'The Variety Entertainer'and 'The Storyteller'

The Variety Entertainer

Entertainment and storytelling are the core of any dramatic or comedic play. Without these elements, there is no story and the audience will lose interest very fast if they even were interested in the beginning. These shows are always high on fun, low on intellectual demands; they have appealed to the general public.

Clowns and Fools

Clowns and fools on the stage do not rely on the written text as much, but more so they rely on tradition, improvisation, and physical action. Native American texts were based on ritual and had even contained elements of a ceremonial clown. Silent films contained the English pantomime and music hall tradition. In today’s world, the talking clown who uses verbal humor as a nontraditional written text is known as a stand-up comedian. Certain areas of Anglophone Africa have a form of variety entertainment called concert parties, which evolved in the 1920s, and its touring companies have performed all over western Africa since that time. African entertainment makes use of a wide variety of musical instruments, all made out of materials found in nature. These instruments include drums, gongs, bells, harps, flutes and xylophones. A hybrid combination of African, American, and European entertainments brought by traders which included musical numbers, brief topical sketches, female interpreters, and comic routines with clowns and tricksters winning the day in slap-stick romps with stock characters out of West African society. From early American film inspiration, the concert party clown often appears with heavy white lips of the American minstrel show, which is a 19^th century racist performance style in which whites both appreciated African American culture and music and at the same time created the denigrating blackface, white-lipped racial stereotype. Nowadays, these themes would cause a great deal of controversy due to the sensitive topic of racial stereotypes and tensions.

Today’s concert parties include a blending of traditional music that includes gospel, rock, and soul music mixed with African themes. Vaudeville is incorporated into many African performances; it is a popular American variety show form that incorporated many different kinds of dramatic texts and relied heavily on stand up routines and knockabout humor that had come out of earlier traditions. Vaudeville, in fact, has a counterpart which is less family-oriented called the burlesque show, which had bawdier humor and usually included striptease. The evening following these performances would normally end with an extended theatrical scene.

Variety Entertainment and the Avant-Garde

In the early 20^th century there was the avant-garde which focused on variety show performances as a means of developing a new artistic sensibility. Their goals were to break down the barrier separating the audience and the performers known as the fourth wall, rid themselves of the illusionary stage world, and to foster an active interaction with the audience. Some of the ideal performers in mind for this were: The clown, the acrobat, and the juggler; they were ideal because they represented no one else and nothing else other than themselves.

New vaudeville and new burlesque are new versions of the old popular entertainments discussed before; now these new clowns, comics, acrobats, mimes, and others bring an aesthetic and social self-consciousness that seeks to alter audience sensibilities. Their physical humor and movement are part of a dramatic text with other messages and goals. Bill Irwin is the best possible example of this new clown because he was trained as a circus performer, dancer, actor, and mime. In The Regard Evening, Irwin spoofs the avant-garde as well as the conventions of realism and variety theatre.

The Quebec-based Cirque du Soleil has found a way to use circus performances as a theatrical text playing on the inherent dramatic content in feats that defy gravity and the limits of the human body, and it spawned imitators around the world. There is attention to every aesthetic detail everywhere from the dramatic lighting to costumes and sound and it all adds to overall dazzling effect it has on the audience.



The Storyteller

Telling the Community's Story

Storytelling is one of the origins of theatre and it contains all of the fundamental elements including a performer, an audience, characters, and narrative. Narration, acting, drumming, and song are all interwoven into a participatory form, and audience response can create improvised moments. Often stories begin with riddles posed to the children of the community as a teaching device. The legends tend to have morals and imply behavioral dictates. In Africa, storytelling is used for education of the young and entertainment for the community. The African storyteller is a talented impersonator who can portray all the characters, human and animal, through alterations in voice and body.

The stories belong to their communities and are passed on from one generation to the next with each one adding their own embellishments. Often community members interpret the story to act out particular passages or sing an appropriate song, and the audience can spontaneously enter the playing space to dance and sing and add to the performance. Griots, storytellers of West Africa, provided an oral history of their communities through their recitation of the epic heroic tales that can go on for hours; these sagas are filled with music and songs, praises for leaders and their ancestors, genealogies that connect the past to the present, and proverbs that ensure the continuity of cultural values.

In the Americas, the culture of the Native American cultures lives on today through oral stories told at pow-wows, over campfires, at any time. The power of stories is revered, and a storyteller holds an important place in all their cultures.

Personal Stories, Political Agendas

Spalding Grey often focused on political or social commentary while women claimed the solo stage for feminism. Female performers such as Karen Finley and Holly Hughes used shock value of nudity and sexual images to raise awareness of their political concerns; these performances would give way to explorations of class, race, ethnicity, and sexuality. Another prominent female performer is Rosanne Barr form the famous television show named after her.



Solo artists pierce through the nature of identity and social definitions of difference, self, and religious belief, sexual orientation, and others while bringing visibility to the concerns of disenfranchised groups around their environment and around the world. They challenge our minds and our thinking of how we view ourselves and others. Danny Hoch is another excellent example of a solo performer with personal expression with both a comedic and dramatic approach.




Solo performers have been know for imitating characters that they know or can relate to personally such the actor John Leguizamo who by himself did a show of upwards to thirty-nine characters from the Latin community. What all of these artists and many more have in common is their authorship of texts that require their presence on stage. The actor’s relationship to the individuals and experiences presented is an integral part of the entire experience of solo work, and unlike a play written as a monologue and dialogue, these personal performance pieces can’t be reproduced by another actor.

Works Cited

'Aerial high Bar Act- ALGERIA (Cirque du Soleil)'. 01 October 2006. Online video clip. Accessed on 26 October 2009. .

Cosser, Sandy. 'Traditional Forms of African Entertianment." Ezinearticles.com 06 November 2007. Accessed on 26 October 2009. .

Felner, Mira and Orenstein, Claudia. The World of Theatre: Tradition and Innovation. New York: Pearson Education, 2006.

"PSA" Danny Hoch (Def Poetry). 18 April 2003. Online video clip. Accessed on 26 October 2009. .

'Rosanne, the Candidates and the campaign.' 09 May 2008. Online video clip. Accessed on 26 october 2009.<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMgIrFV1p1s>.

'swimming to cambodia'. 15 December 2007. Online video clip. Accessed on 26 October 2009. .

Wilson, Jamie. 'The History of Storytelling." 2002. 26 October 2009.<http://www.essortment.com/all/historystorytel_tukm.htm>.

"All In The Timing"

From the moment I stepped into the theatre, I noticed that the entire stage was decorated with clocks and I could hear the ticking of the clock. These elements set the tone for the play about to happen. The audience was very quiet and seemed relaxed for the show. I cannot say that most of them were prepared for what they were about to see. As I sat down, the music began to play, and I was ready for whatever I was about to see.

The first play titled, “Sure Thing”, I was already astounded by the performances and the humor that was instilled in the play. The segment, by my understanding, was about two people who happened to meet at a café and strike up a conversation about everything from likes, dislikes, sexual preferences, and frustrations with getting a little privacy. What was very interesting about this segment was how it dealt with various versions of the conversation between the two and right when one actor said something a 'ding' could be heard and he or she would return to the previous statement and do a different spine on it. The next segment called “Words, Words, Words” featured three actors portraying monkeys kept in a cage or glass room being examined by humans, probably scientists examining their behavior to human inventions such as the typewriter, cigarettes, and paper. The next segment was titled “The Universal Language” where a conman attempts to sucker a woman into paying for a bogus new universal language class that could become the new language for the whole world to understand and speak. The following act was called “The Philadelphia” where a man stumbles into an alternate reality confused and angry as he is told by another man that he is in a “Philadelphia” where everything you order is not given to you, but rather the opposite of what you want is what you get. The fifth and final play was called, “Variations on the Death of Trotsky” which chronicled variations of the death of Leon Trotsky, but all of which involved him being killed by a mountain-climbers ax buried in his head many hours prior; just like the first segment "Sure Thing", it dealt with the many different versions that are possible with the same subject with a loud 'ding' separating the differences.

After each segment, especially the funnier ones like “Sure Thing” and “The Philadelphia” received applause from the audience. Shortly after these segments, I could hear the commentary from the audience members behind me saying how funny it was and some who had no idea what they just saw. I told me that these plays while all different and the same, can be interpreted very differently by most people; it helped provide some insight on my own opinion of each segment. For a positive note, after each segment there was a famous song with a reference to time such as Quitedrive’s version of “Time after Time”; I found that to be very modern and relevant to the over all theme of the play and that it deals with time.

Seeing a play is far different from watching a movie. A movie has ‘takes’ rather than a ‘one shot’ deal with all stage performances; so an actor can screw up on camera and just do it over again until they get it right. One mess up on stage can result in a disastrous performance and a terrible play. From the moment I entered the theatre I was told that I could sit anywhere I’d like; I figured I would sit somewhere where I could see the entire play and see everyone on stage with nothing interfering with my perspective; this is a major advantage that stage theatre has that film theatre lacks because no matter where you sit in a movie theatre, even though you might see it better or poorly than most, it is the same thing every time you watch it; it’s shot in the same perspective and the scenes move in the same way where theatre can be seen from almost any angle and no matter how many times you see that particular play, it is ‘always’ different every time you see it. In this sense, I appreciate theatre more than I appreciate film. In the end, I was left with a new idea of theatre, especially student theatre, and how I did in fact underestimate the atmosphere of theatre and its effect on me. I now look forward to viewing “Romeo and Juliet” next month and blogging about that experience.

Works Cited

- "All In The Timing" Poster.

- "Word, Words, Words (3 monkeys)" All in the Timing Poster.

- "The Philadelphia" picture.

Indian Sanskrit Theatre

Indian Sanskrit Theatre

Theatre in India started at point in time before the common era (C.E.) and continued centuries after it. These ancient traditions can be traced back to the worship of the Hindu god Brahma, the god of creation. Brahma

symbolized the supreme reality that brings forth creation. And thus he was called the creator of the universe. Lord Brahma was the first member of the Hindu Trinity, a key element to the Hindu faith which also included Vishnu, the preserver, and Shiva, the destroyer. His divine consort was the Goddess Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, wisdom, and science. She provided Lord Brahma with the knowledge necessary for the process of creation. Lord Brahma's four faces represented the sacred knowledge of the four Vedas.

These faces symbolized that Brahma was the source of all knowledge necessary for the creation of the entire universe.The four arms represent the four directions and thus represent the omnipresence and omnipotence of Lord Brahma. The Vedas are the most sacred of Hindu texts and provided the foundation of the entire Hindu religion. They were first written in Vedic, which was an early form of Sanskrit.

The Four Vedas include:

- Rig Veda: Divine Hymns

- Sama Veda: Musical Chants

- Yajur Veda: Sacrificial Ritual Chants

- Atharva Veda: Everyday Realities Of Daily Life

The parts of each Veda created the Natya, Hindu word for "theatre", which becomes the fifth Veda.

The Natya was available to every person of every class. It contained every kind of knowledge and art in Sanskrit theatre. Sanskrit theatre would later on cause the development of very elaborate codes that would create a manuscript called the Natyasastra("authoritative text on the theatre") which is an encyclopedia of information about theatre from the classical Sanskrit tradition. The Natyasastra was written around 200 B.C.E. and 200 C.E. To this very day, the Natyasastra is a huge influence on Indian theatre as it covers all the fundamental aspects of theatre.The theory of rasa is introduced in the Natyasastra. Rasa are tastes or flavors that contrast and complement each other and each one of them represents a different mood or feeling. An Indian sanskrit play should include a mix of rasa and a good Sanskrit drama should offer all eight of the rasa that the Natyasastra defines which include love, mirth, sadness, wrath, vigor, the terrible, disgust, and the marvelous. The overall purpose of the rasa is to make sure that the venue and the atmosphere of the performance contribute to the overall effect of the play itself and that it also highlights the important connection between the performer and the spectator.

Sanskrit performances began with a number of preliminaries that included the benediction of a god, for whom that particular play was like an offering. The plays were laso designed to ease the audience into the new, fictional world of the performance by interacting with the characters from the play. There are three types of stages: 1.) Square, 2.) Rectangular (the most recommended because of it's superior sightlines), and 3.) Triangular.

The locations of the plays, that is the scene locations of where the play was visually supposed to take place on the stage, were designated by simple set pieces representing mountains, houses, temples, etc. It focused on movement and broke down the body into parts with different positions for each. Combined the positions represented different emotional states and then it takes the form of dancing. All of the cotumes were highly ornamented based on what the actor's character was.

The Indian Sanskrit plays that have survived have been polished dramatic works written in poetic verse. The hero's struggle throughout the story to obtain something he desires is the main action which is very much similar to theatre works in the western world. The hero is always successful at the end of the play, but faces many challenges along the way. These plays reflect the Hindu values of their original cultural context such as the hero's ending represents one of the three ends of a Hindu life:

The main action is the hero's struggle to obtain something he desires. The hero is always successful in the end, but faces many challenges along the way. The plays reflect the Hindu values of their original cultural context; The hero's ending represents one of the three ends of Hindu life:

1.) Dharma: Duty

2.) Kama: Controlled sensual pleasure

3.) Artha: Wealth that allows one to provide for other

Examples of Sanskrit plays include Sanskrit drama. The combination of different genres and sanskrit resulted in what is a unique amalgamation that gave us the literary treasure of Sanskrit dramas plays. The famous dramatists of Indian Sanskrit theatre went by the names of Kalidasa, Bhasa, Shudraka, and Asvaghosa; each of them gave us many famous Sanskrit plays. With the recent revival of interest in Sanskrit theatre in these times, Sanskrit plays are gaining much popularity again among Sanskrit scholars and theatre enthusiasts. Some famous Sanskrit plays include Malavikagnimitram, Ritusambra, Mrichakatika, Natya Shashtra, and Bhasa's Plays

Katiyattam

Throughout passing time, Sanskrit drama as a performance had faded away. It evolved

and became developed into Kutiyattam, one of the oldest performance traditions in India dating back to the tenth century. It involved vivid make-up and costume designs that were custom in Indian Sanskrit as well as an elaboration of different body parts creating dances that represented emotions. Kutiyattam was performed by temple servants in a temple as part of a ritual sacrifice.

Kathakali

This vigorous Sanskrit performance was developed in the 17th century technically making it the 'new age' form of Sanskrit theatre. Kathakali was originally preformed by those in the warrior class. It developed it's own language of hand gestures and vibrant on-stage make-up and costuming which they adapted from Kutiyattam.

Both Kutiyattam and Kathikali are from the region of Kerala. The theory of rasa still serves as the basis of the acting techniques which shows the influence of natyasastra and Sanskrit drama. By this, it shows that Sanskrit has prevailed and it it assured that the survival of the history and legacy of Indian Sankrit theatre is kept in tact.

Works Cited:

“Brahma”. .2009. Gurjari.net. 08 October 2009. .

Felner, Mira and Orenstein, Claudia. The World of Theatre: Tradition and Innovation. New York: Pearson Education, 2006.

"Kutiyattam Kailasodharanam Kalamandalam Sivan Namboodiri". Invis Multimedia. 03 July 2009. Online video clip. Accessed on 08 October 2009. .

"Mahabharati (11-2 Kathakali)" Mahabharati . Dir. Peter Brook. 1989. Accessed on 09 October 2009. .

Indian Literature. 2009. iloveindia.com. 09 October 2009. .

"The Vedas." Comparative Religion. 2009. Interfaith.org. 08 October 2009. .