "3 Sisters" for demostration of topics "Art and Culture" and "Art and History" -- personal ("author theory") ideology. Show, collective memory and reflections. Memory and remembering, unfinished past.

The conflict between Art and Culture (Pop-culture made it visible -- "Pure War"). Experiencing Art. culture is belonging, identity.

History without Art? Art of Technologies. Science and Art. The American Age and the Idea of Revolution. New Chronotope -- time-space.

Aesthetic Living is above Moral Existence (Nietzsche). What is ahead? Postmodern forms of post-idelogical thinking. Living as Art. Individual and Society; total and global environment.

* GODOT.06: Doing Beckett -- main stage Theatre UAF Spring 2006 *

PS

Homework

NB

idea, theme ("the me") of the play.
often allegorical or symbolic
sometimes direct, sometimes indirect.

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