...our English lesson on 8th November 2011..

HOW DOES THEATRE WORK?

The theatre is an open  or close place where performances are given; a play is a text written to be performed. There are different kind of plays: tragedy, comedy, farce, fiction and poetry (drama).

Theatres as buildings were built in the Renaissance to host plays and an audience.

In the Middle Age first performances arose from religious ceremonies and rituals: a ritual is a celebration in which somebody sends a message and the audience received it, so that is created an interaction between the priest and people in the church. Medieval drama developed from rituals of the Church and some of the most important or complicated episodes of the Bible were represented to teach a moral and religious code: indeed these first plays were aimed at a didactic goal.

Drama is the result of liturgy and was performed inside the church about XIII century more or less.

It was concerned obviously in religious topic and his goal was to instruct people on religious mystery.

A further step was when performances moved out of the church.

Religious and dramatic performances were offered during the main festival like Corpus Christi (in June, a right moment for open-air plays) or Eastern and at the beginning they coincided with Corpus Christi procession which moved around the town.

Gradually an evolution was recorded: a new form of drama was organized and it took place outside the church where the most relevant events from the Old and New Testament were represented by the guilds.

These kind of plays were called mystery plays. In later time also morality plays developed.

From the end of 15^th century morality plays were performed by travelling companions: they represented moral teaches in an open-air stage in which the main protagonists were abstract vices or virtues.

It was only after the tradition of mystery, miracle and morality that plays moved indoor in the banquet halls of noble people or in the common rooms of university, ruled by the Church anyway.

RAPPRESENTARE à PRESENTARE IN MODO NUOVO ànuova visione della realtà

CULTURA: intreccio di codici differenti

Medioevo   ßà   GOD

Umanesimo   ßà   HUMAN BEINGS

Rinascimeno   ßà    LEARNING = CULTURA, sovrastrutture dell'animalità umana

HAMLET   ßà   senso della vita

MACBETH   ßà   senso del potere

ANTONIO E CLEOPATRA   ßà   gelosia