Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde

Question 1

John Heywood, Playwright: (c. 1497-1580)

Answer 1

•“Look before you leap” “Better late than never” “You’ve hit the nail on the head” “One good turn deserves another” “The More the Merrier” “Out of sight, out of mind”

Question 2

Shakespearean Verbs Formed from Nouns

Answer 2

To Champion To Elbow To Puke

Question 3

Theatre Goes Underground:

Answer 3

Tertullian (c. 155-c.240 c.e.) De Spectaculis (On the Spectacles) (c. 200 c.e.) Theatre is deemed “anti-Christian” and a form of “idolatry.” Tertullian objects to emotional responses to actors. Catharsis is dangerous. “For how monstrous to go from God’s house to the devil’s?…to raise your hands to God and then to weary them in the applauding of an actor”

Question 4

Theatre at Year Zero: 800 c.e.

Answer 4

Theatricality begins to seep into Christian ritual. Amalarius of Metz speaks of high mass as a “divine drama” We might say that Theatre is resurrected through Easter masses. The “Quem quaeritis?” at Winchester Cathedral, 970 c.e. Another “Thespis Moment”

Question 5

Fighting Fire with Fire: The Church and the Mystery Plays:

Answer 5

The Catholic Church tries to regain control of theatre by including it in the Corpus Christie Festival (England, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, etc.). The “Mystery” Cycles were a series of vignettes from Judeo-Christian lore, from Adam and Eve onwards in biblical order. Different craft guilds were responsible for each scene.

Question 6

The Morality Play: Everyman and Others

Answer 6

In Morality Plays, the characters are Allegorical figures. In the most famous Morality Play, Everyman (c. 1510), the characters include “Everyman,” “Death,” “Goods,” “Good Deeds,” “Knowledge,” “Discretion,” etc. Remains the most read and performed play in English before the Elizabethan Era (and is in your Norton)

Question 7

Morality: The Castle of Perseverance (c. 1410)

Answer 7

We see a psychomachia, as the protagonist, “Mankind,” is pushed and pulled by the Virtues (“Humility,” “Chastity,” etc.) and the Vices (“Envy,” “Wrath, etc.). Other characters include “Death,” “Flesh” and “Folly.”

Question 8

John Bale (1495-1563): Anti-Catholic Morality Plays

Answer 8

A Carmelite Monk who turned against Catholicism, becoming one of the strongest anti-Catholic voices in the England of Henry VIII. Wrote parodic anti-Catholic Morality plays for the Protestant cause. A collector of vestments for costumes: “Let Idolatry be decked like an old witch, Sodomy like a monk of all sects, Ambition like a bishop” Bale is the bridge between Medieval Theatre and the later Tudor (Elizabethan) Theatre.

Question 9

The New Tudor World (Henry VIII and Elizabeth I):

Answer 9

Dissolution of the Monasteries, friaries, and convents:

1536-1541

Henry VIII bans Miracle Plays

Elizabeth I takes the Throne:

1558 Elizabeth bans the Mystery Plays (the last Cycle is performed in Chester in 1575).

Shakespeare in London by 1592

Question 10

Elizabeth’s Rule:

Answer 10

Dominant Naval Power • Imperial Conquests • Religious Unrest Kept Under Strict Check. Anglican Protestantism is the state religion. • Censorship. • Public Theatre Carefully Monitored. However, Elizabeth loves the theatre.

Question 11

One of Elizabeth’s leading playwrights

Answer 11

Shakespeare • Playwright, Actor, Shareholder • 1-2 Plays Per Year • Worked Collaboratively • The Lord Chamberlain’s Men (1593-1603) • The King’s Men (From 1603 under James I)

Question 12

Lady Jane Lumley (1537-1578):

Answer 12

The first to translate Euripides into English.

Question 13

Shakespeare and His Friends at the Mermaid Tavern, by John Faed, 1851.

Answer 13

The painting depicts (from left in back) Joshua Sylvester, John Selden, Francis Beaumont, William Camden, Thomas Sackville, John Fletcher (who collaborated with Shakespeare on Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen), Sir Francis Bacon, Ben Jonson, John Donne, Samuel Daniel, Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh, the Earl of Southampton, Sir Robert Cotton, and Thomas Dekker.

Question 14

Jig

Answer 14

a lively dance with leaping movements.

Question 15

Groundings

Answer 15

a spectator or reader of inferior taste, such as a member of a theater audience who traditionally stood in the pit below the stage.

Question 16

Jacobean

Answer 16

relating to the reign of James I of England.

Question 17

Iambic Pentameter and Blank Verse

Answer 17

A blank verse is a poem with no rhyme but does have iambic pentameter. This means it consists of lines of five feet, each foot being iambic, meaning two syllables long, one unstressed followed by a stressed syllable.

Question 18

The Lord Chamberlain

Answer 18

The Lord Chamberlain or Lord Chamberlain of the Household is the most senior officer of the Royal Household of the United Kingdom, supervising the departments which support and provide advice to the Sovereign of the United Kingdom while also acting as the main channel of communication between the Sovereign

Question 19

Sumptuary Laws

Answer 19

are laws that attempt to regulate consumption; Black’s Law Dictionary defines them as “Laws made for the purpose of restraining luxury or extravagance, particularly against inordinate expenditures in the matter of apparel, food, furniture, etc.”

Question 20

Greek

Japanese

English

Answer 20

Differances

Question 21

The Unique Elizabethan Public Theatres:

Answer 21

Question 22

Theatre Customs, 1:

Answer 22

•Performances started at 2 pm. As there were no act breaks, the action was continuous, ending around 4 pm.

•

• Plays were in repertory: every day would be a different performance.
• The plays ended with a jig, which carried the same significance as a satyr play or kyōgen. (Curtain calls were imported from France after the Restoration in 1660)

•

—a sketch of The Globe Theatre by the Czech artist Václav Hollar, c. 1638.

Question 23

Theatre Customs, 2:

Answer 23

• “Each playhouse advanceth his flag in the air, whither quickly at the waving thereof are summoned whole troops of men, women, and children”—William Parkes, The Curtaine-Drawer of the World, 1612.
• Black=Tragedy
• White=Comedy
• Red= History

•

•Terminology: “Players,” not Actors; “Playhouses” not Theatres; “Poets,” not Playwrights. There are no “directors”

Question 24

Colors of Tragedy, Comedy, and History

Answer 24

• “Each playhouse advanceth his flag in the air, whither quickly at the waving thereof are summoned whole troops of men, women, and children”—William Parkes, The Curtaine-Drawer of the World, 1612.
• Black=Tragedy
• White=Comedy
• Red= History

•

•Terminology: “Players,” not Actors; “Playhouses” not Theatres; “Poets,” not Playwrights. There are no “directors”

Question 25

Theatre as a non-profit

Answer 25

• A For-Profit Enterprise
• Continuous
• Not Religious
• Vs. University Theatre
• Shares System (as a stockholder in the Globe and his company, Shakespeare became wealthy).
• Patronage of Upper Class Citizens: Shakespeare’s company is first the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, then the King’s Men. Their main rival was the Admiral’s Men.

Question 26

The Playhouses:

Answer 26

•In 1600, London had a population similar to Madison today, approximately 200,000 people. (The population will have doubled by 1642).

•

•The Globe and the Rose could seat 3,000 people, up to a 1,000 could stand.

•

•It is estimated that 15,000 people went to the theatre each week.

•

•The Public Theatres are democratic. The Indoor Theatres will not be (“more witplay than swordplay”)

Question 27

Lessons from the Rose Excavation

Answer 27

Sophisticated Draining System. This included a system for handling urine.

• Polygonal Rather Than Octagonal in its construction.
• Slopped Yard for the Groundlings, offering better viewing.
• Hazelnut, Walnut and Oyster Shells Everywhere.

Question 28

Legal Standing, 3: Patronage as Protection:

Answer 28

•Shakespeare’s company were at first the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, after Henry Carey, First Baron Hunsdon (4th March 1526 – 23rd July 1596), Elizabeth’s cousin.

•

•The Lord Chamberlain remains the most senior position within the royal household.

•

•First, through the subsidiary position of the Master of Revels, and then thereafter, with some breaks, the Lord Chamberlain had the power to censor plays and to forbid productions. This power was not revoked until 1968.

Question 29

Legal Standing, 4: Patronage as Protection:

Answer 29

•After James I ascends the throne, he becomes the company’s patron, and they become the King’s Men.

•

•The Jacobean Era begins (Jacobean=Jamesian, the era of James). One goes to see theatre.

•

•The “King James Version” of the Christian Bible is named after his patronage of that project.

Question 30

The Plays…

Answer 30

•At first, only the most popular plays were published, usually as pirate editions.

•

•It is estimated that only 1 in 10 plays have survived into the Modern Era. 1, perhaps 2, of Shakespeare’s plays are thought to be missing.

•

•Betsy Baker destroys over 50 plays in 1720, but made delicious pies.

Question 31

as Poetry: Blank Verse and Iambic Pentameter:

Answer 31

Blank Verse: Sounds like English prose and does not usually rhyme.

Iambic Pentameter: Has five (penta- is the Greek prefix for “five”) stressed syllables out of ten per line. The stress falls on the second syllable:

“If music be the food of love, play on.”

“But soft, what light from yonder window breaks?”

Variations are possible:

“To be or not to be, that is the question” (12 syllables, a hexameter)

Question 32

Other Elements to Look for:

Answer 32

• The Use of Rhyming Couplets:

Often exit lines—

Orsino: “But when in other habits you are

seen/

Orsino’s mistress, and his fancy’s

queen.”

• O.P. (Original Pronunciation): “Love” and “Prove” rhyme.
• Use of Prose Instead of Verse for Commoners and Clowns.
• The Meter dictates how a word in the past tense is pronounced:

Vanish’d or Vanished.

Question 33

Twelfth Night as….

Answer 33

*A Piece of Metatheatre…

•

**A Harbinger of Puritanism’s Rise and Revenge:

“I’ll be reveng’d on the whole pack of

you”

—Malvolio (Italian for “ill will”).

***A Study of Gender and Sexuality: Judith Butler’s idea that all gender should be seen as “performance”…

Question 34

Metatheatre: “All the Stage’s a Stage”

Answer 34

•Metatheatre refers to aspects of the play that call attention to the fact that what is happening on stage is not real.

Question 35

Metatheatre Might Also Be Seen in….

Answer 35

• A Play Within a Play
• Moments when we watch characters on stage watching other characters put on a play or other performance.

Question 36

What Does a Metatheatrical Element Do?

Answer 36

•By pointing out the constructed world of the stage, metatheatre:

•

•Gives us the pleasure of being “in the know” as we see those rules in action.

•

•Invites us to consider how our own lives are like a theatrical event as we perform particular identities (such as gender) and societal roles within everyday life.

Question 37

“And thus the whirligig of Time brings in his revenges”

Answer 37

A Harbinger of Puritanism’s Rise and Revenge:

•

“I’ll be reveng’d on the whole pack of

you”

—Malvolio (Italian for “ill will”).

•

•The Civil War and the Interregnum closes the Theatres, 1642-1660.

•

•Some English actors flee to the continent to tour, moving east as far as Poland.

Question 38

The Puritan Ethic; or Pilgrim’s Progress:

Answer 38

•In the 18th century, laws forbidding the performance of plays were passed in the United States:

•

• 1750: Massachusetts
• 1759: Pennsylvania
• 1761: Rhode Island

•

•“To indulge a taste for playgoing means nothing more or less than the loss of that most valuable treasure: the immortal soul”

—Timothy Dwight IV, President of Yale.

Question 39

He’s the Man: Charles II is Restored to the Throne, 1660

Answer 39

The Restoration:

Charles returns from exile in Paris.

There are new theatres (indoor), new scenery, new playwrights and new plays.

There are Actresses. There are women playwrights.

There is a slavish devotion to a bad translation of Aristotle’s Poetics.

Question 40

The Restoration: 1660

Answer 40

• The Development of Restoration Drama, of which the Comedy is the most Significant.
• Under the bad translations of Aristotle, Shakespeare is either rewritten or shelved. His style is considered barbarous.
• The Following 18th Century does not differ greatly: Stagecraft and Comedy are further developed. Some first moves toward Realism.
• David Garrick begins developing the role of a new position: the Director. He also coins a new term for himself: the Star.

Question 41

One of the Greatest Stage Revolutions between the 18th century and the 20th century: Lighting.

Answer 41

•18th Century: From Candle to Oil.

•

•Early 19th Century: Oil to Gaslight.

•

•1830s: The Development of Limelight; an advancement in focused lighting and the first “spotlight.”

•

•1840s: Electric Carbon Arcs in Paris.

•

•1880s: Electricity (and there’s a Wilde connection).

Question 42

The Importance of Being Earnest as far as context

Answer 42

Question 43

1895

Answer 43

•The Importance of Being Earnest

The First Trial

Question 44

Scenery

Answer 44

Scenery provides the physical environment in which the dramatic action comes to life. Two important functions of scenery are to create a visual world for the dramatic action and to provide an interesting space for actors and director to use in creating physical action onstage. Scene designers use style, color, mass, form, line, and texture within a defined space (usually a stage) to create the world of the play.

Question 45

Environmental conditions:

Answer 45

● What does the scenery convey about time of year, weather, geography, or other environmental conditions?

Question 46

Movement potential

Answer 46

● How do actors enter and exit the stage? Are there staircases, spiraling ramps, large open spaces, or other features that suggest specific movement patterns?

Question 47

style

Answer 47

● : Does the scenery create a realistic sense of time and place? Or is the space symbolic or abstract? Does the scenery employ scenic conventions from a different time or place? Japanese Kabuki staging, for example, or painted scenery in the style of 18th century England?

Question 48

Color, texture, line, and rhythm

Answer 48

● Does the scenery use bright or subdued colors? Rough, jagged, soft, or silken surfaces? Smooth, undulating lines or rectilinear forms? One door or many doors? What atmosphere or mood do these choices create? Size and scale? How large or small are the scenic elements in relationship to the actors and the audience? What might scenic scale imply about the action of the play?

Question 49

Scene Changes

Answer 49

● Does the scenery change, how often, and why or why not? How do the scene changes influence the overall rhythm of the action?

Question 50

Relationship to audience

Answer 50

● What relationship between the audience and the performance does the scenery suggest? Do scenic elements blend into audience space? Is the audience separated from the performance space by a spatial or physical barrier?

Question 51

Acting

Answer 51

Actors bring the characters to life, investing them with movement, voice, passion, intellect, and desire. Voice and body are the actor’s primary tools, but other production elements often assist the actor in representing characters. Costume, including hair and make-up, is especially important. Also important is an actor’s ability to shape his or her performance in relation to the ensemble (the other actors). Different production styles (for example realism, epic theatre, or theatre of the absurd) call for varying acting styles. When analyzing acting in a production, consider the following topics:

Question 52

Spatial Relationships

Answer 52

The term “spatial relationships” (sometimes called “blocking”) refers to the physical positioning of actors on the stage relative to other actors, scenic elements, the playing space, and the audience. A director usually

works with actors to establish patterns of movement and physical positions that illuminate characters, character relationships, and the dramatic action. When analyzing spatial relationships in a production, consider the following topics:

Areas, Levels, Distance, Rhythm and line, change, and relationship to audience.

Question 53

Costumes

A character’s costume includes his or her clothes, makeup, and hairstyle, and might also include personal items such as a handbag or umbrella. While a costume may convey external aspects of a character such as his/her profession and social class, it also suggests inner elements of character such as mood and personality. Costume designers use color, texture, pattern, weight, as well as historical period, to create a character’s costume. When analyzing costume choices in a production, consider the following topics:

Answer 53

Socioeconomic class, Evirnonmental conditions, Occupation, mood and temperament, relationship to the play and other characters, costurme changes, movement potential

Question 54

Sound

Sound effects and music generate meaning, create mood, and enhance atmosphere or feeling in a theatrical performance. In addition, directors and sound designers often use preshow music to establish the initial mood of a performance or postshow music to prolong the final mood of a performance. When analyzing sound in a production, consider the following topics:

Answer 54

Environmental conditions, style, mood, Rhythm, volume, live or recorded

Question 55

Lighting

Theatrical lighting serves not only the important practical purpose of making actors visible on stage, but also the artistic purpose of conveying information and atmosphere about the dramatic action. Lighting designers use the color, texture, intensity (brightness or dimness), direction, and movement of light to help create the world of the play. When analyzing lighting choices in a production, consider the following topics:

Answer 55

Focusing attention, Texture and pattern, direction and color, style, Rhythm

Question 56

Audience

Though often overlooked, the audience is a critical element of theatrical production. In fact, many theories of theatre are founded upon the assumption that the basic minimum requirements for performance to occur are the presence of at least one audience member and at least one performer. Theatre practitioners must take the audience into account in many ways in planning and executing a production, including:

Answer 56

Presentational/Representation, Motion, emotional relationship to the action, Dramaturgical materials, Audience makeup

Question 57

L’Art pour L’Art / Art for Art’s Sake

Answer 57

• A term developed in France, and popularized by writer Théophile Gautier (1811-1872), although coined by the French philosopher Victor Cousin (1792-1867). It’s exemplar in America was Edgar Allen Poe.
• They believed that Art should not be didactic in the cause of politics or religion, but had intrinsic value in and of itself.

Question 58

Walter Pater and The Aesthetic Movement

Answer 58

•Walter Pater (1839-1894)

•

•Controversial Oxford professor who was a renowned essayist, novelist, and an art and literary critic.

•

•Wilde fell under his influence while at Oxford.

•

•“All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music”

—Walter Pater

Question 59

Aestheticism Becomes Decadent

Answer 59

Question 60

The Comedians Attack:

Answer 60

Question 61

Sudden Theatrical Success:

Answer 61

•1892: Lady Windermere’s Fan

•

•1893: A Woman of No Importance

•

•1895: An Ideal Husband

The Importance of Being Earnest

Question 62

The Coded Language of a Queer Shadowland?:

Answer 62

• “Earnest” was possibly a Victorian code word for homosexual. The Norton seems insistent, but this remains debatable. John Gambril Nicholson’s “Earnest” poem would have been known by Wilde.
• “Bunburying” was later adopted as a code term, but it is difficult to know how Wilde decided on it. But certainly it connotes disguise and deceit: two well-known survival mechanisms.

Question 63

The Epigram / Epigrammatic Writing:

Answer 63

An epigram is a rhetorical device that produces a succinct, intriguing, and surprising satirical statement.

“I can resist everything except temptation”

“Experience is the name that everyone gives to their mistakes”

—Lady Windermere’s Fan.

Question 64

Algernon on divorce

Answer 64

Algernon: “Divorces are made in Heaven”

Algernon: “The truth is rarely pure and never simple”

Algernon: “The amount of women in London who flirt with their own

husbands is perfectly scandalous…It is simply washing one’s

clean linen in public”

Algernon: “I hear her hair has turned quite gold from grief”

Lady Bracknell: “A girl with a simple, unspoiled nature, like

Gwendolen, could hardly be expected to reside in

the country”

Miss Prism: “The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what

Fiction means”

Gwendolen: “I never travel without my diary. One should always have

something sensational to read in the train”

Question 65

Dorothy Parker

Answer 65

Dorothy Parker: U.S. Poet, Playwright, Critic and Short Story Legend:

• “Brevity is the soul of lingerie.”
• “A hangover is the wrath of grapes.”
• “I don’t care what is written about me so long as it isn’t true.”
• “A little bad taste is like a dash of paprika.”
• “The cure to boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”

•

Question 66

“Symphony in Yellow”

Answer 66

Question 67

The Purpose of Comedy: Holding Up a Mirror

Answer 67

•Comedy Traditionally is a Corrective to Society. Comedies tend to end in Marriage(s), why?

•

•The Classic Comedy Agon: Two Groups in Struggle against Each Other. Often the Protagonists are Young, and so the agon is generational.

•

•In what way is Wilde subverting the classical understanding of comedy?

•

Question 68

Comic Conflicts:

Answer 68

•Mistaken identity

Ø“Do you mean to say you couldn’t love

me if my name wasn’t Ernest?” (x2)

ØBunbury/Brother Ernest

ØJack/Three-volume Novel

•

•Marriage

ØJack and Gwendolen

ØAlgernon and Cecily

ØChasuble and Prism

Ø

•Conflict between Generations

ØJack / Lady Bracknell

ØCecily / Jack

ØCecily / Gwendolen

A 1906 production of Twelfth Night.

Question 69

Comic Business: “If Food Be the Music of Love…”

Answer 69

Feasting (Appetite):

•Muffins, Cucumber Sandwiches,

Bread and Butter vs. Cake:

“He subsequently stayed to tea, and devoured

every single muffin.”

Instant Plot Developments:

“Prism, where is that baby?”

Inversion/sendup of societal norms:

“Algernon, I forbid you to be baptized. I will

not hear of such excesses.”

“Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing

succeeds like excess”—Oscar Wilde

Question 70

Is Ernest Earnest?

Answer 70

Jack has the last line in this play:

“…I’ve now realized for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.”

• A pun on the title
• A pun on how the Victorian upper classes defined the word “Earnest” and how they practiced being “earnest.”

•

•Ernest (n): a name given typically to male children, derived from German word (Ernst) for “serious”

•

•Earnest (adj): serious, sincere, clear and steadfast in one’s intentions

Question 71

Describe the plot and subplot(s), where present. What are the main events or actions of the play?

Trifles

Medea

Twelfth Night

Fences

Trifles

Atsumori

The Importance of Being Earnest

Answer 71

General: The elements of theatrical production, types of stage designs, major aspects of stage design in different periods

(i.e., theatron, mirror room, the Hell), terms for different dramatic narrative structures (act, climax, falling action)

Medea:

Euripides, Corinth, Helios, Chorus Jason,

Greek tragedy, Aristotle;

Twelfth Night:

Shakespeare, Plautus, Olivia, Malvolio, Maria, Orsino,

Viola, Antonio, Sir Andrew, who fights whom,

Elizabethan/Jacobean drama, metatheatrical, comedy;

Fences:

August Wilson, twentieth-century realism, the great migration, Gabriel, Arthur Miller, “Tragedy and the Common Man,” century cycle, Bono, Raynell, Rose, Troy Maxson, the trumpet, characters’ jobs;

Trifles:

Susan Glaspell, George Henderson, Henry Peters, Lewis Hale, Mrs. Peters, Mrs. Hale, the bird, the Bechdel test, the quilt;

Atsumori:

Zeami, Noh drama, kyogen, shite, waki, yugen, monomane, Rensho, bunraku;

The Importance of Being Earnest:

Oscar Wilde, Jack, Lady Bracknell, Cicely, Algernon, Miss Prism, a handbag, Victoria Station, “Art for Art’s Sake,” The Well-Made Play.

Question 72

In the final scene of Fences, we learn that Cory has ___.

a. married someone
b. gone to prison
c. died
d. become a professional football player
e. joined the military

Answer 72

E. Joined the military

Question 73

According to Arthur Miller, the best tragic heroes for the 20th century were kings.

A. This statement is true.

B. This statement is false.

Answer 73

B. This statement is false.

Question 74

Match the set design element, costume element, or prop to the play in which it appears.

Answer 74

1.

A baseball bat

(C)

A.

Trifles

2.

A skene

(B)

B.

Medea

3.

A quilt

(A)

C.

Fences

4.

Yellow stockings

(D)

D.

Twelfth Night

Question 75

The 3 M’s of Theatre

Answer 75

1. Mystery play: The plot and characters are drawn from the books of the Bible.
2. Miracle play: The plot is built around the lives and the works of the saints
3. Morality play: Based on the spiritual trials of the average man