Unit 1 – Area of Study 1: Exploring pre-modern theatre styles and conventions

Outcome 1

Identify and describe distinguishing features of theatre styles and scripts from the pre-modern era.

Examples of lear​ning activities

• Consider ways in which the context and content of chosen scripts from periods in the pre-modern era can shape the form and style of a contemporary performance, e.g. the influence of the chorus or masks in the presentation of a Greek tragedy.
• Using the internet and print sources, research ways in which actor–audience relationships have been demonstrated in contrasting periods from the pre-modern era, e.g. European opera, morality plays and Kabuki.
• Recontextualise an extract of a play from the pre-modern era; justify your choices, e.g. set a pre-modern script in contemporary time and local proximity.
• Discuss the conventions of ritual in pre-modern theatre, e.g. Australian Indigenous or liturgical theatre.
• Research the historical, social and cultural factors that influenced styles that are representative of distinct periods from the pre-modern era, e.g. the influence of Greek culture on Greek and Roman theatre or the influence of important signposts in Japan’s history on the developments of Noh drama and the later, more popular Kabuki.
• Investigate the differing roles of women performers, playwrights and practitioners and women as audience members in pre-modern theatre, e.g. the use of visards (masks) by audience members in early European theatre, the low status of Elizabethan performers and the lack of female performers on the Elizabethan stage, the career of Aphra Behn (the first professional woman writer in English literature).
• Use a data storage program to create a glossary of pre-modern theatre terms; add visual illustrations to your glossary and illustrate meaning with appropriate play extracts, e.g. vaudeville may be accompanied by a production still and examples from American minstrel shows.
• 
  Use an app or presentation tool to develop a presentation on one of the following:

  • use of one production area in the pre-modern era, including a timeline of major developments, e.g. the use and development of masks or stage settings or theatre technologies (including key works and major theatre practitioners of the pre-modern era for that style)
  • a particular performance style of the pre-modern era, including a timeline of major developments, e.g. the development of mime, puppetry, dance, song, ritual, comedy or tragedy.
    

 

​​Detailed example

(based on one of the learning activities)

A timeline – The evolution of comedy

Students create a timeline of the performance style of comedy in the pre-modern era. They present the timeline using an app or other digital format incorporating text, images (digital stills, posters) and other items.

This timeline could include information about:

• the genesis of comedy; identifying some possible first moments
• how each style of comedy evolved rather than simply appeared
• the influence of Greek playwright Aristophanes and his powers of using ridicule
• the influences of Greek comedy on Roman dramatists Terence and Plautus
• the contrast between the earnest intentions of medieval liturgical dramas and mystery plays and those of the freer, travelling, comic and more anarchic Commedia dell’Arte performances
• how early comedies may have influenced Restoration comedy and the works of Elizabethan playwrights such as Shakespeare and Ben Jonson
• Commedia dell’Arte’s use of iazzi, burle, stock characters (e.g. Arlequino), masks and staging in the context of audience interactions and expectations
• how Commedia dell’Arte influenced French, Italian and English comedy
• the universal qualities of Commedia dell’Arte and its influence as a form of social commentary
• other key developments as researched.