Japanese puppet theater {bunraku} uses one-meter-tall puppets.
Stage shows {burlesque show} can have songs and dances by scantily clad women.
Dramas {capa y espada} {cloak and sword} can have love and intrigue.
Chinese plays {Chinese drama} can last six hours. Facial-makeup color indicates character. Scenery is minimal. Man in black moves set properties while play continues.
Dramas {closet drama} can be just for reading.
Short presentations {curtain raiser} can precede plays.
Plays have final rehearsal {dress rehearsal} in full costume.
17th-century Japanese plays {kabuki play}| were about common subjects, had a revolving stage, used scenery, featured elaborate costumes, and had songs, dances, and dialogues. A ramp {flowery walk} went from stage to lobby. Noh and Kabuki have rhythm or tempo {jo-ha-kyu}. In Kabuki, males play females {onnagata}.
Renaissance court dramas {masque}| {mask} can be about myth or allegory and use costumed and masked nobles, who entered as if from afar, asked ladies to dance, and then left. Before masques, professional dancers, representing chaos, appeared as monsters or clowns, whom nobles then routed. Ben Jonson developed antimasques. Baroque musical masques had speaking parts separated by songs.
Dramas {melodrama} can use exaggerated suspense, much action, and villains and heroes.
Medieval dramas {miracle play} can be about saint's life.
Medieval dramas {morality play} can be allegories of conflict between good and evil, as in the play Everyman.
Medieval dramas {mystery play} can be about Bible stories.
14th-century Japanese plays {noh play}| used historic and religious topics, male chorus on one stage side, musicians and property men on other stage side, simple properties and scenery, and one or two actors singing, dancing, or talking.
Dramas can use movements, poses, and gestures {pantomime}, with no words {dumb show}.
Dramas {problem play} can explore social problems.
Old Javanese plays {shadow play} were about gods and monsters and had narrator.
Theaters {straw-hat theater} can present vaudeville and light entertainments.
Plays {theater of the absurd}| can have plots in which life seems to have no meaning.
In 20th-century first half, in America, stage shows {vaudeville} had unconnected songs, dances, humorous antics, and readings.
Dramas {comedy} can involve unimportant characters, have celebratory endings, emphasize variety, explore love's foibles, or have main character that succeeds or has luck. Aristophanes and others began Greek comedy using satire and fantasy {Old Comedy}. Second Greek-comedy period {Middle Comedy} was after Aristophanes. After -300, Menander, Plautus, and Terence were in last Greek-comedy phase {New Comedy}.
Before masque {antimasque}, professional dancers, representing chaos, appeared as monsters or clowns, whom nobles then routed, in drama form developed by Ben Jonson.
Late-19th-century European comedies {boulevard drama}, such as Offenbach comedies, can have sophisticated humor.
People, event, or work imitations {caricature}| {burlesque imitation} can be comic and arouse contempt or indignation.
Comedies {comedy of humors} can be about character type or about mood.
Italian comedy {commedia dell'arte} [1545 to 1763] had professional actors, who improvised using comic dances, stock gestures, and stock characters. Commedia dell'arte evolved from gypsy traveling theaters {carro di tespi} (thespian).
characters
Arlecchino (Harlequin) is Pantalone's poor servant, who has cat, pig, or monkey mask and has a stick to hit people.
Brighella (Figaro or Scapin) is Arlecchino's partner and likes money and women.
Columbina (Colombina, the Servant, Columbine, Harlequine, or Pierrette) is the Innamorati's intelligent maidservant, Arlecchino's lover, and a plotter.
Il Capitano (the Captain) is a boastful but cowardly soldier.
Il Dottore (the Doctor), Dottore Balanzone, or Dottore Graziano is a rich aristocrat.
Innamorata (Lover) is leading lady. Innamorato (Lover) is leading man. These two lovers are Amorosi or Innamorati.
Isabella (Lucinda, Cornelia, Silvia, or Rosaura) is Pantalone's attractive and teasing daughter, whom he introduces to old rich men.
Pagliaccio (Clown) is a clown.
Pantalone (Pantalon de' Bisognosi or Pantaloon) is a rich miser, Isabella's father, and Arlecchino's cruel employer.
Pedrolino (Pierino, Vicenza, or Pierrot) lives in fantasy and wears a white mask.
Pulcinella (Punch) is hunchback who likes women.
Scaramuccia (Scaramouche) is a swordsman who can replace Il Capitano. He is typically a servant who wears all black, including black velvet mask and hat.
La Ruffiana is an old woman who gossips and bothers the Lovers. Gianduia is a good peasant. Zanni is a poor old servant.
Comedies {farce} can have humorous plot.
Comedies {high comedy} can use witty and humorous dialogue {repartee} between characters. Etherage, Wycherley, and Congreve developed high comedy {Restoration comedy}. Later, others developed Restoration-comedy derivatives {comedy of manners} {comedy of wit}.
Japanese comedy {kyogen}.
Dramas {rogue comedy} can involve pleasant scoundrels.
Dramas {romantic comedy} can involve lovers or soon-to-be lovers in improbable situations.
Comedies {satiric comedy} {critical comedy} can ridicule main-character faults or meddling.
Comedies {situational comedy} can use plots that put characters in humorous situations.
Comedies {slapstick} can use humorous plots and involve physical comedy, such as hitting, falling, and contortion.
Dramas {tragedy} can be about important actions, dramatize death, show degradation process, or depict person's life. Tragedy typically uses humorous scenes {comic relief}, to change viewpoint or change pace.
Tragedy often depicts new self-consciousness {anagnorisis} in the hero, through fact discovery, personal-trait recognition, communication, or disclosure.
Main characters have a character defect {tragic flaw} {hamartia}, such as pride, excess virtue, greed, lust, or power hunger.
Tragedy can have actions that result in opposite of intended effect {peripety}.
Tragedies {bourgeois tragedy} {domestic tragedy} can depict middle-class or lower-class family problems.
Dramas {heroic tragedy} {heroic drama} can be about love or honor among aristocrats and rulers.
Dramas {tragicomedy} can be about important situations, such as possible death, but with successful conclusions.
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Date Modified: 2022.0225