Praxis Theatre cheat sheet

Theatre Content Knowledge

• Aristotle's six elements of drama, in order of importance in Poetics: plot (mythos), character (ethos), thought (dianoia), diction (lexis), song (melos), spectacle (opsis).

• Freytag's pyramid for a five-act structure: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement (resolution); Gustav Freytag derived it from analysis of Greek and Shakespearean drama.

• Stanislavski's system: given circumstances, magic if, objectives and super-objective, through-line of action, emotion memory, and the Method of Physical Actions; he later favored physical action over affective memory.

• Brecht's epic theatre uses Verfremdungseffekt (alienation effect), gestus, episodic structure, placards, and direct address to prevent spectator empathy and provoke critical analysis.

• Constantin Stanislavski co-founded the Moscow Art Theatre with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko in 1898; its premiere of Chekhov's The Seagull established the theatre's reputation.

• Antonin Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty seeks sensory assault on the audience through gesture, sound, and spectacle rather than dialogue; The Theatre and Its Double collects his manifestos.

• Jerzy Grotowski's poor theatre strips scenery and costume, emphasizing the actor's body and voice; his Laboratory Theatre developed via negativa and plastique exercises.

• Realism in drama: Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, and Shaw wrote in prose about contemporary social life; the independent theatre movement (Théâtre Libre, 1887) popularized it.

• Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed includes Forum Theatre, Image Theatre, and Invisible Theatre; Spect-actors replace passive spectators by intervening in the action.