Medea, simply crazy or wronged dearly? (Blog #4)

Jason's vow of eternal effection (one that he did not keep).

Throughout the entire play, I perceived Medea in different ways. It almost seems as if she was bipolar. Her attitude towards different characters also continued to change the way I viewed Medea. I think that Medea had three main attitudes in the play; of anger, of desperation, and of sympathy. These three attitudes appear and reappear one after another, depending on which character Medea is engaging with. Because Medea seemed to have so many different personalities, I was a little bit confused about her real intentions. I was stuck between the idea that she wanted to kill everyone that was close to Jason, or that she wanted to call a truce between herself and Jason.

In lines 111-115 Medea curses her own children, along with their father (Jason). At this point of the play Medea has just been introduced, her story told by the Nurse and Chorus. I immediately imagined Medea in my mind as a woman with beauty equivalent to her anger. I was a bit shocked when Medea's first words in the play were against her own kin. This showed me that the hate and anger she had towards Jason was beyond what I had imagined. Until she meets the king of Athens, Aigus, I saw Medea as someone who was out for blood, and was cold blooded herself.

Medea and her children, 

In lines 708-717 Medea becomes a desperate woman, and she engages in a conversation with Aigus. I thought Medea was very clever talking to Aigus, first she addresses his problems and needs, that shows that she is friendly and cares about Aigus. Withi that being done, she tells him her problem and being the king of Athens, Aigus gladly and eagerly agrees to help her find shelter. My perspective on Medea in this point of the story became cloudy and I was confused on whether she really wanted to go and destroy Jason, or was now a desperate widow trying to find shelter for her and her children.

After the passage in lines 868-905 Medea has almost completed her plan. She has convinced Jason to "forgive" her for all her wrong doings and is about to send her children with they poison gifts for the princess. I now saw Medea as one of the sneakiest woman of all of history. I had much respect for Medea, able to trick her enemies and gain strong alliances. I also felt a little bit of contempt towards Medea because I knew she was planning to kill her own children.

I think Euripides let Medea escape to show the reader that neither Jason nor Medea have been shown justice for each of their cruel acts.

After all the deaths, Medea rides away in her chariot, neither in victory or loss, but successful in her revenge.

http://www.chicagooperatheater.org/medeas-story/

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/m/medea.html

http://www.theatrehistory.com/ancient/bates018.html

Japan vs the Medieval (Blog #3)

Passion plays were around from the 14th century to the 16th century. These plays were about the life of Christ, often performing famous scenes from Christ's life. These plays occurred only about once a year and were performed by the towns people, often members from guilds. Passion plays were set up almost like an amusement park, having different parts of the "park" for different scenes. Despite the fact that this annual play was about Christ, the Church did not approve because it felt that these plays defiled the sacredness and holiness of the Church. Starting from the 17th century to present time, the people of Oberammergau, Germany have consistently performed these plays only in years ending in 0.

Passion plays were strictly about scenes from the life of Christ

The skald is a poet who also plays the harp or lyre, the skald does all the voices for an epic narrative or poem. The Germanic people loved to be entertained by performances of heroic deeds and of warrior tribes like themselves. These performances were provided by the king or chief of the tribe, in entertaining his aristocrats he was also honoring them. Skaldic performances also revolved around violence and were about competition for women and treasures. Though the tribes later converted to Christianity, Christian themes were absent from Skaldic plays and in later times there were many conflicts about control for land and people between Kings and the Church.

Skalds were often equipped with harps and sung songs while playing them.

Noh theater in Japan was very similar to the Greeks in that they were both tragic works with a humorous element. The set up of Noh theater was very strict, just like the Greeks. Women were not allowed to perform, all actors were male, even for female characters. More than two actors on stage was rare, but the musicians and choir were always present. These stories were focused around ghosts and ancient spirits. The Noh stage is surrounded by the audience and the musicians, open on three sides. Masks are only worn by older male actors and are only to be used in acting as an old man, a youth, a woman, or a supernatural character.

Kabuki theater was believed to be created in the 17th century by women who wanted to become actors, in a "no women actors" time period. This type of theater performs for huge, diverse audiences. Kabuki theater is very exciting and filled with action; there are flashing lights, acrobats, singers, scene shifts, stunning costumes, and even more. Even though believed to be created by women, all actors in Kabuki theater are male. Instead of masks being worn like traditional theater, masks are painted.

One of the biggest differences between Medieval and Japanese theater is the theme of the story. Japanese theater revolved their stories about ghosts and romance, while Medieval theater stories were about heroic triumphs and great feats. Japanese theater still is very alive today and is very popular, often with sold out crowds. Most of the types of Medieval theater have clashed with the Church, thus not being able to survive for long periods of time.

http://www.artelino.com/articles/noh_theater.asp

http://campus.udayton.edu/mary/resources/drama.html

http://www.csuohio.edu/class/history/japan/japan12.html

http://novaonline.nvcc.edu/eli/spd130et/medieval.htm

Roman vs Greek theater (Blog #2)

1) The Roman and Greece forms of theater were different in many ways, one being the social status of the actors. Roman actors were of lower class, most of them being slaves, while Greek actors were mostly aristocrats. In this sense, you can pretty much assume that Roman theater was more popular for the middle-lower class people and that Greek theater was probably directed more towards the people of the upper class.

One other major difference between Roman and Greek theater is the purpose of their plays. Greek theater was first, their type of performances were religious, almost educational. They often praised the gods and the use of masks were very popular. These plays were viewed as of high quality, their morals taught the people how to act in the real world. On the other hand, Roman theater was aimed to entertain their crowds (up to 20,000 people) with brilliant performances. The different types of performances included mimes, pantomimes, and tragic dramas.

Roman Theater, built above the ground so that all the audience is able to view the stage clearly.

Greek Theater, structure almost the same as the Roman Theater except that the audience and stage are below ground level.

Roman theater could seat up to almost 20,000 people

Greek theater was made to seat only a limited amount of people, being very competitive.

2) The relationship between Emma and Lucy is an odd one. At first I believed their relationship was straight forwardly the master and her slave girl. But after further readings, I was very surprised by the use of cocaine and opium. I had no idea that a slave girl would for any circumstance, be smoking opium and cocaine in front of her master. With further reading I find that the master and her slave girl may share what seems to be a lesbian relationship. I think that Hagedorn may be trying to put fictional characters in those types of situations to lessen the anxiety humans feel with those type of uncomfortable situations.

http://twinningblog.wordpress.com/2008/03/13/greek-and-romans-theatres-exercise-vi/

http://www.enotes.com/drama/discuss/compare-contrast-greek-roman-theatres-95394

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_differences_of_Greek_theater_and_Roman_theater

Masks and Stages in Theater (Blog #1)

Theater is when one or more people, adopt masks to change their identities, for an audience. In theater, a mask can be any trait (literal mask, change of voice, etc) manipulated to give a a person a new identity. On the other hand, mimicry is when one imitates another to change their identity. Mimicry can be used in theater so that one person may impersonate another, but mimicry is also used widely besides in theater. Animals (even humans) use mimicry for many things such as: hiding from predators, or to disguise themselves from prey. 

It is assumed that theater may have began when story tellers wanted the audience to be more involved and entertained by stories and folktales. But the main reason that theater was invented was to distinguish the difference between life and mimicry, and to make an entertainment out of it. The origin of theater may also be related to controlling society by having actors play as leaders, supernatural beings, or gods.

In "The Dark Knight", actors Christian Bale and Keith Ledger both use masks to impersonate their character, changes in appearance (actual mask), personality, and voices.

Proscenium Configuration.

The most common type of configuration of theater is the proscenium. In this type of configuration, the audience views the play almost like a movie, or picture frame. This is the best configuration when it comes to scenic detail, bigger audiences, one unified view, and better hearing of sounds like music and voices. Some bad things about the proscenium are that it costs the most and it can be boring if the actors cannot keep the audience's interest.


Another type of theater setting is the thrust, which the stage extends into the audience. This allows for the audience to be able to view the stage in different perspectives, depending on the seat arrangement. The thrust is the most cost efficient. It gives the audience a sense of difference between life and acting, but in return does not have great scenic detail, and hearing ability like the proscenium. It is also much smaller than the proscenium and can be difficult to see the play as a whole.

The thrust, the stage being exposed to 3 sides of the audience.

The arena (in the round) is the biggest of all configurations, in this case the audience surrounds the stage/actors. This type of configuration is good for boxing matches, dances, and circuses. The advantages of the arena is that it can change lighting effects with ease and it can be used for different types of performances. The disadvantages mirrors the ones of the thrust.

All the different types of theater configurations

http://www.scribd.com/doc/24113011/Types-of-Theater-Spaces

http://www.cwu.edu/~robinsos/ppages/resources/Theatre_History/Theahis_1.html

http://www.ia470.com/primer/theatres.htm

Love Never Dies, Failure of a Sequel (Blog #7)

My Part of the Creative Projects

Our project revolved around the famous musical, The Phantom of the Opera, written by Andrew Llyod Webber. The Phantom of the Opera was originally a novel by Gaston Leurox, being a tale about a urban ghost who haunts an opera and also happens to be a musical genius. Our goals for this project were to clearly be able to tell the summary, have research about the history of the play/musical, details regarding the visuals of the play, and the summary, information, and response to the sequel, called Love Never Dies.

The original The Phantom of the Opera, 2004 film version

My part of this project was to watch both musicals, create a response to the sequel, and research information about why the sequel wasn't as successful as the original. The reason for my part being so important is because Love Never Dies was a failure of a musical compared to The Phantom of the Opera, which is the oldest and most popular production in Broadway. One of the biggest reasons for its failure is because Webber was recovering from cancer, and could not make it to the debut of his sequel to arguably the most popular musical in Broadway.

The phantom (Eric) and Christine, from the re-edited and revised Australian version of Love Never Dies. This is also the version I watched.

One of the biggest problems in my part of the project was the fact that I had loved and enjoyed Love Never Dies, despite all the negative reviews and critiques that I had heard about. With some research I realized that the play that I liked so much, was actually the revised and re-edited version of the original "failure" sequel. I also found out the main reasons that this sequel couldn't live up to the success of its prequel. One of them was the fact that the song writer, Andrew Llyod Webber was diagnosed with cancer and couldn't make Love Never Die's initial opening, due to his recovery period.

Also, the Creative Projects gave me an opportunity to watch different versions of The Phantom of the Opera, and helped be get a better understanding of the musical and its sequel. I highly enjoyed listening to the opera singers and enjoyed the music written by Webber.

Blog #6

At the beginning of the scene I was very confused and did not know what was going on. After the people in the shining costumes left I realized that they were fairies. Also, I was surprised at the differences of appearances between Puck and the Fairy. Puck was naked, dirty, almost looked like a crazy homeless boy. On the other hand the Fairy’s costume was a very bright one piece, with her make up done to give her a very clean look. During their dialogue I realized that they were speaking privately, in the midst of tall grass. It was as if they were spying on the boy "stolen from an Indian king" (22).

Like the movie, Puck is portrayed as a crazy looking boy and the Fairy is dressed up and has a very clean look

Watching the movie I also came to sense that Oberon and Titania were fighting over the boy, who either was to become Oberon's apprentice or stay with Titania, who claimed to have been close to the boy's mother. When refused the boy, Oberon's rage turns into a devious plan to put Titania under a love potion. With Puck's help, Oberon drops magical drops into the sleeping Titania's eyes so that when she wakes up she would fall in love with the first thing she sees.

The eye drops are inserted by Oberon.

When Demetrius rejects Helena, I realized that Oberon was unsatisfied with Demetrius's attitude and decides that he must need a love potion also. The next part of the play was my favorite because everything basically goes wrong. When Puck makes the mistake of giving Lysander the potion, he wakes up to instantly fall in love with Helena, whom is in love with Demetrius.