Thinking/Seeing/Hearing

Theatrically

Theory, Theatre: Ways of Seeing

• ‘THEORY’ AND ‘THEATRE’ ARE COGNATE• Gr. a looking at, viewing, contemplation,

speculation, theory, also a sight, a spectacle, abstr. n. f. (: * ) spectator, looker on, f. stem - of to look on, view, contemplate.

• L. theatrum, a. Gr. , a place for viewing, esp. a theatre, f. to behold (cf. sight, view, a spectator).

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• Theory is a way of seeing• All criticism is theoretical• Over the last 300 years, the majority of

Shakespearean criticism has more or less ignored the theatre and instead privileged other ways of looking at the texts

• This is fine. In your assessed essay and in Section B of the exam you choose your ways of seeing

• In Section A: we attempt to think/see/hear the text theatrically. We put the spectator back into theory.

What Shakespeare does not give us:

‘You must translate’Claudius, 4.1.2

• If you let the play speak for itself, it may not make a sound. (Peter Brook)

Advice

•  3.2. What is a theatrical commentary?  • One that considers some of the following: • The transitions between scenes; shifts in tone; stage directions (both explicit and

implicit); interpretative options for actors; the movement and interrelation of bodies in theatrical space; the use of the resources of the stage; use of props and costumes; the presence of non-speaking characters; the deployment of silence and pauses; shifts of tempo as the action unfolds; the actor-audience relationship; how the passage might originally have been staged; how it has been staged since Shakespeare’s time (i.e. stage history); how it might be staged today or in the future; how textual variants (if any) might affect performance choices and effects; the architecture of the stage space (mainstage, balcony [‘above’], trap, columns, discovery space, downstage/upstage); speech acts (tone, verse/prose, line/speech lengths, tempo and power, soliloquy and asides); music and song; sound effects.

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• Nb. Films can be referenced in passing, but the emphasis should be on theatrical interpretation.

• 3.3. First things first: when you have chosen your passage, use the reading time to:

• 1) Re-read the passage carefully, making short bullet points in the margin; mark significant stage directions, interpretive cruces, changes of style, and general points of interest.

• 2) Ask yourself why this passage has been set. What is remarkable, in theatrical terms, about the passage before you? What are its key problems? What is it trying to do to an audience? How is the world of the play different at the end of the passage? What’s the dramatic function of the passage? Your answers to this can provide you with your opening and/or closing sentences.

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• 3.4. Focus upon the extract: The question is asking you to analyse the text in front of you. You should be able to identify and contextualise the extract (where it occurs, how it operates within the play) and bear this information in mind as you do a close-analysis of the extract. The identification and contextualisation of the piece is only relevant if you relate it appropriately and usefully to your analysis of the extract. There are no marks available for simply being able to recognise the piece. Do not write at length about the play as a whole (merely to show that you know it) whilst ignoring the extract you are being asked to consider.

• 3.5. Structuring your answer: There is no single correct way to structure your answer. But a good response might begin by briefly outlining the context of the passage within the play and describing its particular theatrical challenges/interest. The bulk of your answer might then work through the passage chronologically. If it helps you to stay focussed on the text, you might even subdivide your response into smaller units by line numbers. The best answers will respond to the passage, as far as is possible, as a whole; i.e. do not spend 30 minutes writing about the first five lines. If you are running out of time spend the last five minutes bullet-

pointing the points you would have made if you had more time.

• 3.6. Consider the extract as a theatrical text: This means that you should analyse the text as a script for performance, referring to some of the many components of performance listed above. It does NOT mean that you are being asked to describe a hypothetical staging of the play, or reproduce a chronological account of the play’s production/performance history. Do not explain how you or a hypothetical director would stage the passage in your ideal production. Example: ‘At this point, Lady Macbeth should frown and tug at Macbeth’s sword, emphasising his effeminacy.’ Or ‘Lear should be standing for the curse of sterility then fall to his knees and gibber when his daughter ignores him.’ These – and any uses of the word ‘should’ – are prescriptive and close down possibilities. We want you to be alert to the wide variety of possible interpretations that the script might allow and this means being open-minded, imaginative, and exploratory. We want you to speculate and hypothesize, to think through the amazing openness of these scripts as instructions for theatrical performance.

• You are very welcome to use information about productions you may have seen/read about/performed in, but ONLY if it is relevant and appropriate to the point you are trying to

make, as an illustrative example to your own analysis.

• 3.7. Brief Closing Tips on Section A:  • 1) Make a checklist based on (2) above – revise this, be clear about what

is meant by ‘theatricality’. • 2) Visualize – put the action into three dimensions; try to see the stage in

your ‘mind’s eye’; remember the audience, both onstage and in the theatre. • 3) Speculate – avoid prescription, embrace openness. • 4) Simulate naiveté – it may help to imagine you are watching and

hearing the action unfold for the first time, moment by moment. Be responsive to the shifts, shocks and surprises of the script as they might play out in front of a live, uninitiated audience.

• 5) Stick to the passage in front of you.•

I can take any empty space and call it a barestage. A man walks across this empty stage whilst someone

else is watching him and that is all that is needed for an act of theatre

to be engaged.

Peter Brook, The Empty Space

I can take any empty space and call it a barestage. A man walks across this empty stage whilst someone else is watching him and that is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged.

Seeing and hearing the theatricality of the opening lines of Hamlet:

• SCENIC CONSTRUCTION – preparation par excellence – prep for war, prep for ghost

• ATMOSPHERE OF SENSORY DEPRIVATION: Broad daylight but fictional visibility is low. When Horatio and Marcellus enter: FRANCISCO: ‘I THINK I HEAR THEM’

• THIS IS A PLACE OF SEEING AND HEARING – Horatio is there to see the Ghost and ‘approve’ their eyes

• SPEECH ACTS: Begins with question – who’s there? – an interrogative play

• Lines constructed to convey tension, anxiety: short, split lines. Notice moments when tempo slackens.

• SCENE-CREATION: Disjunction between verbal imagery and spectacle: locale, atmosphere created through languages – bodily and verbal. Despite Italianate/Spanish-sounding names, it’s bitter cold. Later learn we’re ‘in’ Denmark.

CHOREOGRAPHY OF BODIES: Sit down a while… Well, sit we down… Atmosphere relaxes slightly before entrance of Ghost. Multiple levels

TEMPO / SENSE OF TIME: it is past 12 at opening: by line 64 it is 1am. The scene is moving towards the dawn in russet mantle clad…

• BARNARDO: ‘THE BELL THEN BEATING ONE’…• MARCELLUS: ‘THUS TWICE BEFORE AND JUST AT THIS

DEAD HOUR’ENTER GHOST – Where from? Below the stage? Purgatory?

Costume and movement can be reconstructed from dialogue; embedded stage directions

Why I should take it: for it cannot be,But I am Pigeon-Liuer'd, and lacke GallTo make Oppression bitter, or ere this,I should haue fatted all the Region KitesWith this Slaues Offall, bloudy: a Bawdy villaine,Remorselesse, Treacherous, Letcherous, kindles

villaine!Oh Vengeance!

Why? What an Asse am I? I sure, this is most braue,

That I, the Sonne of the Deere murthered,Prompted to my Reuenge by Heauen, and Hell,Must (like a Whore) vnpacke my heart with

words,And fall a Cursing like a very Drab.A Scullion? Fye vpon't: Foh. About my Braine.Hum.

I haue heard, that guilty Creatures sitting at a Play,Haue by the very cunning of the Scoene,Bene strooke so to the soule, that presentlyThey haue proclaim'd their Malefactions.For Murther, though it haue no tongue, will speakeWith most myraculous Organ. Ile haue these Players,Play something like the murder of my Father,Before mine Vnkle. Ile obserue his lookes,Ile tent him to the quicke: If he but blenchI know my course. The Spirit that I haue seeneMay be the Diuell, and the Diuel hath powerT'assume a pleasing shape, yea and perhapsOut of my Weaknesse, and my Melancholly,As he is very potent with such Spirits,Abuses me to damne me. Ile haue groundsMore Relatiue then this: The Play's the thing,Wherein Ile catch the Conscience of the King.