Theater is art. Theatrical art

13.04.2019

Theater as an art form, and its fundamental difference from other art forms

theater art suite

Like any other art form (music, painting, literature), the theater has its own special features. This art is synthetic: a theatrical work (performance) consists of the text of the play, the work of the director, actor, artist and composer. Music plays a decisive role in opera and ballet.

Theater is a collective art. The performance is the result of the activity of many people, not only those who appear on the stage, but also those who sew costumes, make props, set the light, meet the audience. No wonder there is a definition of "theatrical workshop workers": a performance is both creativity and production.

The theater offers its own way of knowing the surrounding world and, accordingly, its own set of artistic means. The performance is both a special action played out in the space of the stage, and a special figurative thinking, different from, say, music.

Theater, like no other form of art, has the greatest "capacity". It absorbs the ability of literature to recreate life in words in its external and internal manifestations, but the word is not narrative, but lively-sounding, directly effective. At the same time, unlike literature, the theater recreates reality not in the mind of the reader, but as objectively existing pictures of life (performance) located in space. And in this respect, the theater is close to painting. But theatrical performance is in continuous motion, it develops in time - and this is close to music. Immersion in the world of the viewer's experiences is akin to the state that a listener of music experiences, immersed in his own world of subjective perception of sounds.

Of course, theater is by no means a substitute for other art forms. The specificity of the theater is that it carries the “properties” of literature, painting and music through the image of a living acting person. This direct human material for other forms of art is only the starting point of creativity. For the theatre, "nature" serves not only as material, but is also preserved in its immediate vivacity.

The art of the theater has an amazing ability to merge with life. The stage performance, although it takes place on the other side of the ramp, at moments higher voltage blurs the line between art and life and is perceived by the audience as reality itself. The attractive power of the theater lies in the fact that "life on the stage" freely asserts itself in the imagination of the viewer.

Such a psychological turn occurs because the theater is not only endowed with the features of reality, but in itself is an artistically created reality. Theatrical reality, creating the impression of reality, has its own special laws. The truth of the theater cannot be measured by the criteria of life's plausibility. The psychological load that the hero of the drama takes upon himself cannot be endured by a person in life, because in the theater there is an extreme compaction of entire cycles of events. The hero of the play often experiences his inner life as a bunch of passions and a high concentration of thoughts. And all this is taken by the audience for granted. "Incredible" according to the norms of objective reality is not at all a sign of unreliable art. In the theater, “truth” and “untruth” have different criteria and are determined by the law of figurative thinking. “Art is experienced as a reality by the fullness of our mental “mechanisms”, but at the same time it is evaluated in its own specific quality man-made-game “not real”, as children say, illusory doubling of reality.

The theater visitor becomes a theater spectator when he perceives this double aspect of the stage action, not only seeing a vital concrete act in front of him, but also understanding inner meaning this act. What is happening on the stage is felt both as the truth of life and as its figurative recreation. At the same time, it is important to note that the viewer, without losing a sense of the real, begins to live in the world of the theater. The relationship between real and theatrical reality is rather complicated. There are three phases in this process:

The reality of objectively shown reality, transformed by the playwright's imagination into a dramatic work.

A dramatic work embodied by the theater (director, actors) into stage life is a performance.

Stage life, perceived by the audience and became part of their experiences, merged with the life of the audience and, thus, returned to reality again.

The basic law of the theater - the internal complicity of the audience in the events taking place on the stage - involves the excitement of the imagination, independent, internal creativity in each of the spectators. This fascination with the action distinguishes the spectator from the indifferent observer, who is also found in theater halls. The spectator, unlike the actor, the active artist, is a contemplative artist.

The active imagination of the spectators is not at all some special spiritual property of the chosen art lovers. Of course crafted artistic taste is of great importance, but it is a question of the development of those emotional principles that are inherent in every person.

Consciousness of artistic reality in the process of perception is the deeper, the more fully the viewer is immersed in the sphere of experience, the more multi-layered art enters the human soul. It is at this junction of two spheres - unconscious experience and conscious perception of art that imagination exists. It is inherent in the human psyche initially, organically, accessible to every person and can be significantly developed in the course of the accumulation of aesthetic experience.

Aesthetic perception is the creativity of the viewer, and it can reach great intensity. The richer the nature of the viewer himself, the more developed his aesthetic sense, the fuller his artistic experience, the more active his imagination and the richer his theatrical impressions.

Aesthetics of perception is largely geared towards the ideal viewer. In fact, the conscious process of education theater culture possibly move the viewer towards acquiring knowledge about art and mastering certain perceptual skills.

In the synthetic theater of modern times, the traditional correlation of the dominant principles - truth and fiction - appears in a kind of indissoluble unity. This synthesis takes place both as an act of experience (perception of the truth of life) and as an act of aesthetic pleasure (perception of theater poetry). Then the viewer becomes not only a psychological participant in the action, that is, a person who "absorbs" the fate of the hero and spiritually enriches himself, but also a creator who performs a creative action in his imagination, simultaneously with what is happening on the stage. This last moment is extremely important, and in the aesthetic education of the audience it occupies a central place.

Of course, each viewer can have their own idea of the ideal performance. But in all cases it is based on a certain "program" of requirements for art. This kind of “knowledge” presupposes a certain maturity of the audience culture.

Spectator culture to a large extent depends on the nature of the art that is offered to the viewer. The more difficult the task set before him - aesthetic, ethical, philosophical, the more intensified the thought, the sharper the experience, the subtler the manifestation of the viewer's taste. For what we call the culture of the reader, listener, viewer is directly related to the development of the very personality of a person, depends on his spiritual growth and affects his further spiritual growth.

The significance of the task that the theater poses to the viewer in psychological terms lies in the fact that the artistic image, given in all its complexity and inconsistency, is perceived by the viewer at first as a real, objectively existing character, and then, as you get used to the image and reflect on it. actions, reveals (as if independently) its inner essence, its generalizing meaning.

In terms of aesthetics, the complexity of the task lies in the fact that the viewer perceives the stage imagery not only according to the criteria of truth, but also knows how (learned) to decipher its poetic metaphorical meaning.

So, the specificity of theatrical art is a living person, as a directly experiencing hero and as a directly creating artist-artist, and the most important law of the theater is a direct impact on the viewer.

The "theater effect", its intelligibility are determined not only by the dignity of the creativity itself, but also by the dignity, aesthetic culture auditorium. However, the awakening of the artist in the viewer occurs only if the viewer is able to perceive in its entirety the content inherent in the performance, if he is able to expand his aesthetic range and learn to see the new in art, if, remaining true to his beloved artistic style, he does not turn out to be deaf to other creative directions, if he is able to see a new reading of a classic work and is able to separate the director's idea from its implementation by the actors ... There are many more such “ifs”. Consequently, in order for the spectator to become involved in creativity, so that the artist awakens in him, at the present stage of the development of our theater, a general increase in the artistic culture of the spectator is necessary.

The theatrical performance is based on a text, such as a play for a dramatic performance. Even in those stage productions where the word as such is absent, the text is necessary; in particular, ballet, and sometimes pantomime has a script - a libretto. The process of working on a performance consists in transferring the dramatic text to the stage - this is a kind of "translation" from one language to another. As a result literary word becomes a stage word.

The first thing the viewer sees after the curtain opens (or rises) is stage space in which the decorations are placed. They indicate the place of action, historical time, reflect the national flavor. With the help of spatial constructions, even the mood of the characters can be conveyed (for example, in an episode of the hero’s suffering, immerse the scene in darkness or tighten its backdrop with black). During the action, with the help of a special technique, the scenery is changed: the day is turned into night, winter into summer, the street into a room. This technique has evolved along with the scientific thought of mankind. Lifting mechanisms, shields and hatches, which in ancient times were operated manually, are now electronically raised and lowered. Candles and gas lamps are replaced by electric lamps; lasers are often used.

Even in antiquity, two types of stage and auditorium were formed: the box stage and the amphitheater stage. The box stage provides for tiers and stalls, and the audience surrounds the amphitheater stage from three sides. Now in the world both types are used. Modern technology allows you to change the theater space - arrange a platform in the middle of the auditorium, put the viewer on the stage, and play the performance in the hall. Great importance has always been attached to theater building. Theaters were usually built in the central square of the city; architects wanted the buildings to be beautiful, to attract attention. Coming to the theater, the spectator renounces everyday life, as if rising above reality. Therefore, it is no coincidence that a staircase decorated with mirrors often leads to the hall.

Music helps to enhance the emotional impact of a dramatic performance. Sometimes it sounds not only during the action, but also during the intermission - to maintain the interest of the public. The main person in the play is the actor. The viewer sees a person in front of him, mysteriously turned into an artistic image - a kind of work of art. Of course, a work of art is not the performer himself, but his role. She is the creation of an actor, created by voice, nerves and something imperceptible - spirit, soul. In order for the action on the stage to be perceived as a whole, it is necessary to organize it thoughtfully and consistently. These responsibilities in contemporary theater performed by the director. Of course, a lot depends on the talent of the actors in the performance, but nevertheless they are subject to the will of the leader - the director. People, like many centuries ago, come to the theater. From the stage, the text of the plays is heard, transformed by the forces and feelings of the performers. Artists conduct their own dialogue - and not only verbal. This is a conversation of gestures, postures, looks and facial expressions. Fantasy decorator artist using color, light, architectural structures on the set makes the space of the stage "talk". And everything together is enclosed in a strict framework of the director's intention, which gives the heterogeneous elements completeness and integrity.

The spectator consciously (and sometimes unconsciously, as if against his will) evaluates the acting and directing, the compliance of the theatrical space solution with the general plan. But the main thing is that he, the viewer, joins the art, unlike others, created here and now. Comprehending the meaning of the performance, he comprehends the meaning of life.

The idea of a choreographic work (scene or suite)

Suite (from French Suite - "row", "sequence") - cyclic musical form, consisting of several independent contrasting parts, united by a common idea.

It is a multi-part cycle, consisting of independent, contrasting pieces, united by a common artistic idea. Sometimes, instead of the name "suite", composers used another, also common - "partita".

The suite is distinguished from the sonata and symphony by the great independence of the parts, not such strictness, the regularity of their correlation. The term "suite" was introduced in the second half of the 17th century by French composers. The suites of the 17th-18th centuries were dance suites; orchestral non-dance suites appeared in the 19th century (the most famous are "Scheherazade" by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov, "Pictures at an Exhibition" by M. P. Mussorgsky).

In Germany, at the end of the 17th century, an exact sequence of parts was formed:

Allemande

Courante

Sarabande

Gigue

The suite is characterized by pictorial depiction, a close connection with song and dance. Quite often, suites are composed of music written for ballets, operas, and theatrical productions. There are also two special kind suites - vocal and choral.

The predecessor of the suite can be considered a paired combination of dances common at the end of the Renaissance - slow, important (for example, pavane) and more lively (for example, galliard). Later this cycle became four-part. The German composer Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-1667) created a model of an instrumental dance suite: an allemande in a moderate tempo and two-part meter - an exquisite chime - a gigue - a measured sarabande.

Historically, the first was an old dance suite, which was written for one instrument or orchestra. Initially, it had two dances: the stately pavane and the fast galliard. They were played one after another - this is how the first samples of the old instrumental suite appeared, which became most widespread in the 2nd half of the 17th century. - 1st half of the XVIII century. In his classical form it established itself in the work of the Austrian composer I. Ya. Froberger. It was based on four diverse dances: allemande, courante, sarabande, jig. Gradually, composers began to include other dances in the suite, and their choice varied freely. These could be: minuet, passacaglia, polonaise, chaconne, rigodon, etc. Sometimes non-dance pieces were also introduced into the suite - arias, preludes, overtures, toccatas. Thus, the total number of rooms in the suite was not regulated. The greater role was played by the means that unite individual plays into single cycle, for example, contrasts of tempo, meter, rhythm.

The suite as a genre developed under the influence of opera and ballet. It has new dances and song parts in the spirit of the aria; suites arose, consisting of orchestral fragments of musical and theatrical works. An important element of the suite was the French overture - the introductory part, consisting of a slow solemn beginning and a fast fugue conclusion. In some cases, the term "overture" replaced the term "suite" in the titles of works; other synonyms were the terms "order" ("order") by F. Couperin and "partita" by J.S. Bach.

The true pinnacle of the development of the genre was reached in the work of J. S. Bach. The composer fills the music of his numerous suites (clavier, violin, cello, orchestral) with such a penetrating feeling, makes these pieces so diverse and deep in mood, organizes them into such a harmonious whole that he rethinks the genre, opens up new expressive possibilities contained in simple dance forms. , as well as in the very basis of the suite cycle (“Chaconne” from the partita in D minor).

In the mid-1700s, the suite merged with the sonata, and the term itself ceased to be used, although the structure of the suite continued to live in such genres as serenade, divertissement and others. The designation "suite" began to reappear at the end of the 19th century, often implying, as before, a collection of instrumental fragments from an opera (a suite from Carmen G. Bizet), from a ballet (a suite from the Nutcracker by P.I. Tchaikovsky), from music to dramatic play (Peer Gynt suite from E. Grieg's music to Ibsen's drama). Some composers composed independent program suites - among them, for example, Scheherazade N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov based on oriental tales.

Composers of the 19th-20th centuries, preserving the main features of the genre - the cyclic construction, the contrast of parts, etc., give them a different figurative interpretation. Danceability is no longer a required attribute. The suite uses a variety of musical material, often its content is determined by the program. Wherein dance music is not expelled from the suite, on the contrary, new ones are introduced into it, modern dances, for example, "Puppet Cake Walk" in the suite of C. Debussy "Children's Corner". Suites appear, composed of music for theatrical productions (Peer Gynt by E. Grieg), ballets (The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty by P. I. Tchaikovsky, Romeo and Juliet by S. S. Prokofiev), operas ( The Tale of Tsar Saltan" by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov). In the middle of the XX century. suites are also composed of music for films (“Hamlet” by D. D. Shostakovich).

In the vocal-symphonic suites, along with music, the word is also heard (Prokofiev's Winter Bonfire). Sometimes some composers vocal cycles called vocal suites ("Six Poems by M. Tsvetaeva" by Shostakovich).

List of sources used

1.Gachev G.D. Content of art forms. Epos. Lyrics. Theater. M., 2008

.Kagan. M.S. Aesthetics as a philosophical science. University course of lectures. St. Petersburg, 2007.

.Sosnova M.L. The art of the actor. M. Academic Avenue; Tricksta, 2007..

.Shpet G. G. Theater as an art//Questions of Philosophy, 1989, No. 11.

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Theater as an art form. The specifics of theatrical art

Theater is an art form that artistically masters the world through a dramatic action carried out by a creative team.

The basis of the theater is dramaturgy. A work of theatrical art - a performance - is created on the basis of a dramatic or musical stage work in accordance with the director's intention (in ballet - a choreographer and conductor, and in opera and operetta - a director and conductor), by the joint efforts of actors, artist, composer.

Theatrical performances are divided into genres:

Tragedy;

Comedy;

Musical, etc.

Theatrical art has its roots in deep antiquity. The origins of the theater lie in the ancient games of hunters, in mass folk images, totemic dances in copying the habits of animals.

Theater is an art form specificity which lies in the stage action that occurs in the process of playing the actors in front of the audience (i.e., the contact between the stage and the audience, the interaction and interdependence of the actor and the viewer in the process of performing the performance). It is obvious that the theatrical situation, due to its eventual uniqueness and uniqueness, is not only an artistic, but also a social event, and the problem of perception of a theatrical performance is directly related to issues of social behavior.

TO specific The peculiarities of theatrical art also include the dual position of the actor. The meaning of his activity is to live and depict at the same time, to be a depicting subject and a depicted object, himself and another.

Theater ancient greece. Theater building. Ancient tragedy and comedy

In ancient times, there were only two theaters: ancient Greek and ancient Roman.

For the origins of the Greek theater, first of all, its closest connection with the cult is important. Cult ceremonies, round dances, games are characteristic of most peoples at the agricultural stage of their development. These folk festivals took place several times a year. They sang songs of praise to Dionysus. Tragedy was born from the solemn part of the holiday, and comedy from the cheerful and playful part.

The translation of the words "tragedy" and "comedy" from Greek into Russian gives an explanation of the origin of Greek drama. The word "tragedy" consists of the Greek words "tragos" - "goat" and "ode" - "song", that is, literally it will sound like "the song of the goats."

Word "comedy"also includes two Greek words: "komos" - "procession" of a drunken crowd of mummers, showering each other with jokes and ridicule, and "ode" - "song". Therefore, comedy is the "song of komos".

Greek tragedy already in the second half of the VI century BC. e. was quite developed, because it used the rich heritage of the epic and lyric.

The plots of comedies, as well as tragedies, contained not only religious, but also worldly motives. In festive processions, in addition to songs, small comic scenes began to appear in which the actors played purely everyday ones.

In the period of the IV-I centuries BC. e. classical Greek theater has changed quite significantly. Not only the dramaturgy has changed, but also the acting performance, and even the architecture of the theater building itself.

The Greek theater played a big role in spreading the Greek language, culture and education in the countries of the East that were colonized by the Greeks.

By the middle of the IV century BC. e. in Greece, the so-called synods of technites (theatrical partnerships) began to emerge. However, female roles were still played by male actors. In the Hellenistic era, theaters began to be built of stone, so many ruins have survived to this day.

Theater of Ancient Rome. Organization of theatrical business

Roman theater and drama have their origins in rural harvest festivals. Even at a time when the Latins lived in a small community, after the end of the harvest, they held holidays. At the festivities, people sang cheerful, slightly obscene songs with rude jokes and ridicule, which were called "fescinnins".

There was also another form of representation - satura. It can be considered the origin of Roman drama, which was influenced by the culture of the Etruscans. Young Romans added gestures and comic dialogues to the dances, which were written in verse without rhyme. So gradually appeared satura, which means "mixture".

Saturas were scenes of a domestic and comic nature, consisting of dialogue, singing, music and dancing.

In addition to saturas, in Rome there was another type of comic performance, which was called "atellana". There was such a city Atella. People from these tribes during festivities they acted out small comic scenes that the Romans liked very much. There were four permanent characters in the atellan, whose names were Makk, Bukkon, Papp and Dossen. They were comic characters. Texts for atellana were never written, so during the performance the actors could improvise as they liked.

After protracted civil wars in the 1st century BC e. The Roman Republic fell. In 31 BC. e. Octavian defeated Antony and became the sole ruler of Rome.

Octavian August was well aware that during this period the theater was gaining more and more social significance. Many stone theaters began to be built. Very often performances were arranged for the people, which were mostly entertaining.

Theatrical genres of the Middle Ages (liturgical and polliturgical drama, mystery play, miracle, morality, farce)

The theater of the Middle Ages throughout its history reflects the clash between the people and the clergy. The church fought the theater because it did not accept any human aspirations for carnal, joyful enjoyment of life.

Church drama became one of the forms of theatrical art of the Middle Ages. Churchmen sought to use the theater for their propaganda purposes. In this regard, by the 9th century, a theatrical mass arose, a method of reading in the faces of the legend of the burial of Jesus Christ and his resurrection was developed. From such readings was born liturgical drama early period. The liturgical dramas were enacted by the priests themselves. In the middle of the 12th century arose semi-liturgical drama. After that church theater, despite the power of the clergy, came under the influence of the crowd.

Word "miracle" in Latin means "miracle".

The heyday of the mystery theater falls on the XV-XVI century, when the time came for the rapid development of cities. Mystery became a reflection of the prosperity of the medieval city, the development of its culture. This genre arose from ancient mimic mysteries, i.e., city processions in honor of religious holidays or the solemn entry of kings.

The staging of the mysteries was carried out not by churchmen, but by city workshops and municipalities. The authors of the mysteries were playwrights of a new type: theologians, doctors, lawyers. Mystery dramaturgy can be divided into three periods: "Old Testament", using cycles biblical legends; "New Testament", which tells about the birth and resurrection of Christ; "apostolic", borrowing plots for plays from the "Lives of the Saints" and miracles about saints.

The desire of the bourgeois to give their worldview more holiness and gave impetus to the creation of another genre of medieval theater - morality. There are no church plots in morality plays, since moralization is the only goal of such productions. The main characters of the morality theater are allegorical heroes.

From its inception to the second half of the 15th century farce was vulgar, plebeian. "Fars" is translated as "stuffing". From the beginning of its origin, the farce aimed to criticize and ridicule the feudal lords, the burghers and the nobility in general. In a special type, one can single out farcical performances in which parodies of the church and its dogmas were created.

Almost all farcical plots are based on purely everyday stories. In the farce, character traits are accurately noticed, showing the public satirical life-truthful material.

But the people were not left without theatrical spectacles. The lively folk theater in Italy, which was directly connected with the folk farce, as well as the urban carnival games, chose a different path for itself. It was independent of literary drama and, therefore, by the middle of the 16th century, it became the theater of improvised comedy, that is, the so-called commedia dell'arte.

Commedia dell'arte is the peak of the stage art of the Italian Renaissance theater. This genre, having developed in Italy, exerted its professional influence on all European art.

Commedia dell'arte appeared in the middle of the 16th century. Italian playwrights were the first to create a new theatrical genre, which became the starting point for the emergence and subsequent development of European drama. These types of dramaturgy include comedy, tragedy and pastoral.

Creativity W. Shakespeare

Until 1593 Shakespeare did not publish anything; in 1593 he published a poem Venus and Adonis (Venus and Adonis). The poem was an extraordinary success and was published eight times during the author's lifetime; Shakespeare followed with a longer and more serious poem - Lucrezia (Lucrece, 1594). Starting from this year, accurate evidence of Shakespeare's theatrical activity appears. At the Grace Inn on December 28, Comedy of Errors (Comedy of Errors).

In 1597–1598, Shakespeare's popularity rose sharply: until then, only one of his plays had been published (in 1594), Titus Andronicus (Titus Andronicus), and then without the name of the author on the title page; and no less than five plays were published in 1597–1598 to meet the demand for printed editions of his writings.

In March 1616 Shakespeare drew up his will. Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616 and was buried in the parish church, where thousands of people visit his grave every year.

Historical Chronicles and Shakespeare's Tragedy.

During this time, Shakespeare composed only one, but the original tragedy loved at all times - Romeo and Juliet (Romeo and Juliet, 1596).

This is a free dramatic adaptation of A. Brooke's poem Romey and Juliet (1562), which tells the tragic story of two lovers.

tragedy. twelfth Night turned out to be Shakespeare's farewell to carefree fun; he moved on to more serious topics.

Julius Caesar (Julius Caesar, 1599) is a link between historical chronicles and tragedies proper.

WITH Hamlet (Hamlet, 1600-1601) Shakespeare finally moves to the tragic genre; there is no trace of chronicles in the play.

Othello (Othello), played at court on 1 November 1604. Presented at court after Christmas 1605 King Lear (King Lear). Macbeth (Macbeth, 1606), one of Shakespeare's shortest plays.

The period of tragedy ends with three plays from ancient history – Timon of Athens (Timon of Athens), Anthony and Cleopatra (Antony and Cleopatra) And Coriolanus (Coriolanus). Tragedy Anthony and Cleopatra (1607–1608). Coriolanus (1608–1609

Shakespeare's comedies. During this period, Shakespeare was incessantly composing comedies, their gaiety reflected the high spirits of the English after the defeat of the Spanish Invincible Armada (July 1588). " Comedy of Errors" (The Comedy of Errors). The play " Love's fruitless efforts" (Love's Labor's Lost, OK. 1594). " Two Verona" (The Two Gentlemen of Verona, OK. 1593) - the playwright's first experience in a romantic comedy, an appeal to the theme of first love. This play is one of the shortest and most unsuccessful in his work. The first attested production was in 1762. In " The Taming of the Shrew" (The Taming of the Shrew, OK. 1595) Shakespeare showed subtle understanding human nature. « Sleep in midsummer night» (A Midsummer Night's Dream, OK. 1595) is Shakespeare's first spectacular triumph in the field of romantic comedy.

funny comedies. Plays Much Ado About Nothing (1598-1599), "As You Like It" (As You Like It, 1600), « The Merry Wives of Windsor (1599–1600) and Twelfth Night (The Twelfth Night, 1601–1602).

bitter comedies. Plays « All is well that ends well" (All's Well That Ends Well, 1602–1603), " Troilus and Cressida" (Troilus and Cressida, 1602) and " Measure for measure»( Measure for Measure, 1604) are a kind of by-product of a tragic period.

Tragicomedy. Pericles, Prince of Tyre (Pericles, Prince of Tire, OK. 1608) is the link between tragedies and later plays. Plays: Cymbeline (Cymbeline, 1609–1610) winter fairy tale (The Winter's Tale, 1611) Storm (The Tempest, 1611) .

epic theater B. Brecht

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) was born in Augsburg, the son of a factory manager, studied at the gymnasium, practiced medicine in Munich and was drafted into the army as a nurse. The songs and poems of the young orderly attracted attention with the spirit of hatred for the war, for the Prussian military, for German imperialism. In the revolutionary days of November 1918, Brecht was elected a member of the Augsburg Soldiers' Council, which testified to the authority of a still young poet.

Already in Brecht's earliest poems, we see a combination of catchy slogans designed for instant memorization and complex imagery that evokes associations with classical German literature. These associations are not imitations, but an unexpected rethinking of old situations and techniques. Brecht seems to move them into modern life, makes you look at them in a new way, "alienated". Thus, already in the earliest lyrics, Brecht gropes for his famous dramatic device of "alienation". In the poem "The Legend of the Dead Soldier," satirical devices are reminiscent of the methods of romanticism: a soldier going into battle against the enemy has long been only a ghost, the people who see him off are philistines whom German literature has long been drawing in the form of animals. And at the same time, Brecht's poem is topical - it contains intonations, pictures, and hatred of the times of the First World War. Brecht stigmatizes German militarism and war in his 1924 poem "The Ballad of a Mother and a Soldier"; the poet understands that the Weimar Republic is far from eradicating militant pan-Germanism.

Further, it should be said that during the years of the Weimar Republic poetic world Brecht expands. Reality appears in the sharpest class upheavals. But Brecht is not content with merely recreating pictures of oppression. His poems are always a revolutionary appeal: such are "The Song of the United Front", "The Faded Glory of New York, the Giant City", "The Song of the Class Enemy". These poems clearly show how at the end of the 1920s Brecht comes to a communist worldview, how his spontaneous youthful rebellion grows into proletarian revolutionism.

Brecht's lyrics are very wide in their range, the poet can capture the real picture of German life in all its historical and psychological concreteness, but he can also create a meditation poem, where the poetic effect is achieved not by description, but by the accuracy and depth of philosophical thought, combined with exquisite, by no means a far-fetched allegory. For Brecht, poetry is above all the accuracy of philosophical and civic thought. Brecht considered poetry even philosophical treatises or paragraphs of proletarian newspapers filled with civil pathos (for example, the style of the poem "Message to Comrade Dimitrov, who fought the fascist tribunal in Leipzig" - an attempt to bring the language of poetry and newspapers closer together). But these experiments eventually convinced Brecht that art should speak about everyday life in a language far from everyday. In this sense, Brecht the lyricist helped Brecht the playwright.

In the 1920s, Brecht turned to the theater. In Munich, he becomes a director, and then a playwright in the city theater. In 1924 Brecht moved to Berlin, where he worked in the theater. He acts simultaneously as a playwright and as a theorist - a theater reformer. Already during these years, Brecht's aesthetics, his innovative view of the tasks of dramaturgy and theater, took shape in their decisive features. Brecht expressed his theoretical views on art in the 1920s in separate articles and speeches, later combined into the collection Against the Theatrical Routine and On the Way to the Modern Theatre. Later, in the 1930s, Brecht systematized his theater theory, clarifying and developing it, in the treatises "On non-Aristotelian drama", "New principles of acting", "Small organon for the theater", "Purchase of copper" and some others.

Many literary critics consider Bertolt Brecht one of the leaders of the "epic theater" movement. Brecht calls his aesthetics and dramaturgy "epic", "non-Aristotelian" theater; by this naming, he emphasizes his disagreement with the most important, according to Aristotle, principle of ancient tragedy, which was later adopted to a greater or lesser extent by the entire world theatrical tradition. The playwright opposes the Aristotelian doctrine of catharsis. Catharsis is an extraordinary, supreme emotional tension. This side of the catharsis Brecht recognized and retained for his theatre; emotional strength, pathos, open manifestation of passions we see in his plays. But the purification of feelings in catharsis, according to Brecht, led to reconciliation with tragedy, life's horror became theatrical and therefore attractive, the viewer would not even mind experiencing something like that. Brecht constantly tried to dispel the legends about the beauty of suffering and patience. In the Life of Galileo, he writes that the hungry have no right to endure hunger, that "starving" is simply not eating, and not showing patience, pleasing to heaven. " Brecht wanted tragedy to stimulate reflection on ways to prevent tragedy. Therefore he considered Shakespeare's shortcoming that in the performances of his tragedies it is unthinkable, for example, "a discussion about the behavior of King Lear" and it seems that Lear's grief is inevitable: "it has always been like that, it is natural."

The idea of catharsis, generated by ancient drama, was closely connected with the concept of fatal predestination. human destiny. Playwrights, by the power of their talent, revealed all the motivations of human behavior, in moments of catharsis, like lightning, they illuminated all the reasons for human actions, and the power of these reasons turned out to be absolute. That is why Brecht called the Aristotelian theater fatalistic.

Brecht saw a contradiction between the principle of reincarnation in the theatre, the principle of the dissolution of the author in the characters, and the need for direct, agitational and visual identification of the philosophical and political position writer. Even in the most successful and tendentious traditional dramas in the best sense of the word, the position of the author, according to Brecht, was associated with the figures of reasoners. This was also the case in the dramas of Schiller, whom Brecht highly valued for his citizenship and ethical pathos. The playwright rightly believed that the characters of the characters should not be "mouthpieces of ideas", that this reduces the artistic effectiveness of the play: "... on the stage of a realistic theater there is only place for living people, people in flesh and blood, with all their contradictions, passions and deeds. The stage is not a herbarium or a museum where stuffed effigies are exhibited..."

Brecht finds his own solution to this controversial issue: the theatrical performance, stage action does not coincide with the plot of the play. The plot, the story of the characters is interrupted by direct author's comments, lyrical digressions, and sometimes even a demonstration of physical experiments, reading newspapers and a peculiar, always topical entertainer. Brecht breaks the illusion of a continuous development of events in the theater, destroys the magic of scrupulous reproduction of reality. The theater is genuine creativity, far surpassing mere plausibility. Creativity for Brecht and the play of actors, for whom only "natural behavior in the circumstances offered" is completely insufficient. Developing his aesthetics, Brecht uses traditions forgotten in everyday, psychological theater late XIX- the beginning of the 20th century, he introduces choirs and zongs of contemporary political cabarets, digressions characteristic of poems, and philosophical treatises. Brecht allows for a change in the commentary beginning when resuming his plays: he sometimes has two versions of zongs and choirs for the same plot (for example, the zongs in the productions of The Threepenny Opera in 1928 and 1946 are different).

Brecht considered the art of disguise to be indispensable, but completely insufficient for an actor. Much more important, he believed the ability to show, demonstrate his personality on stage - both civilly and creatively. In the game, the reincarnation must necessarily alternate, be combined with the demonstration of artistic data (recitations, plastics, singing), which are interesting precisely for their originality, and, most importantly, with the demonstration of the actor's personal citizenship, his human credo.

Brecht believed that a person retains the ability of free choice and responsible decision in the most difficult circumstances. This conviction of the playwright manifested faith in man, a deep conviction that bourgeois society, with all the power of its corrupting influence, cannot reshape humanity in the spirit of its principles. Brecht writes that the task of the "epic theater" is to force the audience "to give up ... the illusion that everyone in the place of the depicted hero would act in the same way." The playwright deeply comprehends the dialectics of the development of society and therefore crushingly smashes the vulgar sociology associated with positivism. Brecht always chooses complex, "non-ideal" ways of exposing capitalist society. "Political primitive", according to the playwright, is unacceptable on stage. Brecht wanted the life and actions of the characters in the plays from the life of a property society to always give the impression of unnaturalness. He poses a very difficult task for the theatrical performance: he compares the viewer with a hydraulic builder who "is able to see the river at the same time both in its actual course and in the imaginary one along which it could flow if the slope of the plateau and the water level were different" .

Brecht believed that a true depiction of reality is not limited only to the reproduction of the social circumstances of life, that there are universal categories that social determinism cannot fully explain (the love of the heroine of the "Caucasian Chalk Circle" Grusha for a defenseless abandoned child, Shen De's irresistible impulse for good) . Their depiction is possible in the form of a myth, a symbol, in the genre of plays-parables or plays-parabolas. But in terms of socio-psychological realism, Brecht's dramaturgy can be put on a par with greatest achievements world theatre. The playwright carefully observed the basic law of realism of the 19th century. - historical concreteness of social and psychological motivations. Comprehension of the qualitative diversity of the world has always been a paramount task for him. Summing up his path as a playwright, Brecht wrote: "We must strive for an ever more accurate description of reality, and this, from an aesthetic point of view, is an increasingly subtle and more effective understanding of description."

Brecht's innovation was also manifested in the fact that he managed to fuse into an indissoluble harmonic whole traditional, mediated methods of revealing aesthetic content (characters, conflicts, plot) with an abstract reflective beginning. What gives amazing artistic integrity to the seemingly contradictory combination of plot and commentary? The famous Brechtian principle of "alienation" - it permeates not only the commentary itself, but the entire plot. Brecht's "alienation" is both an instrument of logic and poetry itself, full of surprises and glitter.

Brecht makes "alienation" the most important principle of philosophical knowledge of the world, the most important condition realistic creativity. Brecht believed that determinism is not sufficient for the truth of art, that the historical concreteness and socio-psychological completeness of the environment - the "Falstaffian background" - are not enough for the "epic theater". Brecht links the solution to the problem of realism with the concept of fetishism in Marx's Capital. Following Marx, he believes that in bourgeois society the picture of the world often appears in a "bewitched", "hidden" form, that for each historical stage there is its own objective "visibility of things" forced on people. This "objective appearance" hides the truth, as a rule, more impenetrably than demagogy, lies or ignorance. The highest goal and the highest success of the artist, according to Brecht, is "alienation", i.e. not only exposing the vices and subjective delusions of individual people, but also a breakthrough beyond objective visibility to genuine, only emerging, only guessed in today's laws.

"Objective appearance", as Brecht understood it, is capable of turning into a force that "subjugates the entire structure of everyday language and consciousness." In this Brecht seems to coincide with the existentialists. Heidegger and Jaspers, for example, considered the entire everyday life of bourgeois values, including everyday language, "rumour", "gossip". But Brecht, realizing, like the existentialists, that positivism and pantheism are just "rumor", "objective appearance", exposes existentialism as a new "rumour", as a new "objective appearance". Getting used to the role, to the circumstances does not break through the "objective appearance" and therefore serves realism less than "alienation". Brecht did not agree that getting used to and reincarnated is the way to the truth. K.S. Stanislavsky, who asserted this, was, in his opinion, "impatient." For getting used to does not distinguish between truth and "objective appearance."

Brecht's plays of the initial period of creativity - experiments, searches and the first artistic victories 1 . Already "Baal" - Brecht's first play - strikes with its bold and unusual presentation of human and artistic problems. in poetics and stylistic features"Baal" is close to expressionism. Brecht considers the dramaturgy of G. Kaiser "decisive", "changed the situation in the European theater". But Brecht immediately alienates the expressionistic understanding of the poet and poetry as an ecstatic medium. Without rejecting the expressionist poetics of the fundamental principles, he rejects the pessimistic interpretation of these fundamental principles. In the play, he reveals the absurdity of reducing poetry to ecstasy, to catharsis, shows the perversion of a person on the path of ecstatic, disinhibited emotions.

The fundamental principle, the substance of life is happiness. She, according to Brecht, is in the snake rings of a powerful, but not fatal, evil that is essentially alien to her, in the power of coercion. Brecht's world - and the theater must recreate this - seems to constantly balance on a razor's edge. He is either in the power of "objective visibility", it feeds his grief, creates a language of despair, "gossip", then finds support in the comprehension of evolution. In Brecht's theater, emotions are mobile, ambivalent, tears are resolved by laughter, and hidden, indestructible sadness is interspersed in the brightest pictures.

The playwright makes his Baal the focal point, the focus of the philosophical and psychological tendencies of the time. After all, the expressionistic perception of the world as horror and the existentialist concept of human existence as absolute loneliness appeared almost simultaneously, almost simultaneously the plays of the expressionists Hasenclever, Kaiser, Werfel and the first philosophical works of the existentialists Heidegger and Jaspers were created. At the same time, Brecht shows that the song of Baal is a dope that envelops the head of the listeners, the spiritual horizon of Europe. Brecht depicts the life of Baal in such a way that it becomes clear to the audience that the delusional phantasmagoria of his existence cannot be called life.

"What is that soldier, what is this" - a prime example innovative in all its artistic components of the play. In it, Brecht does not use the techniques consecrated by tradition. He creates a parable; the central scene of the play is a zong that refutes the aphorism "What is this soldier, what is this", Brecht "alienates" the rumor about the "interchangeability of people", speaks of the uniqueness of each person and the relativity of the pressure of the environment on him. This is a deep foreboding of the historical guilt of the German layman, who is inclined to interpret his support for fascism as inevitable, as a natural reaction to the failure of the Weimar Republic. Brecht finds new energy for the movement of drama instead of the illusion of developing characters and naturally flowing life. The playwright and the actors seem to be experimenting with the characters, the plot here is a chain of experiments, the lines are not so much the communication of the characters as a demonstration of their probable behavior, and then the "alienation" of this behavior.

Brecht's further searches were marked by the creation of the plays The Threepenny Opera (1928), St. Joan of the Slaughterhouses (1932) and Mother, based on Gorky's novel (1932).

For the plot basis of his "opera" Brecht took the comedy of the English playwright of the 18th century. Gaia's "Opera of the Beggars". But the world of adventurers, bandits, prostitutes and beggars, depicted by Brecht, has not only English specifics. The structure of the play is multifaceted, the sharpness of plot conflicts is reminiscent of the crisis atmosphere in Germany during the Weimar Republic. This play is sustained by Brecht in the compositional techniques of the "epic theater". Directly aesthetic content, contained in the characters and the plot, is combined in it with zongs that carry a theoretical commentary and encourage the viewer to hard work of thought. In 1933 Brecht emigrated from Nazi Germany, lived in Austria, then in Switzerland, France, Denmark, Finland and since 1941 - in the USA. After World War II, he was prosecuted in the United States by the Un-American Activities Commission.
The poems of the early 1930s were intended to dispel Hitler's demagogy; the poet found and flaunted contradictions in fascist promises that were sometimes imperceptible to the layman. And here Brecht was greatly helped by his principle of "alienation". Common in the Hitlerite state, familiar, pleasing to the ear of a German - under Brecht's pen began to look dubious, absurd, and then monstrous. In 1933–1934 the poet creates "Hitler's chants". The high form of the ode, the musical intonation of the work only enhance the satirical effect contained in the aphorisms of the chorales. In many poems, Brecht emphasizes that the consistent struggle against fascism is not only the destruction of the Nazi state, but also the revolution of the proletariat (poems "All or Nobody", "Song against the War", "Resolution of the Communards", "Great October").

In 1934, Brecht published his most significant prose work, The Threepenny Romance. At first glance, it may seem that the writer created only a prose version of The Threepenny Opera. However, The Threepenny Romance is completely independent work. Brecht specifies the time of action here much more precisely. All events in the novel are connected with the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. The characters familiar from the play - the bandit Makhit, the head of the "beggar's empire" Peacham, the policeman Brown, Polly, Peacham's daughter, and others - are transformed. We see them as businessmen of imperialist acumen and cynicism. Brecht appears in this novel as a genuine "doctor of social sciences." It shows the mechanism behind the backstage connections of financial adventurers (like Cox) and the government. The writer depicts the external, open side of events - the dispatch of ships with recruits to South Africa, patriotic demonstrations, a respectable court and the vigilant police of England. He then draws the true and decisive course of events in the country. Merchants for profit send soldiers in "floating coffins" that go to the bottom; patriotism is inflated by hired beggars; in court, the gangster Makhit-knife calmly plays the offended "honest trader"; the robber and the chief of police are connected by a touching friendship and provide each other with a lot of services at the expense of society.

Brecht's novel presents the class stratification of society, class antagonism and the dynamics of struggle. The fascist crimes of the 1930s, according to Brecht, are not new; the English bourgeoisie of the beginning of the century in many respects anticipated the demagogic methods of the Nazis. And when a petty merchant who sells stolen goods, just like a fascist, accuses the communists, who oppose the enslavement of the Boers, of treason, of lack of patriotism, then this is not an anachronism in Brecht, not anti-historicism. On the contrary, it is a deep insight into certain recurring patterns. But at the same time, for Brecht, exact reproduction historical life and the atmosphere is not the main thing. For him, the meaning of the historical episode is more important. The Anglo-Boer War and fascism for the artist is the raging element of property. Many episodes of The Threepenny Romance are reminiscent of a Dickensian world. Brecht subtly captures the national flavor of English life and the specific intonations of English literature: a complex kaleidoscope of images, tense dynamics, a detective tone in the depiction of conflicts and struggles, English character social tragedies.

In exile, in the struggle against fascism, Brecht's dramatic work blossomed. As Brecht himself wrote in his work "Small Organon for the Theatre", "The theater is the reproduction in living pictures of real or imaginary events in which human relationships unfold - a reproduction calculated to entertain. In any case, this is what we are In what follows, we will mean it every time we speak of the theatre, both old and new. Then the dramatic art was exceptionally rich in content and varied in form. Among the most famous plays of emigration - "Mother Courage and her children" (1939). The sharper and more tragic the conflict, the more critical, according to Brecht, a person's thought should be. In the conditions of the 1930s, "Mother Courage" sounded, of course, as a protest against the demagogic propaganda of the war by the Nazis and was addressed to that part of the German population that succumbed to this demagogy. War is depicted in the play as an element that is organically hostile to human existence.

The essence of the "epic theater" becomes especially clear in connection with "Mother Courage". Theoretical commentary is combined in the play with a realistic manner, merciless in its consistency. Brecht believes that it is realism that is the most reliable way of influence. Therefore, in "Mother Courage" the "genuine" face of life is so consistent and sustained even in small details. But one should keep in mind the duality of this play - the aesthetic content of the characters, i.e. a reproduction of life, where good and evil are mixed regardless of our desires, and the voice of Brecht himself, not satisfied with such a picture, trying to affirm good. Brecht's position is directly evident in the Zongs. In addition, as follows from Brecht's directorial instructions to the play, the playwright provides theaters with ample opportunities to demonstrate the author's thought with the help of various "extractions" (photographs, film projections, direct appeal of actors to the audience).

Theater as an art form

2. Theatrical art

Theatrical art is one of the most complex, most effective and most ancient arts. Moreover, it is heterogeneous, synthetic. As components, theatrical art includes architecture, painting and sculpture (scenery), and music (it sounds not only in musical, but often in a dramatic performance), and choreography (again, not only in ballet, but also in drama). ), and literature (the text on which a dramatic performance is built), and the art of acting, etc. Among all of the above, the art of acting is the main, determining one for the theater. Famous Soviet director A. Tairov wrote, "... in the history of the theater there were long periods when it existed without plays, when it did without any scenery, but there was not a single moment when the theater was without an actor" Tairov A. Ya, Director's Notes . Articles. Conversations. Speeches. Letters. M., 1970, p. 79. .

The actor in the theater is main artist, which creates what is called the stage image. More precisely, an actor in the theater is at the same time an artist-creator, and the material of creativity, and its result is an image. The art of the actor allows us to see with our own eyes not only the image in its final expression, but also the very process of its creation, formation. The actor creates an image from himself, and at the same time creates it in the presence of the viewer, in front of his eyes. This is perhaps the main specificity of the stage, theatrical image - and here is the source of the special and unique artistic pleasure that it delivers to the viewer. The spectator in the theater, more than anywhere else in art, is directly involved in the miracle of creation.

The art of theater, unlike other arts, living art. It occurs only at the hour of meeting with the viewer. It is based on the indispensable emotional, spiritual contact between the stage and the audience. There is no such contact, which means that there is no spectacle that lives according to its own aesthetic laws.

It is a great torment for an actor to perform in front of an empty hall, without a single spectator. Such a state is tantamount for him to stay in a space closed from the whole world. At the hour of the performance, the soul of the actor is directed towards the spectator, just as the soul of the spectator is directed towards the actor. The art of the theater lives, breathes, excites and captures the viewer in those happy moments when, through the invisible wires of high-voltage transmissions, there is an active exchange of two spiritual energies, mutually aspiring to one another - from actor to viewer, from viewer to actor.

Reading a book, standing in front of a painting, the reader, the viewer does not see the writer, the painter. And only in the theater does a person meet eye to eye with a creative artist, meets him at the moment of creation. He guesses the emergence and movement of his heart, lives with him all the vicissitudes of the events that took place on the stage.

The reader alone, alone with the treasured book, can experience exciting, happy moments. And the theater does not leave its audience alone. Everything in the theater is based on active emotional interaction between those who create a work of art on stage that evening and those for whom it is created.

The spectator comes to a theatrical performance not as an outside observer. He cannot but express his attitude to what is happening on the stage. An explosion of approving applause, cheerful laughter, a tense, undisturbed silence, a sigh of relief, silent indignation - the spectator's complicity in the process of stage action is manifested in the richest variety. A festive atmosphere arises in the theater when such complicity, such empathy reaches its highest intensity...

This is what living art means. Art, in which the beating of the human heart is heard, the subtlest movements of the soul and mind are sensitively captured, in which the whole world of human feelings and thoughts, hopes, dreams, desires is enclosed.

Of course, when we think and talk about an actor, we understand how important for the theater is not just an actor, but an ensemble of actors, unity, creative interaction of actors. "A real theatre," Chaliapin wrote, "is not only individual creativity, but also a collective action that requires complete harmony of all parts."

Theater is, as it were, doubly collective art. The spectator perceives a theatrical production, a stage action not alone, but collectively, “feeling the elbow of a neighbor”, which to a large extent enhances the impression, the artistic contagion of what is happening on the stage. At the same time, the impression itself comes not from one person-actor, but from a group of actors. Both on the stage and in the auditorium, on both sides of the ramp, they live, feel and act - not separate individuals, but people, a society of people, connected with each other for a while by common attention, purpose, common action.

To a large extent, it is precisely this that determines the enormous social and educational role of the theater. Art, which is created and perceived together, becomes a school in the true sense of the word. “The theater,” wrote the famous Spanish poet Garcia Lorca, “is a school of tears and laughter, a free platform from which people can denounce outdated or false morality and explain, using living examples, the eternal laws of the human heart and human feeling.”

A person turns to the theater as a reflection of his conscience, his soul - he recognizes himself in the theater, his time and his life. The theater opens before him amazing opportunities for spiritual and moral self-knowledge.

And let the theater, by its aesthetic nature, a conditional art, like other arts, on the stage appears before the viewer not the reality itself, but only its artistic reflection. But there is so much truth in that reflection that it is perceived in all its absoluteness, as the most genuine, true life. The viewer recognizes the higher reality of the existence of stage characters. The great Goethe wrote: “What can be more nature than the people of Shakespeare!”

In the theater, in a lively community of people who have gathered for a stage performance, everything is possible: laughter and tears, grief and joy, undisguised indignation and violent delight, sadness and happiness, irony and distrust, contempt and sympathy, watchful silence and loud approval - in a word, all the riches of emotional manifestations and upheavals of the human soul.

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It is difficult to say for sure how much the stage possibilities of the theater of a certain era influence the work of a playwright. Here it is necessary to divide them into those who wrote for the theater without being a participant in theatrical performances (history knows many such names) and those who themselves worked in the theater and knew it “from the inside” (Shakespeare, Molière, Brecht, etc.). ). This boundary is difficult to grasp, but very significant. For some, the play as a literary product is dominant, for others - as real opportunity or record games. Other an important factor in this question is the attitude of the playwright to the theater: how does he perceive it, as an institution?

In history, there were several points of view on the essence and purpose of theatrical art. The theater has been used as an extended model for religious mysteries, as a vehicle for the dissemination of political ideas or propaganda, as an entertainment, and as an art form. We can say that the theater existed on three levels at the same time:

* as freely organized popular entertainment;

* as dominant social activity;

* as an art form;

At the level popular entertainment it is made up of actors or small troupes, usually working outside the established theatrical canons, performing anything from circus acts to farces for mass audiences. This form predates the oldest known plays. theater like dominant social activity- this is, as a rule, a literary drama performed in public theaters: Greek tragedy, medieval mysteries and morality, tsam, etc. theater like elite art form the most simple and defined; it is intended for a limited group of viewers with specialized tastes. This form ranges from the genre of the Renaissance court mask to the modern avant-garde theater.

In addition to the essence and purpose of the theatrical performance, it is also necessary to note the very specifics, the functions of the theatrical performance, the type of theater in which the performance takes place, and a number of certain elements that affect the play at the time of its creation.

Theatrical specifics.

The search and selection of the specifics of theatrical performance, first of all, is necessary for us in order to separate it from other types of arts (choreography, painting, architecture, etc.) This question is the reverse side of the question of the essence of the theater. The basis of the theatrical performance lies in the fact that the visual action and the text merge into an inseparable whole, while they retain sufficient independence and can dominate each other to varying degrees. According to this ratio, the theater is typified (musical, dramatic, etc.). Another aspect of this issue is the ratio of the actor's performance in terms of the physical actions of his body (gestures, postures, facial expressions, etc.) and voice.

Many arts are united in the art of the theater, but they are not subordinated to the stage to the extent that drama is subordinated. Oriented towards the stage image, towards effective reproduction, the drama gives rise to a category inherent in only theater and making it a theater is action. Action is the very essence of the theater, it integrates all the elements of a theatrical performance into one single artistic whole and a complete work. At the same time, all systems of theatrical performance organically interact with each other without causing a conflict of resources (decoration, light, music, etc.). The most elementary (rudimentary) actions may depend on a certain place, the goals of performance and be the work of a single actor. Most performances, however, require the joint (cooperative) efforts of many creative and technically trained people to form a perfectly harmonious performance.

Elements of theatrical performance.

Execution has only two essential and necessary elements: executor And audience. Performance can be pantomime or verbal (use language). The need for a performer may not always be, for example, a puppet drama or mechanical performances (optical or light theater). The performance can be saturated with costume, scenography, lighting, music, and special effects, i.e. technical equipment that is used to help create the illusion different nature: places, times, etc. And finally, theatrical production, from a technical point of view, in any of its forms Always presented to a live audience. That is why the elements of a theatrical performance are always essentially visual, i.e. presented directly (although film, video or recorded sound may be included in the performance). They are governed by specific sets of rules (embedded in the script) that determine the language and actions of the performers.

The term "theater" is often applied only to dramatic and musical pieces and does not include opera, dance, circus and carnivals, pantomime, vaudeville, puppet shows, theatrical performances and other forms - all those that have separate elements of the theater in themselves.

Types of Western Theatre.

In addition to aesthetic, teleological and technological criteria (which we have already written about), Western theater can also be classified in terms of economics and approaches to production as:

commercial (private);

Non-commercial (state);

experimental or artistic theater;

community (entreprise);

Academic theater

Theater can also be viewed in terms like " place in which it is implemented. Stage and audience have had their own distinctive forms in every era and in different cultures. Theaters today tend to be very flexible and eclectic in their design, incorporating elements of several styles.

The performance of a play does not essentially require an architectural structure designed for a theater or even the very necessity of a building. In this direction, the experiments of the English director Peter Brook on creating a theater in an "empty place" are characteristic. The earliest forms of theater existed on the streets, open areas, marketplaces, churches or buildings not intended for theater use. Many modern experimental theaters reject formal restrictions available theaters and look for more unusual places for their productions (street, lawns, barns, rooftops, etc.). In all these "found" theatres, the meaning of the stage and the audience is created by the actions of the performers and the natural features of the area. The modern stage is a complex architectural and technical structure. This type was formed as a result of a long evolution of the theater from the ancient Greek orchestra, medieval stages (simultaneous and pagent), the Italian Renaissance box stage to the modern stage. It is distinguished by the fact that it is primarily a building, a structure intended only for theatrical performances. The stage itself is mainly portal, equipped with a variety of stage equipment, and sometimes transforming, which can turn into one of the usual theater scenes. In the history of the theatre, however, most theaters have used one of three types of stage: box, dais, and arena.

All these types of scenes in their historical development determined the appearance of one or another type of dramaturgy. In addition, they formed certain techniques for staging material, required certain techniques in directing, "their own" mise-en-scenes, etc. Each type of scene suggests its own set of expressive means, and the same piece will be “decided” on them in different ways. Therefore, although this material does not belong to the theory of dramaturgy, since it affects the laws of the theater and the issues of the stage embodiment of the play, we cannot ignore it.

Open stage-platform Stage-box. Stage-arena Open stage-arena

platform stage- a raised platform facing the audience. Often it is placed at one end of a rectangular space. This scene is more commonly known as a circle surrounded on three sides by an audience. This form was used in ancient Greek theatre, classical Spanish theatre, English theater Renaissance, Japanese and Chinese classical theater, in many Western theaters of the twentieth century. The platform can be supported by a wall (skene). Relegated to the background, it can depict the landscape and hide the actors leaving the stage. In this type of stage, there is no barrier between the performers and the audience, the stage creates a feeling of great closeness, as if the performance is taking place in the middle of the audience.

The scene is a box. Since the Renaissance, the Western theater has been dominated by a variant of the stage called the proscenium. Proscenium - a wall that separates the stage from the audience, the arch (arc), which can be a square, is a kind of hole in the wall through which the audience watches the action. A curtain that rises or opens to the sides can be hung in this place. The proscenium evolves in response to the desire to disguise the scenery, hide the stage machinery, and create space behind the scenes for the performers to exit and enter. As a result, it enhances the illusion by eliminating everything that is not part of the scene. Also, encourages the audience to imagine what they cannot see and continue the perspective of what they are watching on stage. Because the proscenium is an architectural barrier, this creates a sense of distance or separation between the stage and the audience. The arch of the proscenium also creates a stage and is therefore often referred to as a stage mirror or a scene with a picture structure.

The stage is an arena. An arena-shaped stage, or circular theatre, is a place completely surrounded by an audience. This form was used several times throughout the 20th century, but its historical precedent is largely in non-dramatic forms such as the circus, which has generally limited its popularity. The need to provide equal conditions and opportunities to watch the action for all spectators creates certain difficulties in the type of scenography used and in the movements of the actors, because at some point in time the audience will inevitably look at the performer from the back. In the arena stage, the effect of illusion is most difficult to maintain, since in most plays the entrances and exits should not be in front of the audience, creating an element unexpected appearance. This cannot be achieved in this type of scene, because the actor is always in front of the audience. However, the arena, when properly used, can create a sense of intimacy not possible in other types of stage and is well suited to many non-dramatic forms. In addition, due to different stage requirements in the arena stage, large backstage areas associated with the proscenium can be eliminated, thus allowing more economical use of the stage space. A modification of this type of scene towards a scaffold stage is open arena stage.

One of the original form of organization of stage performances is " environmental theater» having precedents in medieval theater(Adam de la Halle), during the Renaissance (pastoral) and which was widely used in the twentieth century. avant-garde theater (for example, in the "poor theater" of E. Grotovsky). This kind of theater eliminates a separate or central stage in favor of surrounding the audience or sharing a place with them; the place of the stage and the place of the spectator become indistinguishable.

Audience. The viewer is located in accordance with the type of theater that we have considered above. He can be:

clear divided(armchairs);

· not divided(bench);

· structured(parterre, amphitheater);

· hierarchical(boxes, mezzanine, gallery);

either free-range(standing, sitting) at your own discretion and choice;

The layout of the auditorium in the 20th century mainly comes from various variants of the fan-shaped hall, which is more democratic in its organization. But in the long run, this has little effect on the dramaturgy, unless the author, already when writing the play, decides to place the audience in one way or another in relation to the stage (see the dramaturgy of the theater of the absurd).

Scenography. The artistic design of the performance is a project of a set of certain theatrical means of expression. This project is a kind of visual setting environment in which the play is performed. Its purpose is to suggest the time and place and create the appropriate mood or atmosphere for them. General scenographic solutions can be divided into such main types as: realistic, abstract and functional;

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TheaterHowviewart,Andhisindigenousdifferencefromothersspeciesarts

theater art suite

The theater offers its own way of understanding the surrounding world and, accordingly, its own set of artistic means. The performance is both a special action played out in the space of the stage, and a special figurative thinking, different from, say, music.

Theater, like no other form of art, has the greatest "capacity". He absorbs the ability of literature to recreate life in a word in its external and internal manifestations, but this word is not narrative, but lively-sounding, directly effective. At the same time, unlike literature, the theater recreates reality not in the mind of the reader, but as objectively existing pictures of life (performance) located in space. And in this respect, the theater is close to painting. But the theatrical action is in continuous motion, it develops in time - and this is close to music. Immersion in the world of the viewer's experiences is akin to the state that a listener of music experiences, immersed in his own world of subjective perception of sounds.

The art of the theater has an amazing ability to merge with life. The stage performance, although it takes place on the other side of the ramp, at moments of high tension blurs the line between art and life and is perceived by the audience as reality itself. The attractive power of the theater lies in the fact that "life on the stage" freely asserts itself in the imagination of the viewer.

Such a psychological turn occurs because the theater is not only endowed with the features of reality, but in itself is an artistically created reality. Theatrical reality, creating the impression of reality, has its own special laws. The truth of the theater cannot be measured by the criteria of life's plausibility. The psychological load that the hero of the drama takes upon himself cannot be endured by a person in life, because in the theater there is an extreme compaction of entire cycles of events. The hero of the play often experiences his inner life as a bunch of passions and a high concentration of thoughts. And all this is taken by the audience for granted. "Incredible" according to the norms of objective reality is not at all a sign of unreliable art. In the theater, “truth” and “untruth” have different criteria and are determined by the law of figurative thinking. “Art is experienced as a reality by the fullness of our mental “mechanisms”, but at the same time it is evaluated in its specific quality as a man-made-game “not real”, as children say, illusory doubling of reality.”

The visitor to the theater becomes a theatrical spectator when he perceives this double aspect of the stage action, not only seeing a vitally concrete act in front of him, but also understanding the inner meaning of this act. What is happening on the stage is felt both as the truth of life and as its figurative recreation. At the same time, it is important to note that the viewer, without losing a sense of the real, begins to live in the world of the theater. The relationship between real and theatrical reality is rather complicated. There are three phases in this process:

1. The reality of objectively shown reality, transformed by the playwright's imagination into a dramatic work.

2. A dramatic work, embodied by the theater (director, actors) into stage life - a performance.

3. Stage life, perceived by the audience and become part of their experiences, merged with the life of the audience and, thus, again returned to reality.

The active imagination of the spectators is not at all some special spiritual property of the chosen art lovers. Of course, the developed artistic taste is of great importance, but this is a matter of the development of those emotional principles that are inherent in every person.

Aesthetic perception is the creativity of the viewer, and it can reach great intensity. The richer the nature of the viewer himself, the more developed his aesthetic sense, the more complete his artistic experience, the more active his imagination and the richer his theatrical impressions.

Aesthetics of perception is largely geared towards the ideal viewer. In reality, the conscious process of educating theatrical culture will probably advance the viewer to gain knowledge about art and master certain skills of perception.

The "theater effect", its clarity is determined not only by the dignity of the art itself, but also by the dignity, the aesthetic culture of the auditorium. However, the awakening of the artist in the viewer occurs only if the viewer is able to fully perceive the content inherent in the performance, if he is able to expand his aesthetic range and learn to see the new in art, if, remaining true to his favorite artistic style, he does not turn out to be deaf and to other creative directions, if he is able to see a new reading of a classic work and is able to separate the director's idea from its implementation by the actors ... There are many more such "if" ones. Consequently, in order for the spectator to become involved in creativity, so that the artist awakens in him, at the present stage of the development of our theater, a general increase in the artistic culture of the spectator is necessary.

The first thing the viewer sees after the curtain opens (or rises) is the stage space in which the scenery is placed. They indicate the place of action, historical time, reflect the national flavor. With the help of spatial constructions, even the mood of the characters can be conveyed (for example, in an episode of the hero’s suffering, immerse the scene in darkness or tighten its backdrop with black). During the action, with the help of a special technique, the scenery is changed: the day is turned into night, winter into summer, the street into a room. This technique has evolved along with the scientific thought of mankind. Lifting mechanisms, shields and hatches, which in ancient times were operated manually, are now electronically raised and lowered. Candles and gas lamps are replaced by electric lamps; lasers are often used.

Even in antiquity, two types of stage and auditorium were formed: the box stage and the amphitheater stage. The box stage provides for tiers and stalls, and the audience surrounds the amphitheater stage from three sides. Now in the world both types are used. Modern technology makes it possible to change the theatrical space - to arrange a platform in the middle of the auditorium, to seat the viewer on the stage, and to play the performance in the hall. Great importance has always been attached to the theater building. Theaters were usually built in the central square of the city; architects wanted the buildings to be beautiful, to attract attention. Coming to the theater, the spectator renounces everyday life, as if rising above reality. Therefore, it is no coincidence that a staircase decorated with mirrors often leads to the hall.

Music helps to enhance the emotional impact of a dramatic performance. Sometimes it sounds not only during the action, but also during the intermission - to maintain the interest of the public. The main person in the play is the actor. The viewer sees a person in front of him, mysteriously turned into an artistic image - a kind of work of art. Of course, a work of art is not the performer himself, but his role. She is the creation of an actor, created by voice, nerves and something imperceptible - spirit, soul. In order for the action on the stage to be perceived as a whole, it is necessary to organize it thoughtfully and consistently. These duties in the modern theater are performed by the director. Of course, a lot depends on the talent of the actors in the performance, but nevertheless they are subject to the will of the leader - the director. People, like many centuries ago, come to the theater. From the stage, the text of the plays is heard, transformed by the forces and feelings of the performers. Artists conduct their own dialogue - and not only verbal. This is a conversation of gestures, postures, looks and facial expressions. The decorator's fantasy with the help of color, light, architectural structures on the site makes the space of the stage "speak". And everything together is enclosed in a strict framework of the director's intention, which gives the heterogeneous elements completeness and integrity.

Intentionchoreographicworks(sceneorsuite)

Suite (from French Suite - “row”, “sequence”) is a cyclic musical form, consisting of several independent contrasting parts, united by a common idea.

It is a multi-part cycle, consisting of independent, contrasting pieces, united by a common artistic idea. Sometimes, instead of the name "suite", composers used another, also common - "partita".

In Germany, at the end of the 17th century, an exact sequence of parts was formed:

Historically, the first was an old dance suite, which was written for one instrument or orchestra. Initially, it had two dances: the stately pavane and the fast galliard. They were played one after another - this is how the first samples of the old instrumental suite arose, which became most widespread in the 2nd half of the 17th century. - 1st half of the XVIII century. In its classical form, it established itself in the work of the Austrian composer I. Ya. Froberger. It was based on four diverse dances: allemande, courante, sarabande, jig. Gradually, composers began to include other dances in the suite, and their choice varied freely. These could be: minuet, passacaglia, polonaise, chaconne, rigaudon, etc. Sometimes non-dance pieces were introduced into the suite - arias, preludes, overtures, toccatas. Thus, the total number of rooms in the suite was not regulated. The more important was the means that united individual pieces into a single cycle, for example, the contrasts of tempo, meter, and rhythm.

Composers of the 19th-20th centuries, preserving the main features of the genre - cyclic construction, contrast of parts, etc., give them a different figurative interpretation. Danceability is no longer a required attribute. The suite uses a variety of musical material, often its content is determined by the program. At the same time, dance music is not expelled from the suite, on the contrary, new, modern dances are introduced into it, for example, "Puppet Cake Walk" in C. Debussy's suite "Children's Corner". Suites appear, composed of music for theatrical productions (Peer Gynt by E. Grieg), ballets (The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty by P. I. Tchaikovsky, Romeo and Juliet by S. S. Prokofiev), operas ( The Tale of Tsar Saltan" by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov). In the middle of the XX century. suites are also composed of music for films (“Hamlet” by D. D. Shostakovich).

In the vocal-symphonic suites, along with music, the word is also heard (Prokofiev's Winter Bonfire). Sometimes composers call certain vocal cycles vocal suites (Six Poems by M. Tsvetaeva by Shostakovich).

Listusedsources

1. Gachev G. D. Content of artistic forms. Epos. Lyrics. Theater. M., 2008

2. Kagan. M.S. Aesthetics as a philosophical science. University course of lectures. St. Petersburg, 2007.

3. Sosnova M.L. The art of the actor. M. Academic Avenue; Tricksta, 2007..

4. Shpet G. G. Theater as an art//Questions of Philosophy, 1989, No. 11.

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