About: Theater

Use the lingo and sound like a pro:

Stage directions:

Stage directions are from the actors' point of view. Hence:

"Stage left" and "Stage right" are left and right from the actor's point of view as she faces the audience.

"Downstage" is towards the audience; "Upstage" is away from the audience. "Upstage" also has the second meaning of an actor drawing attention to himself while the focus should be on another actor. This can be done by positioning oneself in a way that places another actor "upstage" (i.e., farther away from the audience) or by doing something that draws attention to oneself (lighting a cigarette; fussing with a piece of clothing; hand gestures; etc.) that draws attention away from the actor delivering lines.

Moving upstage of actors or elements of the set is also called moving "above"; moving in front of the actor or prop is moving "below"

A movement of any length is called a "cross".

The stage:

The basic elements of the stage are:

Proscenium space - defined by space in front of and behind a "proscenium arch" above the stage.

The space in front of the proscenium is called the "apron".

Most proscenium stages have "wings", spaces offstage left and right for actors to gather and scenery to be stored when not being used on stage.

The audience space is called the "house", which can be separated from the stage by the "orchestra pit".

Most stages are "raked"; i.e., they slope forward the better to allow the audience to see the actors.

Some theaters are constructed as "arena stages" - the stage at Long Wharf is a semi-arena stage. A true arena stage has the audience totally surrounding the stage; at Long Wharf the audience section is in more of a semicircle.

Many directors use a clock face to designate positions on the stage, with "12" being at the top ("up"); 6 being bottom ("down"); "3" being stage left; and "9" being stage right.

Although the term has many meanings (emotional; psychological; physical), "aesthetic distance" can basically apply to the distance between the audience and the actors. Two recent examples - Long Wharf's production of Clifford Odets' Rocket to the Moon "caged" the actors in a 4-walled set, enhancing the aesthetic distance; Stamford Theatre Works production of Bad Dates forced the actress to use the forward third of the stage, with her dressing table inches from the stage's lip.

All the stage curtains are often referred to as the "soft goods". The front curtain (if there is one) is the "main curtain"; the rear curtain (if there is one) is referred to as a "cyc" (for cyclorama) or "sky drop".

Stage locations where actors enter are called "in positions" and are often numbered.

A Play's Elements

Basically, you can approach and comment on a play by noting:

1. The script - the writing; the dialogue; images and themes; unity.
2. The direction - interpretation of the script; movement of the actors.
3. The acting - volumes have been written!
4. The setting - the set design and how it supports the play's themes.
5. The costumes - traditional or non-;
6. Lighting - how the lighting scheme adds or detracts from the overall presentation.

It is important to take note of the context in which the play is being presented. A production by a community theater with a limited budget should not be judged using the same criteria you would use for a Broadway production.

The script

Wainscott and Fletcher's Theatre: Collaborative Acts lists six elements of a play:

~ plot
~ character
~ thought (themes; ideas)
~ language
~ music
~ spectacle

Another term for "plot" is "structure".

At the heart of the "plot" is "conflict" - the good guy (the "protagonist") wants something and the bad guy (the "antagonist") wants to stop him from getting it. As simplistic as this is, it forms the basis of most plays. If things just don't hang together - if you walk away from the play emotionally or psychologically dissatisfied, you can say that the play lacks "unity". What this means is that the play's elements did not cohere. Something was missing, or underdeveloped. In essence, the play was not true to itself.

Plays can be structured in many different ways, but the classic terminology for the development of a play is:

~ Point of attack - where the playwright chooses to start her play - at the beginning, the middle (in media res) or end of the story.
~ Exposition - delivery of information to the audience so they can understand who the characters are and what their relationship is to each other.
~ Inciting incident - an event that sets the whole thing in motion.
~ Rising action - simply put, the series of confrontations between the protagonist and antagonist that lead to the…
~ Climax - the emotional high point; the "final battle," if you will.
~ Falling action - the events that follow the climax leading to the…
~ Denouement - the wrapping up.

Obviously, playwrights "play" with this structure all of the time, but they can't stray too far from it without risking losing their audience. Even the most avant-garde playwright must give a nod to structure on run the risk of losing her audience.

The scenery

Although a set designer has many options, basically they fall into two categories. The set can be "representational" or "presentational".

~ Representational - basically realistic - it attempts, as best as it can, to set the play in a "real life" setting. This often entails use of what is called the "fourth wall" - an imaginary wall that the audience can see through - i.e., there are three "real" walls in the library where the play is acted out - the "fourth" wall isn't there - if it was, the audience couldn't see what was happening.

~ Presentational - the set and scenery suggest, distort or contradict. This is a much more open interpretation of the space in which the actors interact. The possibilities here are vast but not endless. A presentational set must still, in some, way, support then themes and context of the play.

The lighting

Light can fill or limit space, draw attention to a certain part of the stage, set a mood or make a statement. (By the way, the various lights you see hanging above you and set to your left and right should be referred to as "instruments".)

Lighting, obviously, helps the audience see what is happening on stage, but it does more than that. It can create primary and secondary focuses and can also, through intensity, color, placement and movement, support and enhance the actions and concepts being presented.

A good example of this is the lighting for the final moments of Old Wicked Songs staged at the Westport Country Playhouse. As the two characters in the play finally drew together - an ultimate understanding of each other - all side lights fell away and the actors were top lit, enhancing the focus and emphasizing that an apotheosis was occurring.

Many instruments are suspended from metal poles. The horizontal pipes are called "electrics"; single vertical pipes are called "booms"; double vertical pipes are called "ladders".

The basic lighting positions are:

~ Front light - does what its name implies: it lights from the front.
~ Down or top light - hung immediately above the actors.
~ Backlight - again, does what it implies
~ Hair light - a top or high backlight
~ Side lighting - again, does what the name implies - these can be mounted high, at mid-level or low(called "shinbusters" for obvious reasons).
~ Strip lights - fixtures with three or more large cells
~ A special - a light positioned for a singular purpose
~ Uplight - lights a subject from below

Characters:

The major characters in a play should be "rounded"; i.e., there should be multiple levels to them (just as in real life).

"type" of person rather than a complete person.

Unlike in novels where the author can tell us about characters, in a play we learn about characters in three ways: what they say; what is said about them by other characters; and what they do.

Characters are given dialogue to speak. When a character speaks for an extended period it is called a "monologue"; if a character speaks alone on stage or if the other characters on stage "can't hear him," this is a "soliloquy"; if remark or dialogue directed at the audience is an "aside".

Things happen to characters - often outside forces will have an impact on them - but sophisticated drama usually calls for the "conflict" to arise from who the character is. The "conflict" in Miller's Death of a Salesman arises out of who Willy Loman is; the conflict in Hamlet arises out of Hamlet's nature.

Some additional terms you can throw around to impress your friends after you see a play together:

Antihero - a protagonist who lacks one or more of the conventional qualities of a hero (i.e., he's a cad but you like him anyway).

Asides - Lines spoken in an undertone or to the audience.

Bathos - What happens when a playwright attempts to achieve heightened dignity, pathos or elevation and fails miserably; i.e., he's going for the sublime but goes to far and it becomes ridiculous.

Burlesque - Containing ribald humor and antic situations.

Catharsis - A cleansing or purging; release of emotions. Aristotle, in his Poetics, suggested that catharsis is what occurs when a spectator views a tragedy (thus participating in the events vicariously) and is emotionally cleansed.

Closet drama - A play designed to be read aloud rather than performed.

Comic Relief - Brief moments of comedy in an otherwise serious/dramatic play that lighten the atmosphere and balance the somber with the humorous.

Deus ex machine - Literally, the god from the machine - In many classic Greek/Roman plays the situation was resolved by one or more gods intervening at the end of the play. Machinery was used to lower the gods onto the stage.

Dramatic irony - A special kind of suspenseful expectation - the audience understands the implications but the characters do not.

Expressionism - A powerful movement between 1910 and 1924 in Germany: against realism's focus on surface details, expressionism emphasizes dreamlike, subjective realms often in intense, extreme states.

Farce - A type of comedy featuring exaggerated character types in improbably situations rife with pratfalls and knockabout horseplay.

Impressionism - An Artistic movement that originated with French painters (Manet, Monet, Renoir) and extended into the language arts - explored inner lives of characters rather than the reality they inhabited.

In media res - "In the midst of things."

Monologue - Extended speech by a single character.

Naturalism - A school of drama in which the characters are presented as products or victims of their environment and heredity.

Surrealism - An early 20th-century European movement in art and literature that tries to model creation according to the irrational dictates of the unconscious mind. Founded by French poet Andre Breton, it sought to reach a higher plane of reality by abandoning logic for the seemingly absurd connections made in dreams and other unconscious mental activities.

Theater of the Absurd - a postwar European genre depicting the grotesquely comic plight of human beings thrown by accident into an irrational, meaningless world.

Tragic flaw - A fatal weakness or ignorance in the protagonist that brings him or her to a bad end.