Preview

Theatre in Changing Society

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
375 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Theatre in Changing Society
Theatre will always survive in our changing society. It provides us with a mirror of the society within which we live, and where conflicts we experience are acted out on stage before us. It provides us with characters with which we identify with. The audience observes the emotions and actions as they happen and share the experience with the characters in real time.

The survival of theatre lies in the very nature of humankind: its inner voyeuristic drive. The desire to watch other people dealing with their conflicts and fates challenges as well as reinforces values and the morality of society. The theatre provides an exciting opportunity to watch stories and situations as if they were real life, showing us the truth of our nature.

For as long as humankind exists, theatre will always take on an important function within its cultures. Through theatre, a culture expresses itself, reflects its society, and displays its individuality. It invites people to experience other cultures.

Nevertheless, the question at hand is whether theatre will have a role in the society of the future, where cinema, digital television, and computers will continue to expand and grow. The answer to this question is yes. Heading into the 21st century, theatre will only be a fraction in a solid media industry. However, despite all the excitement technology brings with it, they will never replace theatre because it has something that can not be recreated or offered anywhere else. The cinema and its larger than life world appeals as an affordable alternative. Digital television provides digital interaction between the viewer and the producer. Theatre on the other hand, and its contents may take on a larger dimension, but we receive it directly in flesh and blood – one to one. The magical atmosphere between an actor and spectator who are constantly aware of each other and the theatre's level of engagement is fundamentally more human and far more intimate.

Theatre will

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In both cases the actors play vital roles, in the contemporary performance its based on acting style, facial expression and voice.. Similarly in a Shakespearian production would also have to ensure his acting techniques were on a big scale, but for a different reason; for example the noises coming from the audience, being quiet before a play was about to start was not the norm in those times, throughout a play ‘dealings’ would be taking place such as fruits being sold or prostitutes looking for work. Actor/Audience relationship is key within modern performances. In contemporary theatre use of eye contact created an intimacy, although the lighting helped us engage with this role as an actor is just as important as it was in Shakespearean…

    • 677 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    It is a truth that in such a technologically savvy and dependant generation as today 's, venturing to the theatre is slowly becoming a rarity. This is due to the strong, extensive domination of film, television and new media, clearly eminent in the present entertainment industry. Live theatre in Brisbane is constantly competing with the comfort and affordability of staying in and enjoying a pre-recorded television show or watching a 3D movie in one 's own home. There is next to no motivation for people in today 's general public to attend a theatrical performance leading to the classification of live theatre as passé and dated. However this does not in any way signify that the quality of theatre has degraded. For those who enjoy the emotive and interactive experience of attending live theatre, Brisbane has an array of diverse shows that are perfect indicators of the level of high quality theatre that is available to the community. In fact through the thorough analysis of three different levels of productions: Wicked, Summer and Smoke and Lying Cheating Bastard this essay will attempt to prove that through the manipulation of the elements of tension and relationships within each of these plays, dramatic meaning is created and the quality of theatre is heightened.…

    • 2246 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Theatre imitating life. Naturalism brought science into the game, with more electricity in theatres, removal of audience, putting them in the dark as if they were eavesdropping. Importance of everyday and ordinary. Potential tool for improving humanity by showing the wrongs. Brought in the fourth wall, analytical distance. extending the idea to the imaginary boundary between the audience and the stage. Character is more important than plot/action. The model of theatre as scientific ideas and the idea that human beings are distinguished by society, like showing the subject as a product of social forces. Playing around with that idea, like Emile Zola did in his play “Miss Julie” dropping a high class girl into a test tube with a servant (lower class) of particular type/ character and see what happens.…

    • 463 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Explain the most significant theories of the origins of theatre: most widely known theory is championed by anthropologists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that envisions theatre as emerging out of myth and ritual (society becomes aware of forces that appear to influence or control its food supply and well-being, connection between actions performed by group and results it desires leads to repeat/refine/formalizing those actions into rituals, stories/myths grow up around a ritual, performers dress up, act out the myths. (more info pg 2). Storytelling-relating and listening to stories are seen as fundamental human pleasures (pantomime/impersonation/each role assumed by diff people), recallings can be elaborate, dance and song, imitate animals. Can be inspired by a great many…

    • 5412 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    There are many reasons as to why plays are important to culture. The first is that plays are simply entertaining. They are an enjoyable way to spend an evening, and what is more they are a way to connect to other people through a common enjoyment. Plays are also a way to get across important beliefs and concepts. For example, many comedies mock people for being immoral and vain, and even though it is funny there is usually serious meaning beneath the satyr.…

    • 529 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Theater Vocabulary

    • 530 Words
    • 3 Pages

    COLLECTIVE MIND: a theatre crowd is distinct from any of these. In spite of being different, however, the theatre audience shares with all such groups the special characteristics of the collective mind. Becoming part of a group is a crucial element of the theatre experience. For a time, we share a common undertaking, focused on one activity. We also sense intangible communion with those around us. When a collection of individuals respond more or less in unison to what is occurring onstage, their relationship to one another is reaffirmed. For a moment we are part of a group sharing an experience; and our sorrow or joy, which we thought might be ours alone, is found to be part of a board human response.…

    • 530 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    “Audiences today want a real experience in their live performance, because they can get great script based entertainment at home, through various new media sources. Traditional theatre, which appeals on a mental, and hopefully also emotional level, has not been enough to compete with other media, and audiences have been declining. Physical theatre, by contrast appeals to the audience on a physical and emotional level, providing a much more immediate experience than traditional theatre” ~ (Artmedia Publishing in Zen Zen Zo’s “The Tempest” Teacher’s Notes)…

    • 2586 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    The theatre has been a part of entertainment since ancient Greece, around 4th century BC or thereabouts. The theatre grew out of festivals in honor of the god Dionysus. Aeschylus created the first play in her honor. The first Greek plays were all tragedies but eventually comedy made its way and these plays were performed at festivals all over Greece. Through the centuries theater played the main role of entertainment from noble and royalty to the common person in any city or village, and as we move into the twenties century, theater was still a huge part of the entertainment for the masses.…

    • 2131 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Over time these contributions have been taken and adapted to create the theatre that many people know and love today. However, unlike in Ancient Greece; there are more than two styles of theatre today and not just by the means of the theatre types, for example; a proscenium theatre or theatre in the round, but the acting styles as well, such as Naturalistic, Non-Naturalistic, Epic theatre, Absurdism etc. These are seen as a collaboration of the developments of the theatre through out the different time periods and the practitioners of different…

    • 886 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Ruby Moon Theatre Analysis

    • 1136 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Theatre is a direct reflection of life and society. Any script is written, including their themes and genre, in the attempt to draw on and display our surrounding world to ultimately impact audiences. Our unit of drama including Matt Cameron’s Ruby Moon and Jane Harrison’s Stolen does exactly this, but more specifically reflects on contemporary Australian culture and events. This combined with our experiential learning proved that theatre indeed is a mirror to society.…

    • 1136 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Imagine this following scene: You are sitting in a dark, fairly crowded large room. There are hundreds of other people, in hundreds of other seats surrounding you. In front of you, there is a large stage, with people acting out a play. Lights, music, and different sound effects set the mood of the play in order to understand more clearly what is going on. With these certain conventions, the audience can get a true grasp of a story which several actors are trying to portray. However, it hasn’t always been this easy to enjoy a play in a theater. Theatre and plays go back as far as “B.C.” times.…

    • 1205 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Origins of Theatre

    • 806 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Theatre has been around for thousands of years dating back to the B.C.E era. There are many forms of theatre Ritual Theatre, uses theatrical techniques of song, dance, and characterization but is still firmly rooted in religion. Many scholars agree on two traits that distinguish theatre from rituals. First theatre must have an actor that plays a character, a person that takes on a role of a human, object, or animal. Second theatre usually has a story with conflict; conflict is the key to all drama. Few religions or social rituals have scripted conflict; many rituals have a prescribed line of events but do not act out a story of conflict. When these two traits are present actors who play characters and tell stories of conflict we have theatre.…

    • 806 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Have you ever heard the saying practice makes perfect? Well this is in fact true. As many of you saw the Philomath play, the Lion King, it came with a tremendous amount of hours and dedication to establish an incredible performance. Many live theaters can offer a place for you to see and get involved with thousands of drama productions, instead of just watching it using technology. Additionally, many different theaters can also show a variety of famous productions, from Shakespeare productions to Disney movies being enacted on a live scale. Auditions for these productions can allow for you to get the experience of being on the stage and being a significant part of the story. All of this says that there are numerous reasons why live theater…

    • 793 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Have you ever wondered how the theater become so popular? People will think that it was because of Hollywood or some other thing, but it started on the eastern side of the world. There was a movement called the Renaissance, and that movement created theaters and many other things that people enjoy in our modern world. There were many theaters during the Renaissance, but one of the greatest known theaters were the Elizabethan theaters. The Elizabethan theater would not become a spectacular place for entertainment if it was for a new time period, the playwrights, and the theater’s design and features.…

    • 1675 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Since the turn of the twentieth century, modern drama has become the greatest form of mass entertainment in the western world. Experimentation and innovation are basic to this century’s dramatist. Through movies and television, everyone has experienced the excitement and emotional involvement that gives the drama its important place in our lives today.…

    • 4592 Words
    • 19 Pages
    Powerful Essays