Modern Contemporary Theater

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Modern/ Contemporary Theater
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Modern Theater

• 20th century theater takes all forms previously
  accepted drama and experiments with them to
  create new drama
• Modern Drama genres
• Serious plays
• Musical theater
• Opera
• Comedies
• Others
• Experimentation key word to all Modern Arts

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Modern Drama

• Two American cities central to Drama
• New York
• Vaudeville
• Broadway
• Los Angeles
• Hollywood
• Two key 20th century playwrights
• Tennessee Williams
• Arthur Miller

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Vaudeville

• Series of separate, unrelated acts, often
  including, but not limited to
• Poetry recitation
• Dramatic scenes/ Monologues
• Songs
• Dancers
• Comedians
• Trained animals
• Magicians
• Developed from saloons, bars, concert halls,
  freak shows, and other public entertainments

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Vaudeville

• Performers would re-create same act day after
  day, year after year
• Allowed for security of professional actors, but
  little real money
• Perfecting the craft
• Popularity waned, so acts went with big money
  of Hollywood
• Made good money for a short time, but left with
  little to nothing
• No royalties

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Vaudeville stars who made it big

• Charlie Chaplin
• English Vaudeville star
• The Tramp
• The Little Dictator
• W. C. Fields
• All things considered, Id rather be in
  Philadelphia.
• Never work with dogs or children.
• Buster Keaton
• Old Stone Face
• The General
• the Marx Brothers
• Groucho, Harpo, and Zeppo
• Duck Soup
• Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
  Inside of a dog, its too dark to read.
• I shot an elephant in my pajamas. What he was
  doing in my pajamas Ill never know.

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Vaudeville stars who made it big

• Jack Benny
• Cheapskate stereotype
• Most popular radio/ television show of early
  media
• The Three Stooges
• Moe, Larry, and Curly
• Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck
• Abbott and Costello
• Whos on First routine
• Bob Hope
• Variety shows
• Road movies (with Bing Crosby)
• Thanks for the Memories
• Judy Garland
• Wizard of Oz
• Meet me n St. Louis, Louis

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Vaudeville

• After invention of radio and popularity of
  Broadway, Vaudeville became a kind of minor
  league for Broadway/ Hollywood
• Many stars moved either to larger venues/ movies/
  radio, retired, or went to the Borscht Belt

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Effects of Vaudeville

• Screwball comedies
• Stuck on You (Greg Kinnear, Matt Damon)
• Theres Something About Mary (Ben Stiller,
  Cameron Diaz)
• Variety shows
• Saturday Night Live
• Late Night with Conan OBrien
• Slapstick
• Liar, Liar (Jim Carrey)
• Improvisation comedy
• Whos Line Is it Anyway?

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Broadway

• Most prestigious form of professional theatre in
  the U.S., as well as the most well known to the
  general public and most lucrative for the
  performers, technicians and others involved in
  putting on the shows

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Broadway

• Most Broadway shows are commercial productions
  intended to make a profit for the producers and
  investors ("backers"), and therefore meant to
  have open-ended runs, meaning that they may be
  presented for a varying number of weeks depending
  on critical response, word of mouth, and the
  effectiveness of the show's advertising, all of
  which determine ticket sales

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• Two genres of plays
• Musical theater
• straights

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Straights

• Serious Drama
• Tennessee Williams
• Streetcar Named Desire
• The Glass Menagerie
• Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
• Arthur Miller
• The Crucible
• Death of a Salesman

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Tennessee Williams

• Williams won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for A
  Streetcar Named Desire and for Cat on a hot tin
  roof.

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Streetcar Named Desire

• Leading characters/actors Blanche DuBois
  (JessicaTandy), Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando)
• Marlon Brando is one of the most important and
  famous actors of Modern Theater.
• Career lasted almost 50 years
• Famous for works like A Streetcar Named Desire,
  The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, and On The
  Waterfront.

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Streetcar Named Desire

• The Plot follows with Blanche DuBois, who has
  deep family money, arriving at her sisters
  house.
• Stella, Blanches sister, is married to Stanley
  Kowalski and is carrying his child.
• Stanley who is physically and emotionally abusive
  towards Stella turns toward Blanche.
• In the end Blanche has a nervous breakdown from
  Stanley rapping her.

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Death of a Salesman

• The most important part of the play was the theme
  of the American Dream
• Protagonist Willy Loman, who is over the age of
  60, puts much of his time into saying how well
  his natural charm is and his uncanny ability to
  make friends has made him popular over the years.
• Wills life slowly spins out of control, and you
  notice this early through his impaired ability to
  drive. He soon loses his job (which did not make
  ends meet as it was). And now is supported on
  getting loans from his neighbor.