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The theatre in the United States is not state-financed. Theatrical activity is paid through donations from individuals, private groups, corporations, and nonprofit foundations. Is it true for your country?
What do you consider the greatest play of the year (of the decade)?
Which do you prefer: comedies or dramas? Why?
How do TV plays compare with stage plays (screen play)?
Do you prefer grand opera in a foreign language or in your mother tongue? Can you give reasons for your preference?
Do we give enough recognition to our artists in general?
It is often believed that TV and the cinema are eclipsing theatrical art which is actually dying.
Many people believe that it’s much more convenient to watch a performance on TV at home. You don’t have to bother about the tickets, a baby-sitter, transport, etc.
Arrange discussions and round-table talks on the following.
Why do people go to the theatre?
What is a play? Amusement? Instruction? Just a story enacted on the stage?
The educational role of the theatre.
The theatre versus films and TV.
The actor and the problems pf play-acting.
Dialogue. Its role in the play.
Scenery and music. Their role in the play.
Discuss the following statements with your partner(s) and comment on them.
All the world’s stage,
And all the men and women merely players...
Shakespeare, William
Theatre is a magnifying glass.
M. Neyelova
My character must live inside me for quite some time and I must believe in this identity more strongly than even the director does.
V. Tikhonov
An actor certainly needs success and popularity.
L. Gurtchenko
I can see poetry everywhere, even in the grass.
A. Demidova
A director is a person employed to set up the fact of actors’ disabilities to play.
Jame Eigat
Role-play
Roleplay 1.
Role card for St. A: You want your colleague’s impressions of a play (TV play). Ask why he liked or disliked it. Were the characters true to life? Were the situations dramatic and at the same time credible? Were the background scenery and minor characters well drawn? Was the author’s style simple or complicated? etc.
Role card for St. B: Share with your collegue(s) your impressions of a play (TV play) you have seen. Answer his (their) questions.
Roleplay 2.
Role card for St. A: You want to take your foreign guest to the theatre in your home town. Find out his tastes and together with him choose a performance you will see (use brochures or advertisements in newspapers).
Role card for St. B: You are a foreign guest in this city. Your friend wants to take you to the theatre. Say what you would like to see and together with him choose a performance.
Roleplay 3.
Role card for St. A: You are calling the New Theatre about the ballet on Friday and Saturday. Find out the cost of tickets and if they have any left. Book one seat on either Friday or Saturday if you can.
Role card for St. B: You are in the New Theatre box office. There are plenty of tickets for the ballet on Friday and Saturday. You have seats in the stalls at 3.50 and in the circle at 2.50. You do not take telephone bookings.
Roleplay 4.
Role card for St. A: You are calling the Grand Theatre. You want tickets for the performance of Antony and Cleopatra on Friday. (If not Friday, then Thursday). You want 4 seats together in the stalls. (If there are none in the stalls, then in the circle.)
Role card for St. B: You are in the Grand Theatre box office. All tickets for the performance of Antony and Cleopatra are sold out on Friday, but there are a few tickets left for Thursday. But you do not have four seats together, either in the stalls or in the circle.
Writing
1. Read the following review published in an English newspaper and write a similar review of a play you have seen lately. Here are the words you may need:
to abet - содействовать
prop – поддержка, опора
fop – щеголь, фат
buffoon – шут, фигляр
HAMLET
There is a sense of excitement about a new production of Hamlet that does not attach to any other English play, for every Hamlet is different and there is no such thing as a definitive performance. Alan Rickman looks, speaks and moves as if he has been waiting to play the part all his life. He has come to it at the right time. His Hamletlooks genuinely youthful. He is better educated, better looking, more sensitive and more civilised than any one else in the Danish Court. The more modern English phrase is “effortless superiority”.
Rickman plays the role very quietly. There are no gimmicks. The moment of real passion comes when he sees Ophelia’s burial. This Hamlet loves Ophelia.
Rickman’s simple approach is abetted by an equally simple set. There are few props – not much more than the odd chair. There is, however, a metal balcony running across the top of the back of the stage and abbuting T-shaped high into the centre. It also allows a marvellous use of space. Characters can enter high up on the balcony. Hamlet is sitting with Ophelia on the T while the players perform beneath.
There is a lot of space on the ground, allowing Hamlet to walk about. plenty of room, too, for the gravediggers and the final fight. The impression is more of a mixture of desert and prison than a formal court. The use of lighting by Giorgi Meskhishvili who also designed the set, has moments of sheer brilliance.
If Rickman is a quietly convincing, almost conventional Hamlet, the direction by Robert Sturua has its surprises. Osric is played not as a precious young fop, but as a fussy middle-aged man with foppish tendencies, bowler hat and spats. Laertis is different from any previous conception known to this reviewer. He wears spectacles, is much smaller than Hamlet and, whether in sports jacket or old leather and jeans, looks like a student who would genuinely prefer to be at the Sorbonne rather than the court of Denmark.
One weakness is Polonius. English production have tended traditionally to play him as a buffoon. Modern east European productions have portrayed him as a state bureaucrat. This Polonius falls between all stools and is nothing in particular. I also wonder whether it is wise to have David Burke playing both Claudiu and Ghost, since one of the play is meant to be Hamlet’s perception of how different his uncle and his father were.
Among the strengths are Geraldine McEvan’s Gertrude who shows to perfection the narrowing experience of ageing overnight. Among the smaller parts Steven Crossley is an outstanding first player.
Malcolm Rutherford
2. Write an essay on the following topic: “Theatre – a source of energy or an energetic vampire?”
3. Write a letter to your favorite actor/ actress asking him/ her to give you a piece of advice concerning the actor’s career.
Supplementary reading
1. Do you know where the British theatre comes from? Read the text and speak about the history of the development of theatre.
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