Aesthetics Notes PDF

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Aesthetics taught by Dr. O'Hara Notes from the full course...

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THEA 103 NOTES 8/29: THEA 103: The Poetics and History - Theatrical History - the representation of surviving facts concerning theatrical activity of the past The Importance of History: - “Do you really believe…that everything historians tell us about men-or about women-is actually true... these histories have been written by men, who never tell the truth except by accident.” Moderate Fonte - Facts are material artifacts that survive to the present (picture, letters, scripts, pottery, engravings, diaries, design plots, prompt books, etc.) - Not all such artifacts survive - Some are destroyed intentionally or by accident - Facts must first be authentic; a representation of the phenomenon we understand it to be representing - Reliable facts not only represent the phenomenon but also are front sources likely to document it. Reviews of theatre can be authentically about theatre, but it may not be reliable about the audience’s response. Facts, History, and Truth: - Historically, three ways to establish a truth/fact: - Authority (monarchy, religion. etc.) - Ideology (often created by Authority and becomes its own meme) - Disciplined (or scientific) Observation - Theory is the result of Disciplined Observation - Original Greek theatre has very few remaining artifacts; we hold 46 plays and can make a theory of what Greek theatre was based on only 46 plays Greek Theatre - By 534 BCE Pisistratus the tyrant of Athens inaugurated a festival that included Theatrical performances - Week long festival that was required - Orgiastic rituals, competition over 3-5 during festival - KEY IDEAS - Mimesis (imitation) - Catharsis (purgation of pity and fear) - Peripeteia (reversal of fortune/intention) - Anagnorisis (recognition of fate) - Hamartia (miscalculation of tragic flaw) - Aristotle’s Six Parts - Mythos (plot) - Ethos (character)

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Dianoia (thought) Lexis (diction) Melos (music) Opsis (spectacle)

8/31: THEA 103: Poetics II, GC, and Story Assignment #1: “Big Stones” Example; identify the big stones, Characters, their given circumstances, etc. Characters Review: ● Protagonist: Main character ● Antagonist: Villain ● Confidant: Friends ● Foils: Emphasize good qualities of protagonist ● Raisonour: Provides guidance to protagonist Aristotle’s Six Parts Review ● Plot - arrangements/actions ● Character - moral quality/choices ● Idea - theme or main idea ● Language - quality of speech/diction ● Music - Types/effects of sound ● Spectacle - Scale and effects of stuff Wholeness of Action: ● All plays have clear beginnings, middles, and ends by virtue of being a script ● All dramatic actions also have “BME’s” by virtue of the script ● Audiences create BME’s even when they don’t exist Story, Stasis, and Plot: ● Story is not the plot ● Story extends beyond the boundary of a script’s beginning or end ● Plot cannot be condensed or reduced ● Stasis is the state of the story before conflict/plot ● Protagonist creates stasis B to fix inciting incident ● Which character changes the most from stasis a to b? ○ Rose (Titanic) ● Does this change support a designation as protagonist? ○ Jack/Rose ● Who or what is the antagonist? ○ Rose’s Fiance HOMEWORK: WATCH THE SHORT FILM LONG AWAITED ON CANVAS BE PREPARED TO ANSWER ICLICKER QUESTIONS

COMPLETE A DRAFT OF THE WORKSHEET ON HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE AND BRING IT TO CLASS BOTH DUE FRIDAY SEP. 7TH 9/7: THEA 103: Action Units - Long Awaited & How I Learned to Drive Definitions - Action Units and Major Action Units are, more or less, the same thing. Most systems use the following progression: play, act, MAU/AU, story beats, actor beats (moments). - Major Action Units (MAU) are nearly always marked by key developments in the STORY (inciting actions, complications, reversals, recognitions, climaxes, resolutions, etc.) - Story Beats are whole and complete actions that mark key developments within the MAUs (motivations revealed or changed, moods established, objectives achieved or abandoned, rising actions, etc.). (These are not the same as Actor Beats) What Units are Not - MAUs and Story Beats do not follow the same rules or structures across all plays or scripts - MAUs and Story Beats do not necessarily fall in the same places for all critics/scholars/artists (though there is usually aggressments on the MAUs) - Beats and Units are not the story, the plot, or the characters, but rather are, like DNA, the structures that create them. Defensible MAUs - From the worksheet on How I Learned to Drive - MAU 1 = exposition to inciting incident - Process: typed every action as a simple, declarative sentence. - Looked for patterns/themes WITHOUT regard to BMEs then moved them into groups - Looked at new arrangement with an eye towards smaller Units that could be unified by a single action - Revised sentences to see if they could defensibly fit into a larger BME structure - Settled on the Units you read, each unified by a single action 9/10: THEA 103: Action Units, Complexity and Simplicity Story Review - MAUs are linked to major structural elements in the plot - Story is grounded in the plot but extends beyond it - MAUs while linked to the plot are also grounded in the story - Don’t get lost in the plot and don’t lose significance of the story

- Deep Focus (be able to see both the story and the plot) Story - Stories, unlike “life,” are always about something; a thing you can discover - In life, you have to create it because it’s still happening - Most great dramatic stories are structurally similar - That structure is at once simple and complex, like all great art Simple and Complex - All great is both simple and complex, at the same time, and often in the same space - This is not a paradox ot an oxymoron but rather a complementary balance - We call the phenomenon “having it” “It” - Clara Bow was the first “it” girl - She combined two oxymoronic qualities--innocence and desirability--to create a new wholeness. She had “it” Find Simplicity - All plays are simple and complex at the same time - Analysis is a complex process that leads to a simple thing; the main idea of the script - A theatre artist must learn how to make complex things simple, clean, direct, powerful, clear, etc. Story and Structure - Stories are--by their very nature--based on structure - Dramatic stories are based on the structure of the plot, not on literary devices or styles - All plots have structure (BME) Guides for Analysis - Start with the basics: who is the protagonist, what does he or she want, what’s in the way, how is it overcome, etc. HILTD - Who is the protagonist? - Li’l Bit - What does she want? - To get away from her past; to forgive herself - What’s in her way? - Alcoholism, trauma, etc. - What’s the plot (root action)? - A woman reminisces and shares her past in order to reclaim the possibility of her future LABEL YOUR WORK!!!!! 9/12:

THEA 103: First Assignment Homework 1 (due friday 9/14) - As part of your evaluations, everyone will also finish the following sentence: “The most important thing/idea/skill I learned is _______” - Add this to the bottom of the Group Evaluation Form 9/14: THEA 103: Post-Mortem PROUD TO PRESENT/EXTRA CREDIT: RECITAL HALL AR (fine arts building) 217 TALK BACK 7PM MON SEP 17 PROUD TO PRESENT (250 WORDS FOR SHORT PARAGRAPH ON WHAT YOU LEARNED OR PICK 1 QUESTION TO WRITE A PARAGRAPH ON) 9/17: THEA 103: Comedy & History What is Comedy? - “Non-serious actions handled non-seriously” - Northrop Frye: “ Society of the Young vs the Society of the Old” - Relatively powerless youth struggles against social conventions Characteristics of “comic” - Surprise, incongruity, conflict, repetitiveness, (rule of three), opposite expectations, etc. high emotional stakes and low expectations, high physical stakes with no expectations Theatrical Comic Genres - Satire - topical, dates quickly - human or individual vices or follies are held up to ridicule, irony, parody, or burlesque - Farce - mechanical, situational, and character based comedy whose aim is laughter - Comedy of Manners - wit, irony, close to satire - social mores held up to ridicule Genres Part II - Black comedy - subject defines the genre (dystopia) - Slapstick - physical comedy - Sit-com - character based situational comedy (stereotypes) Comedy of Manners - New Comedy - Menander - High style; elaborate plots, stock characters - Plautus, Terrance (Roman Playwrights) - EARNEST is among the best examples ever Analysis in Comedy - Climax resolved for the protagonist

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Crisis often creates opportunity rather than forces conflict Inciting incident is often inconsequential or silly Fewer changes to the major action (less at stake)

9/24: THEA 103: History & Theory Making Sense of the Past - Deus ex machina - made to have God-like characters appear non-humanoid; also a religious device to confirm meaning and status onstage - Ekkyklema - wounded hero rolled in due to squeamishness; allowed the actors to avoid the ritual effects of enactment (all violence was off-stage, therefore avoided) Myth-to-Ritual-to-Legend-to-Art - Myth - social value society wishes to pass on (inculcate) - Ritual - human behavior that inculcates or expresses the social value - Legend - historical or fictional character that embodies the social value - Art - the symbolic re-presentation of the social value Applying Ritual Theory - Things we regularly do, or enact, express, or reflect, the values we wish to transmit - Rituals create real effects - Daily example - brushing your teeth - Yearly example - memorial day parades More Tools - The etymology of theatrical words: - Theatron (theatre) - “seeing place” - Ornynai (orchestra) - “to rise as from the dead” - Rehercier (rehearse) - “to harrow… descend into Hades to return with spirits that reside there” (possessed) Ritual Effects - Masked, chanting, singing, dancing actors were possessed, in some sense, by the Gods/mythic dead heroes, who were made present (visible) through enactment - Theatre accessed and shared the wisdom and knowledge of the gods - Theatrical action (ritual) always possessed latent power Pre-modern - Prior to the Enlightenment, nearly all cultures shared the following characteristics (% for Athens) - Mostly rural (39%) - Static (90% lived and died within a few miles of where they were born) - Mostly illiterate (92%) - Power divine & held “forever” by a chosen few - Absolutist belief systems

Modern - After Enlightenment & Industrial Revolution, most cultures share the following characteristics: - Mostly urban - Mobile - Mostly literate - Power contestable & limited by temporal laws - Belief contestable & fragmented (Reformation, etc.) 9/26: THEA 103: Writing Your Critique Common Issues - Grammar, syntax, and construction - Thesis, idea, and argument - Style and simplicity Grammar, Syntax, and Construction - Grammar = the logical and structural rules that govern the composition of sentences, phrases, and words in any given natural language (i.e. the whole enchilada) - Syntax = the principles and rules for constructing sentences in natural language (i.e. just sentences) - Construction = the means by which each of the above together create a wholeness of idea, argument, or expression Thesis, Idea, and Argument - Thesis = the sentence that provides a road map for the reader - Indicates the subject of the essay - Suggests, indicates, or shows the organizational layout of the argument/treatment - Makes a claim that is disputable - Persuasive in tone - Idea = the central claim of relevance to your subject - Your idea should be expressible in the simplest of sentences - Your idea should be clearly your own (no plagiarism) - Argument = a set of one or more meaningful declarative sentences (or premises) that lead to a final declarative sentence (or proposition) known as the conclusion - Arguments must be “falsifiable” - Arguments are primarily classified as deductive, inductive, or by analogy Deductive - In criticism (not philosophical or logical arguments) if the premises (claims) are reasonable and justified, then the conclusion is defensible and acceptable - “Spring Awakening is based on a controversial European play. Average Broadway audiences do not like controversial plays. Spring Awakening will not be a long

running play” - Most scientific arguments are deductive Inductive/Abductive - Inductive arguments suggest conclusions based on reasonable or probable causes - Induction identifies patterns or congruencies and makes generalizable conclusions based on those observations - Because Spring Awakening was more popular with younger audiences, and older audiences complained about the show’s sexuality , the show documents generational changes in society, in attitudes about sex - Many scholarly/cultural/criticism arguments are inductive Argument by Analogy - An argument by analogy goes from one particular to another particular - An argument by analogy may use a particular idea in a premise to argue towards a similar particular idea/interpretation in the conclusion - Spring Awakening is archetypically European a “free thinking radical” play, so the play is anti-democratic and should be shunned - Ethos and Pathos are often employed in these arguments (Logos being deductive or inductive) Style and Simplicity - Style is the cluster of traits that create mood, readability, and Pathos - Style is a correlative to communicative persistence - Simplicity is a subset of style - Simplicity is a correlative to comprehension Your Critique - Use “acting” for actor’s movements: blocking, vocal choices, mise en scene, etc. - Do not use dialogue, plot, story, etc. in any way as evidence - Don’t make big, grand claims 9/28: THEA 103: Paradigms & History Dan Dannett’s Memes - You can watch it via the link on Canvas, but here’s the highlights: - Ideas are infectious, replicating, he calls these memes - Some ideas/memes are harmful - Shakerism is a sterilizing meme; so is suicide bombing - Toxic memes can wipe out cultures that lack anti-memes - Not all memes are harmful; fair play, work ethic, etc. - The Secret of Happiness is to find something more important than you are, and then dedicate your life to it. Memes create Paradigms - Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions traces the evolution of paradigms within scientific communities

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Primary argument is that “facts” are interpreted within “communities of belief” that change over time Theatre Artists use Paradigms - An Aesthetic Theory is a paradigm that helps explain, predict, or identify behaviors or beliefs in response to or concerning the creation or experience of art - Brooks Atkinson, New York Times critic: Dapper dresser, extra seat for his hat, wrote during the Golden Age of Broadway - His paradigm/worldview was Aristocratic/upper class: concerned with structure, form, beauty, and traditional aesthetic values - His mediation was reliable and predictable and powerful Historically, theatre marks and/or reveals theories/paradigms - Theories are formal paradigms subjected to rigorous re-evaluations - Theories about culture and theatre arise from “ideological climate” of an age, which is determined by asking - What is being defended and/or attacked? - What is privileged and/or marginalized? - What hierarchies of power (church/state, rank/class, etc.) - These are often in the Given Circumstances of a play Plays and Paradigms - You can’t answer those big questions without some very hard work - But you must because all plays exist within two paradigms: ours and theirs - Any play was written for a culture and a time that is now past, even if it was last week - We have to perform it tonight so that it is relevant and powerful Other as Paradigm - What sorts of paradigms did you see summarized in your history readings? - Theatre depends on the intersection of the paradigms of those who construct and who consume the play Paradigms on teaching and learning - Absolutism - right answers, knowledge as fact, textual or hierarchical authority, teaching defines as transmission of facts - Constructivism - good answers, knowledge as process, rational or personal authority, teaching defined as transmitting socially values processes. 10/12: THEA 103: Midterm Breakdown: Thinking, Right Answers, and Concepts Final Projects - Guimaraes, Andre - “Stunning” by David Adjmi Art - Art is inherently powerful (both creates and destroys) - Art is paradoxically both conservative and revolutionary (museums and street

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corners) Art is multidimensional (a single artistic idea expressed in multiple ways) The sciences, the humanities, and the arts document the common problems of life Success and failure in all three share much in common Imagining the 10 Dimensions (orthogonal planck)

10/19: THEA 103: Shakespeare and Early Modern Europe: The World @ 1600 - Most people die before they turn 40 - Much of the world is embroiled in conflict, much of it sparked by religion - Slave trade is a mature industry - North America was not, as yet, colonized by England - England had become, accidentally, the world’s greatest navy William Shakespeare 1564-1616 - English poet, playwright, and actor regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist - His works consist of approximately 38 plays, 134 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship or collaboration - His plays have been translated into every language Renaissance Shakespeare - Shakespeare’s first plays were written in the conventional style of the day (iambic pentameter) - Used classical sources for his plots - Adapted Medieval and Classical conventions in staging and structure Early Modern Shakespeare - Violated Neoclassical rules three unities, purity of genre, verisimilitude - Explored humanistic ideas, e.g. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves,” and “Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, which we ascribe to heavens.” (Alls Well) - Privileged the individual, both in structure and practically wrote for people he knew - Influenced theatre world-wide after his death Why Others Hate Shakespeare - Genre: Mastery, Diversity - Character: Complexity, Interiority - Theme/Argument: Depth, Universality - Language: Unparalleled poetry, prose - Spectacle: Action, Adventure - Plot: Complex, Episodic, Climactic 10/22: THEA 103: Beats, Musical and Otherwise:

Musical Beats - Some musical appreciation and/or ability is necessary to fully analyze musicals, which we won’t be doing here - Each song is harmonically and stylistically linked to its particular place in the musical (e.g. the 11 o'clock number) - Songs represent important structural moments in all musicals, at minimum a shift in tone when mere speaking will not suffice Structure of Musicals - Songs generally mark: - Transitions (a change or conversations) - Do-Re-Mi - Realizations (new insight or understanding) - Something Good - Decisions ( turning point or major action) - Climb Ev’ry Mountain - OR… - I Am (songs) explains a character, group, or situation - Maria, Sixteen Going on Seventeen - I Want (songs) explains what a character desires) - I Have Confidence - I Perform (songs) interrupts/intersects action, serves dramatic purpose The Lonely Goatherd 10/24: THEA 103: Writing, Thinking, & Making Becoming an Expert Artist - Talent - Training - Teaching - Time - Tenacity Theatrical Art - Physical processes/skills: - Vocal production - Physical abilities - Mental processes/skills: - Interpret symbolic abstractions - Identify and construct meaning - Translate across complex cognitive structures - Communicate (or create) all of the above clearly Phases of Development - Cognitive phase - (Learning) Identifies and develops the component parts of the skill, begins to understand the “whole” skill and its applications - Associative phase - Practicing; links component parts into a repeatable action - Autonomous phase - performing a skill with no conscious thinking Stages of Development

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Unconscious incompetence - no understanding Conscious incompetence - low performance, understanding of flaws and weak areas - Conscious competence - improved performance, conscious effort - Unconscious competence - higher performance, natural automatic effort Practice - No teacher c...