Chapter 11:The Critic--Study GuideName: ______
A play’s final repository is ______.
The formalization of post-play thinking and conversation is called ______.
List all the forms dramatic criticism can take ______
______
Dramatic criticism is nothing other than an ______
What does the price of admission carry with it? ______
List the five perspectives that help us focus our response to a theatrical event:
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
List all of the theatres created or sustained by governments and ruling elites (as listed in the text):
a.
b.
c.
Even in modern times, government often serves as ______or ______or ______.
List all the reasons why the theatre in a strong position to force and focus public confrontation with social issues: ______
______
Explain what the text means by human significance in theatre.
Even with the briefest exposure, though, we begin to develop certain aesthetic notions of what that ______should be. We think we can identify ______onstage for even though we are not experts, we feel we can recognize false notes in ______, in ______and even in ______.
What kinds of questions can we ask of ourselves as audience members to determine our aesthetic response to a play?
An audience member’s aesthetic sensibility and aesthetic response isa composite of many individual reactions (and personal qualities) and is therefore subjective. An audience does not bring absolute ______into the theatre—and certainly such standards are not shared ______. But each of us has an aesthetic ______and an aesthetic response . We appreciate ______, sights, ______, words, ______, behaviors and ______that please us. We appreciate constructions that seem to us ______, harmonic, ______and assured. We appreciate designs, ideas and performances that ______our expectations, that reveal ______and ______we didn’t know existed. We take great pleasure in sensing underlying ______: a symphony of ideas, a sturdy ______of integrated ______and ______.
What does the term metatheatre or metadrama refer to?
List plays mentioned in the text that make theatre a part of the content or subject matter part of the play itself:
What, according to the text in Chapter 11 is the definition of “entertainment?”
According to the text, theatre can be seen as entertainment
A. in all cases.
B. when it conforms to cultural definitions of “pleasure.”
C. when it amuses and is humorous.
D. when it contains wit, activities, or spectacle that grip us.
A member of the audience may see a play from one or more of five different perspectives. What are they?
What form does professional dramatic criticism take?
When and how is the journalist’s review generally written?
What is often the journalist critic’s principal job qualification?______
How does the writing and analysis of scholarly critics generally differ from that of journalist critics?
The word Scholar means “ ______”
What does the conscientious professional scholar seek when they study and write about theatre?
List the critical methodologies or approaches to criticism developed since the 1970s—
What does one need to be an observant critic?
What is required of an informed critic?
What is required to be a sensitive critic?
What does it mean to be a demanding critic?
What does it mean to be an articulate critic?
What is the effect of having the presence of a critical focus in the audience?
TRUE/FALSE (Look for evidence in the text to determine the veracity of the following statements)
______Although only a minority of plays refer to theatrical matters directly, all plays and play productions can be usefully analyzed and evaluated on the way they use the theatrical format to best advantage and make us rethink the nature of theatrical production.
______Scholarly dramatic criticism is itself a literary art, of which works by Aristotle, Goethe, Shaw, and Nietzsche have outlasted their presumed subjects and helped shape our vision of life.
______Generally the playwright is more intelligent and better informed than the members of the audience.
______Entertainment includes brilliant debate, the witty epigram, the spectacular, suspenseful, and adventurous, as well as any form of drama that stirs our feelings and heightens our awareness.
______Although newspaper reviews of productions often contain phrases useful to put in advertising of the play, such as “one of a kind” or “best performance of the season,” the reviews themselves are usually negligible to creating a box-office success.