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This article investigates the different nuances of the term modern in Brazilian theater criticism, seeking to map the main variations and their implications for the analysis of the drama in Brazil. Through examination of materials from press pages and books of the 19th and 20th centuries, studies dedicated to the history of Brazilian theater, and remarks on the concept of the modern made by researchers like Hans Robert Jauss, this text seeks to present the widespread use of the term, applied to different productions in the Brazilian theatrical context. Consequently, we propose to reflect on the modern in Brazilian theater as a fruitful inquiry into the various aesthetic influences that transformed the country's stage and dramaturgy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his writings on aesthetics, Jacques Rancière argues that Rousseau’s criticism of the theater in The Letter to M. D’Alembert on the Theater is significant because it calls into question the possibility of the uniform transmission of the artist’s knowledge to the spectator. Despite this important point, Rancière largely adopts the commonly accepted reading of the Letter that Rousseau finds the theater politically pernicious because it separates and isolates audience members, turning them into passive spectators. According to this reading, Rousseau proposes to replace the theater with the ethical immediacy of the festival. Situating the Letter in its historical context and reading it with Rancière to argue against his own reading, I challenge this interpretation. I argue that for Rousseau the theater is problematic because as a spectacle that calls attention to its difference from what it represents, it invites the spectators to actively engage with the performance, preventing the uniform transmission of the artist’s ideas to the spectators. For Rousseau, this democratic potential of the theatrical spectacle transforms it from a possible means of moral instruction to a risk to the existing social order, which relies on a distinction between those who should instruct and those who should be instructed. Insofar as the spectators refuse to act as passive recipients of knowledge and do something they are not supposed to do, including taking part in the idle pleasures of the rich and judging the quality of the plays, they reconfigure the distribution of the sensible. Rousseau’s alternatives to the theater, the marriage ball and the public festival, seek to close off this possibility by carefully concealing their representational status. By presenting the representations of an “ideal” community as the immediate expressions of the community’s truth, these spectacles achieve, or so Rousseau hopes, what the theater fails to do, the effective delivery of moral instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article attempts to provide an overall overview of the Greek theatre during the interwar period. Specifically, it examines the conditions that influenced playwriting and the establishment and operation of theatrical troupes and institutions. The interwar period sheds light on modern Greek theatre and its darker side, leading up to the current theatrical landscape. The article summarises its impact on theatrical practice, the reception of ancient drama, and the emergence and consolidation of important domains such as directing and theatre criticism within the institutionalisation of basic demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates a few passages from Plato's Republic in order to uncover certain assumptions and consequences of the philosopher's argument about the status of emotions, which culminates in the incisive and radical statement in book X, "It is necessary to dry the emotions" (Rep.606d). According to Plato, emotions lead men to act irrationally and in a cowardly manner, especially citizens who become accustomed to poetry, particularly drama, which arouses the passions. Rather than analyzing the philosopher's criticism of the value of theater and the expression of pain (such as lamentation and crying), I shall examine a contemporary case: the funeral of actor Jean-Paul Belmondo which was held by the French government amidst the SARSCoV- 2 pandemic crisis. Through this approach I shall reassess the role of emotion in the education of citizens and the political strengthening of a city or a group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nation as performed by the state has found either endorsement or criticism on the stage in postindependence India. The decolonization drive, undertaken during the 1950s, aimed at identifying performance forms that would define what 'national theatre' would be for a free India and thus help reclaim the 'Indian' cultural ethos. Nation in contemporary Indian theatre is as much a thematic trope as a question of form – but both critical of the previous postcolonial-nationalist tendency to institutionalize through theatre an Indian culture in sync with the state narrative of nationhood. Twenty-first century theatre in India is largely experimental, moving far beyond the thematization of issues to their presentation in forms that are 'inter-artistic exchange' (Lehmann) and partake of performance-making protocols from domestic as well as global theatre practice. The present study discusses two theatrical productions – The Antigone Project (2003-4), directed by Anuradha Kapur and Ein Lall, and Work in Progress: A Nationalism Project (2018), directed by scenographer Deepan Sivaraman. The former is the artist's reaction to the 2002 post-Godhra riot (called 'pogrom' by many); the latter critiques the distortion of the idea of modern India, prompting readings from the country's Constitution. Although centered on these two productions, the essay quickly meanders through a couple more contemporary performances in the second section to demonstrate through the diversity of forms the shift in the relationship between politics and theatre, especially when it comes to the performance of nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on theatrical performances including A Song of the Highest Tower: Ulysses Theatre's King Lear in Croatia, Keeping it Real: A Conversation with Christopher Shinn and Performance and the Writing Life: A Conversation with Bonnie Marranca.

The article presents an analysis of the work of Chilean theater critic Hernán Vidal, with a focus on his views of theater linked to social history. Topics addressed include the impact of social changes in Latin American theater from the 1970s to 2014, the work of Vidal at the Institute for the Study of Ideologies and Literature (ISIL) at University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and his research on otherness from the perspective of Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci.

The aim of the article is to outline the presence of Luigi Pirandello in Wrocław. After a brief overview of his critical reception in Poland after the First World War, the essay focuses on the three performances that took place in Wrocław after the Second World War. For each performance, the theatre program and the critical reviews are analyzed. The article attempts to show how Pirandello, after his rare appearance, disappeared from the theatre scene in Wrocław. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literary criticism of the play "Tartuff" by play writer Molière is presented. It outlines the characters and explores the symbolic significance of these characters. It emphasizes the met dramatic performativity and theatricality inherent in the conception of the play and the neoclassical dramatic theory may have prohibited the excessive use of stage objects.

Eugène Ionesco was born in Romania in 1909, but he died in France in 1994. The name on his birth certificate was Eugen Ionescu, yet the name on his grave in the Montparnasse cemetery is Eugène Ionesco, as he is known across the world. In this article, Octavian Saiu explores these polarities of Ionesco's destiny from the perspective of his reception in Romania, where nationalistic claims are embroiled in contention over his identity. The paradoxes of this situation are clearly illustrated by the conflict surrounding the celebration of his centenary in 2009, when Marie-France Ionesco, the writer's daughter and the trustee of the estate, banned a series of Romanian performances of Ionesco's plays planned for the occasion. Her decision reflected the traumatizing relationship Ionesco had, even beyond his grave, with what he uncompromisingly called his ‘fatherland’. Octavian Saiu is an Associate Professor at the National University of Theatre and Cinematography (NUTC) in Romania and a Guest Lecturer at the University of Otago in New Zealand. He is Vice-President of the Romanian Section of the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC) and Director of the Eugène Ionesco–Samuel Beckett Research Centre at NUTC. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the need for theater rhetoric based on the concept of speech act theory. The author explores the various models of communication where rhetoric relevant to theater are represented in plays which include the model of verbal interaction and the model of author/audience interaction. The play "Woyzeck" by Georg Büchner and its interpretation by Rina Yerushalmi is illustrated to define theaters' rhetorical structures. The author further elucidates that the fictional world represented by the medium is a metaphoric description that needs consideration of rhetoric.

The article presents information related to the literary works of writer Ronald Barthes. It is stated that he wrote more than seventy articles on contemporary theater between 1953 and 1961. It is mentioned that he got immediate public attention with the publication of the book "Mythologies" that contained articles written by him during 1954-1956. Barthes' personal interest in theater is explored in the article.

Little attention has been paid to the fact that Grotowski's first tour abroad with the Laboratory Theatre was to the Scandinavian countries rather than to Paris, as is often imagined. In this article, Franco Perrelli focuses on the responses of critics, especially in Sweden, to performances of The Constant Prince and to the seminars and other discussions accompanying the tour. He thus provides a comprehensive account of the impact made by Grotowski and his actors in their first encounter with spectators outside Poland. A specialist in Scandinavian theatre, Franco Perrelli is Chair of Performing Arts and Head of the Doctoral School in the Department of Art, Music, Theatre, and Cinema (DAMS) at the University of Turin. His books include Echi nordici di grandi attori italiani (2004), La seconda creazione. Fondamenti della regia teatrale (2005), I maestri della ricerca teatrale. Il Living, Grotowski, Barba e Brook (2007), and Strindberg: la scrittura e la scena (2009). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, the opening keynote at the conference, offers a history of theatre reviewing from Hazlitt to the present day. It highlights the changes imposed on the review by journalistic pressures, such as the drastic reduction in the number of words available, as well as theatrical developments including the shift from the reviewer's focus on the principal performer to the production as a whole. This is shown to coincide with the emergence of the director as an increasingly important shaping force in the theatre. The review's role as an archive is also discussed in the light of its importance to a period before the invention of film and sound recording. The paper also considers the relationship between modern star-actors and the theatre ensemble into which they are often uncomfortably situated and it concludes by noting the impact of the blogosphere and pondering the future directions for reviewing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As theatre critics for UK newspapers write their daily/weekly reviews, what audiences do they write for? This article considers a number of different contexts for newspaper reviews and their constituencies of readers. Beginning with a moment of reversal (director as critic, critic as director), it moves through the dramatization of the actor's response to bad reviews in the play-of-the-film Theatre of Blood, before analysing ways in which scholars' uses of theatre reviewing fails to recognize the circumstances of consumption for which the reviews were written. The article then analyses examples of the presentation of reviews (Vox Pop quotes and star ratings), especially in relation to the production of Hamlet starring Jude Law, and the impact on reviewing communities (writing, reading, the writer as reader) consequent on the development of the theatre reviewing blogosphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this panel was to explore the diversity of responses to and purposes of theatre reviewing through a range of expert voices. It featured Michael Coveney (theatre critic), Andrew Dickson (writer and blog editor for The Guardian), Carol Rutter (Shakespearean and performance critic), Janet Suzman (actor and director) and Tim Supple (director). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a theatre designer and academic, I would suggest that theatre reviewers can enter into a creative dialogue with the work in front of them. What do they understand of the design and its origination, particularly in productions of plays by Shakespeare that are being re-imagined and re-interpreted almost continuously around the world? Theatre designers are reflective practitioners - throughout the design and production process - but also in re-presenting their work in exhibitions. Viewed separately from the original production, the models, drawings, photographs and artefacts can provoke new ideas, new readings of the performance material. Can the thoughtful and skilled reviewer's work stand alone and be similarly provocative and creative? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A survey of some rhetorical conventions for representing present/contemporaneous experience in the academic theatre review. The rhetorical attitude of the reviewer towards the present moment typically suggests that the function of a theatre review is to record the timelessness, rather than the historicity, of a given production. But to record what seems timeless in a given production is to imagine a reader outside of history rather than a reader for whom - as must be the case if theatre reviews are to be considered an archive - the reviewer's present is itself historical, perhaps distantly and unfamiliarly so. To record more vividly the pressures of a reviewer's contemporary experience upon his or her experience of a production might be to communicate to a future reader the ways in which the construction and interpretation of Shakespearean staging and meaning arise out of a dialectical relation between the immediate, vanishing present and the once-contemporary past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though scholarly critics of Shakespearean performance can and should draw our attention to productions that break through the boundaries of established theatrical practices and forge new aesthetic paradigms, and though performance historians have the analytical tools to draw our attention to the limitations and contradictions within more mainstream contemporary performance practices, it is equally our job to record and analyse these mainstream practices without condescension. We must, for example, recognize and analyse - indeed, we should celebrate - in our analyses of contemporary mainstream performance the persistence of 'emotionalist' Stanislavsky-based approaches to character and acting, however much such views of character are inconsistent with the early modern definitions of subjectivity encoded within the scripts, and however much these approaches have been challenged by postmodern theory and theatrical practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Newspaper reviews will often debate a production's claim to the name 'Shakespeare', generally whenever that production is perceived to have departed too far from Shakespearean authority. This article questions the authority assigned by mainstream theatre reviewers to the Shakespearean text, and examines the role played by these reviewers in negotiating the scope and enforcing the boundaries of contemporary Shakespearean performance. Particular attention is paid to Theatre de Complicite's The Winter's Tale (1992), Vesturport's Romeo and Juliet (2003) and Kneehigh Theatre's Cymbeline (2006). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the theatre of the French Revolution, contrary to recent claims, is often self-reflexive, and cannot therefore be read along the lines of absorbed attention recommended by Diderot in his theoretical works. By focusing upon works dealing explicitly with the events of the Revolution it suggests instead that they create a specific type of theatricality, which it names paranoid, in that it is both explicitly aware of attention and playing to that attention, creating a theatrical space midway between a closed fictional world and the lived experience of the spectator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literary criticism of the play "A Game at Chess" is presented. It outlines the characters in the play and explores the symbolic significance of those characters. It examines the lines in the play in which it highlights the stood for the integrity of the patriarchal household and the state. Moreover, an overview of the play is also presented.

A literary criticism of the play "The Virgin Martyr" is presented. It outlines the characters in the play and explores the symbolic significance of those characters. It examines the lines in the play wherein it highlights the serial conversion of the play that defies the singular ideal of Christian conversion. Moreover, an overview of the play is also presented.

The article presents a critique on how the theater company Wooster Group of New York portrayed William Shakespeare's "Hamlet." The author examines the appearance of ghosts or ghost hauntings in Shakespeare's play and how the theater company brought this to life onstage. Moreover, it also looks on Wooster's organization of scenic space.

A literary criticism of the plays, "King Hedley II" and "Seven Guitars," by August Wilson is presented. It claims that "King Hedley II" repeats the scenes, characters and actions from "Seven Guitars" which was performed in 1995. It examines the role of blues community in both plays. It also considers the psychosocial structures in both plays to be called Lazarus complex because Wilson frequently alludes to the biblical Lazarus to allegorize his characters' experiences within American culture.

Georg Kaiser's Expressionist plays are often said to anticipate Bertolt Brecht's Epic Theatre; but as Kaiser's influence is not manifest in inter-textual connections, the actual importance of his drama for Brecht is difficult to ascertain. A reassessment of Brecht's literary-critical comments on Kaiser and an analysis of Brecht's much- neglected appropriation in short prose of Kaiser's play Gas will shed new light on this problem. Brecht's exploration of the degree to which Kaiser's forms and themes are suited to the concerns of Epic Theatre leads to conflicting results: whilst Kaiser's concerns and techniques often run counter to the principles of Brecht's drama, they can occasionally be integrated into a kind of short prose which anticipates or entails salient features of non-Aristotelian literature. Brecht's critical exploration of the usability of Kaiser's plays thus contributes to his understanding of the challenge posed by the quest for an Epic Theatre: the need for a synthesis between drama and the techniques of advanced prose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Epos is the property of Editorial UNED and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Epos is the property of Editorial UNED and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this article, the author concentrates on several theatrical productions of dramas written by William Shakespeare. He describes some performances of the plays "Othello," "King Lear," "Hamlet" and "The Revenger's Tragedy." He references some reviews and criticism received by the productions. He discusses how each scene was executed by actors. In addition, the author explores the reaction of both audiences and critics on a production of the play "The Revenger's Tragedy." He highlights the response to the violence in the play.