Slapstick (introduced by Mack Sennett) is a genre in itself, which constitutes absurd situations, broad humor, and vigorous and sometimes violent actions. Most of the structural composition of slapstick constitutes of male comics, who often are willing to be in a mess, pain or violence that form this kind of comedy compared to women. Sennett’s comedy employs more motion than dialogue with character development occurring from when they are just innocent to a point that their madcap antics attract the attention of the police. Sennett has been credited for the invention of custard pie fight and discovering the comic’s potential of chases, where his typical films ends with single character by which bathing beauties, police, passers-by, stripe clad convicts, and dogs run across the screen, collide, fall over and create mayhem. Also, most slapstick characters or performers have mastered their comic timings, swift setups, troupe playing, and the knockabout deliveries of gags.
2. When preparing theatre analysis, the questions that would be helpful to me include; those about how the environment affects the story and the characters actions, the main problem in the story and if it was solved, and the characters motivations and wants. Answers on the three questions will help the audience understand the nature, genre, setting, and style adopted in the comedy. The environment determines the setting of a play and its relevance to characters’ behavior, actions and thinking. In every play, be it a comedy, drama or tragedy, there must always be a topic, an issue or a problem that needs to be solved. Thus, my analysis would focus to determine the problem and is a sound solution or conclusion is reliable.
3. Q1-Comic premise can be described as a gap between real reality and comic reality. Besides its use in comedies, comic premise is also used in other genres such as fantasy, horror, romance, humor, and science fiction. Often, a premise forms the basis of the story, the single unique statements.
Q2- I would prefer the classic tragedy play. Compared to other play styles, classical tragedy often treats characters, terrible and sorrowful events in dignified and serious manner, with the heroic individual becoming clear in his intentions. Also, the adoption of classical tragedy helps in preservation of unities, one timespan, one story and setting.
4. Q1-During the medieval period, there were two main staging, moveable and fixed staging. The fixed stage constituted of a large mansion that served as distinct locations and changes in scenes during plays. Movable staging entailed physical stages maneuvered by use of wagons. Nonetheless, technical tricks were more wide-ranging on fixed staging compared to moveable. One notable similarity between the two staging is that actors had to show extra efforts of hiding when it was not their scene. Through imagining experience of these types of mediaeval staging and performance today, a big difference is noted in the complexity. Nonetheless, what has remained similar is the character scenes, which almost follows the same path (Reader).
Q3-The evolution of Greek drama was from religious rituals. The theatre originated from choral performances where groups sang and danced in celebration of religious festivals. The plays were initially performed in religious festivals in honor of god Dionysus. On the other hand, religious plays were very prominent outside churches during medieval period, with drama starting with moral themed plays (Thanatassa).
References
Reader. Staging: Medieval Theatre. 2018. .
Thanatassa. How did Greek drama and religion influence each other? 2018. .
