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Romanticism did not emphasize

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minimal, claustrophobic settings.

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Realist theatre has its roots in

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a revolt against the intentional artifice of neoclassicism.

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Besides an aesthetic overhaul, the realist theatre carried another agenda:

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a rebellion against the contrived manners of the Royal era and the creation of a theatre with a distinctly democratic, anti-Royalist air.

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Which movement, whose development paralleled but was essentially independent of realism, based its aesthetics on humanity's place in the natural environment?

answer

naturalism

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The constructivist who broke with Stanislavsky's style of realist performance to create a "biomechanical" style of acting and direction was

answer

Vsevold Meyerhold.

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Which playwright pioneered both realist and antirealistic styles in his work, shifting from a belief that "Naturalists...are aware of the richness of the human soul" to an attempt to "reproduce the disconnected but apparently logical form of a dream?"

answer

August Strindberg

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A stylized acting style is one in which

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characters usually represent more than individual persons or personality types; they represent moral positions or forces of nature.

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Which of the following is true of the antirealist aesthetic in the second third of the twentieth century?

answer

No absolute single set of governing principles determined the course of this theatre, leaving artists free to stylize consciously.

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Which production had the most violent premiere in theatre history, such that the audience shouted, hissed, threw things, shook fists at the stage, and fought duels after subsequent performances?

answer

Jarry's Ubu Roi

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The author of "Riders to the Sea" was:

answer

John Millington Synge

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From a practical standpoint, theatre may be considered a conservative institution because it conserves

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the history and conventional way of working as a theatre.

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Postmodern playwrights and directors are mainly concerned with

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the discontinuity of meaning.

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Postmodernism relates to previous artistic movements in all the following ways EXCEPT

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postmodern theatre attempts to illuminate the received truths of realism.

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The roots of postmodern theatre can be located in the arts phenomenon called

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dada

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Flashbacks that are not clearly framed as such, shuttling instead between time zones without narrative warning, are examples of

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nonlinear theatre

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This theatre, formed by Joseph Chaikin in 1963, combined social improvisation with Brechtian techniques and used character as a vehicle for direct interaction with audiences.

answer

The Open Theatre

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Which American playwright created works, including Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Fences, and The Piano Lesson, that portray the entire twentieth-century history of black America?

answer

August Wilson

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Which of the following is NOT true of the role of women in the history of drama?

answer

Women are more under-represented today in theatre than at any point since the 1650s.

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Founded by Luis Valdez in 1965, which contemporary Chicano theatre was created to dramatize the farm workers' situation in California through didactic actos?

answer

Teatro Campesino

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An example of verbatim theatre, where the play consists of real-life speeches and interviews, would be

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Stuff Happens

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One difference between the playwright in Shakespeare's time and the contemporary playwright is that

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the playwright no longer functions as a director but is now considered an independent artist.

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Every person may be considered a playwright because

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the unconscious stages an association of words and ideas when we sleep

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The term "playwright" refers to

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person who constructs and composes a play as a wheelwright makes a wheel.

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The core element of every play is

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action

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The playwright works with two fundamental tools:

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dialogue and physical action.

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A play in which events are connected to each other in strict, chronological, cause-effect continuity, and in which dramatic experience attempts to convey a lifelike progression of experience through time, is classified as

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continuous in structure and linear in chronology.

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Which of the following is the most accurate statement of the audience's response to the drama?

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Intrigue draws us into the world of the play; credibility keeps us there.

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Which of the following is true of playwriting in bygone days?

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Playwriting was considered so technically demanding a craft that playwrights spent long in-house apprenticeships as "company men," learning their skills through continual exposure in theatrical rehearsal and performance.

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A play in which every character possesses an independence of intention and expression, and whose motivation appears sensible in the light of our general knowledge of psychology and human behavior, possesses

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depth of characterization.

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All of the following are signs of good characterization EXCEPT

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he character appears as a pawn in the playwright's grand design and exists only to symbolize something.

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Which of the following tasks belong to the director?

answer

conceptualizing the play and giving it vision and purpose

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Which of the following is true of the history of the director's role?

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There has always been a director but not always an individual specifically charged with that role.

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The ancient Greek word for director is

answer

didaskalos, meaning "teacher."

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How did the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries' emphasis on rationalism influence the director's role?

answer

The demand for historical accuracy required the director to conduct comprehensive research, organization, and coordination.

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AndréAntoine is primarily known as a ______ director.

answer

naturalist

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Which of the following was one of several directors who not only fostered the development of realist and naturalist dramas but who also opened up the theatre to possibilities of psychological interpretation?

answer

Harley Granville-Barker

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Which of the following directors founded the Théâtre d'Art in Paris in 1890 as a direct assault upon the realist principles espoused by AndréAntoine?

answer

Paul Fort

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Which of the following is true of stylizing directors?

answer

They are unrestrained by rigid formulas with respect to verisimilitude or realistic behavior.

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Which person is responsible for the financial support of the production and, working closely with the director, also contributes to many "directorial" decisions in the production process?

answer

producer

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What is meant by the "concept" of a play?

answer

the director's central idea which focuses his or her interpretation

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A play's final repository is

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the minds and memories of its audiences.

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The public form of play analysis following a production is called

answer

dramatic criticism.

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Dramatic criticism usually appears in all the following forms EXCEPT

answer

annotated versions of a playscript used in production.

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Examples of theatres that have been created or sustained by governments or ruling elites include all of the following EXCEPT the

answer

theatre of the absurd.

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Why is the theatre in a strong position to force and focus public confrontation with social issues?

answer

Most productions do not act as propaganda but present the issues in all their complexity as food for thought and as such focus public debate, stimulate dialogue, and turn public attention and compassion to important issues.

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A play's relation to the individual stems from the fact that the best plays

answer

link up with our deepest musings and help us to put our unconnected ideas into some sort of order or philosophy.

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An audience member's aesthetic sensibility and response is

answer

a composite of many individual reactions and therefore subjective.

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Plays that deal with theatrical matter not simply as a vehicle but as a theme are called

answer

metadrama or metatheatre.

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Which of the following is NOT an example of a play that makes the theatre a matter in the play itself?

answer

Sophocles' Oedipus The King

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What word fits the definition of "that which holds the attention?"

answer

entertainment

question

The term mimesis means

answer

mimicry

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What are the two fundamental notions of acting?

answer

representational and presentational

question

The type of performing that asks the actor to enter the mind of the character being played is

answer

representational acting.

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Actors who studies human behaviors from a broad range of historical periods, countries, and social classes, so as to apply them when creating characters from a variety of dramatic styles, demonstrates a technique of the _________ mode of acting.

answer

presentational

question

What is "The Method?"

answer

an American acting style derived from the Russian actor-director Konstantin Stanislavsky's self-proclaimed system

question

Why did the Greek actor Polus, when playing the role of Electra, bring the ashes of his dead son onstage with him?

answer

He wanted to cry real tears lamenting the "death" of his character's brother.

question

Who maintained that the actor should be "an unmoved and disinterested onlooker" and imitate emotion rather than feel it?

answer

Denis Diderot

question

Today, the debate over inside or outside styles of acting

answer

is largely diminished, with Stanislavsky and classical techniques both emphasized.

question

The term used for the technical skills needed for professional acting, focusing primarily on the voice and body, is

answer

virtuosity

question

What description best characterizes our current relationship to virtuosity?

answer

It is making a comeback since the heyday of the Method in the mid-twentieth century.

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