La Rioja PAU Performing Arts II (UR) - independent theatre foundations cheat sheet

Theatrical language includes text, subtext, stage directions and double enunciation

Structure is driven by objective, obstacle and irreversible decision, not by act count

Dramatic irony depends on an information gap between audience and character

Genre is a contract defined by action, tone and ending

Dramatic time and scenic time are separate analytical categories

Greek theatre is tied to Dionysian festivals, masks, chorus and open-air performance

Commedia dell'arte uses scenario-based improvisation, lazzi and stock types; not every role wears a mask.

The Spanish Golden Age operates through corrales and Lope's Arte nuevo (1609)

Realism and naturalism are linked to the box set, the fourth wall and Stanislavski

Brecht, Artaud and Absurd-associated writers challenge different representational conventions; their purposes and methods are not identical.

The performance text includes all stage signs, not only the spoken dialogue

Dramaturgy analyses action, character, structure, genre and context

Stage directions are interpretable signs, not optional decoration

Version, transposition and adaptation are different operations

A staging choice must be justified by the text's function and its effect

Stanislavski, Brecht, Grotowski, Lecoq and Meisner offer distinct actor-training tools

Playable actions are transitive verbs, not emotional labels

The director interprets the text through casting, staging, rhythm and focus

Blocking encodes status and power through proxemics, levels and crosses

Stagecraft includes sightlines, cue calling and rehearsal sequencing

Scenography organises meaning through space, scale, texture and sightlines

Costume signs period, class and character change, and must serve movement

Lighting controls visibility, focus, mood and rhythm through cue sequences

Diegetic sound has a source in the play's world; non-diegetic sound does not

Design choices must answer practical constraints as well as interpretive aims

Music frames, transitions, ironises and rhythms theatrical action

Diegetic and non-diegetic music are distinct analytical categories

Dance meaning arises from codified vocabularies, context and repetition

The body is a sign system through posture, gesture, proxemics and gaze

Analyze regional forms in their actual cultural setting; do not substitute one region’s repertoire for another’s.

Performance art foregrounds presence, body and duration

Site-specific work treats place as a partner in meaning-making

Devised and verbatim theatre change the source and authority of text

Postdramatic theatre decentres text in favour of simultaneity and media

New media raise questions of liveness, remediation and audience co-creation

Distinguish text evidence from production evidence.

Separate description, interpretation and evaluation.

Use context to illuminate close reading rather than replace it.

A persuasive judgment states criteria and considers an alternative.

A review, photograph or recording has a particular perspective and evidentiary limit.