Drama
When we hear the name of a great playwright such as Shakespeare or Sophocles, our first thought might be lines of written text or books of critical writing by educated authors; but these things do not give the dramatist a true impression. For example, take Sophocles, He not only wrote plays, but he was also a dancer and composer, a general, a financier, and a multi-faceted man. Yet, of course, the playwright is not alone in producing the plays. The text of a "drama" is just what is written about an actor-staged production in front of an audience. A drama may be naturally exquisite verse or prose, but this is incidental. The written record is simply what remains of a series of activities. The past plays we learn today and are learning are the unintended continuation of this behavior. For example, out of more than a hundred that he wrote, we have only seven plays by Sophocles. And for most of his contemporaries, we have zero, who once were similarly well known. There are other kinds of dramatic actions that leave no written traces in text form.
Architect, singer, dancer, acrobat, carpenter, machinist, and scenario builder, as well as the authors, actors, managers, and directors who coordinate the tasks also require multiple tasks to stage a drama. Are any one of these important to the drama? One, indeed, is-but not the writers. There have been plays without words and plays where the actors think up their own words, like the Renaissance Italian improvised comedy. Not the singers or the performers, either; without dances or music, there can be works. The actor-alone or in a troupe is what is important. He remains invaluable. Let us continue with him, then.
Mask and face
A chorus like these processional "horses"
and riders (from an Attic vase; about 550
B.C.), figured in Aristophanes' Knights, one of
the oldest Greek comedies. Early Greek drama
derived from popular revels held in honor of
the wine god Dionysus.
As Dionysus' cult entered Greece from the kingdoms at the shores of the Black Sea, some people strongly opposed it; but it gradually attracted many converts-particularly in Icaria's northern region. The citizens of Athens remained violent until they visited the god Apollo's oracle at Delphi, troubled by an epidemic of plague, which persuaded them to embrace the new religion.
Dionysus' signature mode of worship was a parade of wine-excited revelers, carrying a god's portrait. In the parade, men clothed in animal skins and carrying heads and horns marched, impersonating centaurs (half-horse, half-man), and satyrs (half-man, half-goat). Related man-animal forms appear in any race's folklore; for pre-Christian cultures did not perceive animals to be lesser beings. On the opposite, people believed they had animal origins and often they wanted the gods to take in both the animal and human form.
In the Dionysiac procession, the goat-men also joined in the "satyr plays" played during the festivities (the term tragedy means "goat song"). Comus, the name of the revelers' parade, gave us the word 'comedy.' Dancing was called mimesis, which is also translated as 'imitation' and gave us the words 'mimic' and 'mime.' Initially, it meant the state of mind of the dancer who was 'inspired' by the spirit of his father. The mask was the sign of being inspired; the god "taken over" the dancer when he put this on.
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| This terra-cotta mask, Greek in design, was worn by a third-century Roman actor. |
These dance-dramas were eventually performed in a special theater devoted to Dionysus. A "chorus" of people danced and sang as part of the action. This chorus evolved from the old revel-procession but was ultimately reduced to just 15 people in total. Women did not take part because it was a citizen's activity-and Athenian women could not be citizens.
Hypocrites ("the answerer") is the Greek term for an artist, as he addressed the chorus. The first person to do so was Thespis, an actor from Icaria (Dionysus' early stronghold), and performers are now often called Thespians. Since the actor was wearing a mask, the term hypocrite later came to mean a two-faced person-somebody who pretends to be what he is not. And the Latin word for mask, persona, gives us the words "person" and "personality," meaning something real, an identification true. The drama has always had the dual honesty and pretense aspect.
The development of drama in Japan was in near contrast with that of Greece. Finally, it began with the introduction of a new faith, Buddhism in this case, spreading from India via China and Korea. It brought ritual dances, in which men wore animal masks and skins, as in the Greek Comus procession. As a result of the festivals held in the Buddhist abbeys, these folk- and temple-dances quickly became even more complex; they were given their final form in the 14th century through the creativity of Kan'ame Kiyotsugu and his friend, Ze'ami Motokiyo, who, like the Greek dramatists, were also singers, musicians, dancers, and playwrights.
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In Italian commedia dell'arte of the 17th and
18th centuries, masked actors mimed stock
characters such as Harlequin.
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Such changes have been associated with political and social transition, as in Greece. This was the advent of feudalism in Japan. The local lord (daimyo) and his knights (samurai) took over the No dramas as their sole property (as such plays are known), forbidding common citizens to even see them. Each show, as in Greece, started with religious ceremonies. Initially performed from doors, they were-unlike the Greek plays quickly played entirely in the nobility's palaces. The No plays are still performed today-the world's oldest drama with an unbroken acting tradition. These are brief, usually based on Japanese myth and legend of topics, and are often organized in three or five sets. Farces are played in each segment of the series. The Kyogen ("mad words") are such. In them, servants make fun of their lord, and they ridicule the gods and Buddhism itself. There are only two masked performers in the conventional No-plays, plus a chorus.
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| Masks still have dramatic power today, Masked actors play the hard-hearted rich in The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Germany s Bertolt Brecht. Patience Collier played the governor's wife in a 1962 British production, |
We will see how Christian drama, like Greece and Japan, evolved out of religious tradition as well. Yet Christianity associated masks with the ancient gods, in line with the condemnation of all other faiths. Therefore it was just the demons that were veiled in medieval ritual drama. Throughout Europe, the common use of masks still continued throughout Italian satirical theater, the commedia dell'arte (descended from ancient pagan mimes, until the 18th century). It stopped there. But it is the mask 's dramatic strength which has resurrected its use by many contemporary playwrights.
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2 comments
Click here for commentsThanks for this article. Beautiful written.
ReplyTHANKS GOURAV SINHA KEEP READING AND SHARING YOUR VIEWS.
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