Exam Questions The Modern Theatre Antirealism Ch.18 Cohen

Theatre, Brief, 12e (Cohen)

Chapter 18 The Modern Theatre: Antirealism

1) The antirealist movement has its roots in

A) the symbolist movement in art.

B) neoclassical aesthetics.

C) the Fauvist movement in painting.

D) the biomechanical school of acting.

2) Which of the following is true of symbolism?

A) Through images and metaphors, symbolism explores the inner realities which cannot be directly or literally perceived.

B) Symbolism exposes the social injustices of the working classes.

C) Symbolism tests the limits of language and acting demands.

D) Symbolism is not concerned with art at all, but with materialism.

3) Which of the following statements accurately captures the symbolist opposition to realism?

A) In order to subvert realism, symbolist writers attempted to draw characters more true to life than reality.

B) The symbolists saw realism as spiritually bankrupt and wanted to replace it with traditional aesthetic values.

C) In order to assault the dimensions of lived reality, symbolist drama creates a "miniature" theatre event by employing plays-within-the-plays acted by puppets.

D) In protest against realistic set and stage design, symbolist sets did away with all props and furniture on the stage.

4) When artists deserted symbolism, its principles found influence in other movements. Which of the following did NOT emerge as an extension of the symbolist movement?

A) idealism

B) surrealism

C) naturalism

D) dada

5) The constructivist who broke with Stanislavsky's style of realist performance to create a "biomechanical" style of acting and direction was

A) Wendy Wasserstein.

B) Ionesco.

C) Bertolt Brecht.

D) Vsevold Meyerhold.

6) Which playwright pioneered both realist and antirealistic styles in his work, shifting from a belief that "Naturalists...are aware of the richness of the human soul" to an attempt to "reproduce the disconnected but apparently logical form of a dream?"

A) August Strindberg

B) Bertolt Brecht

C) George Bernard Shaw

D) Alfred Jarry

7) A stylized acting style is one in which

A) characters usually represent more than individual persons or personality types; they represent moral positions or forces of nature.

B) characters do not transcend the limitations of their place, but are instead shown strictly as individuals in a laboratory-like setting.

C) characters adopt disciplined speech mannerisms taken from manuals on declamation and rhetoric.

D) characters demonstrate a select range of human response in order to give the audience a "slice of life."

8) Which of the following is TRUE of the antirealist aesthetic in the second third of the twentieth century?

A) It fostered a return to character types, rhymed language, and mannered acting styles.

B) No absolute single set of governing principles determined the course of this theatre, leaving artists free to stylize consciously—imagination ruled!

C) The use of creativity and shock value was frowned upon.

D) Romantic comedies based in materialism abound.

9) Which production had the most violent premiere in theatre history, such that the audience shouted, hissed, threw things, shook fists at the stage, and fought duels after subsequent performances?

A) Jarry's Ubu Roi

B) Brecht's Mother Courage

C) Artaud's Conquest of Mexico

D) Shaw's Major Barbara

10) Which type of drama, in vogue in Germany during the first two decades of the century, features shocking and gutsy dialogue, boldly exaggerated scenery, piercing sounds, bright lights, an abundance of primary colors, and heightened use of symbols?

A) impressionism

B) theatre of cruelty

C) expressionism

D) theatre of the absurd

11) Which American playwright eventually turned from naturalism to expressionism, as exemplified by his play The Hairy Ape?

A) Harold Pinter

B) Eugene O'Neill

C) Alan Ayckbourn

D) Arthur Miller

12) Which type of drama uses theatre itself as part of the content of production, not merely the vehicle?

A) impressionism

B) metatheatre

C) expressionism

D) theatre of cruelty

13) In Six Characters in Search of an Author, Pirandello uses theatricality itself as a theme of human existence to show that

A) everyday life is beset by the eternal confusion between appearance and reality.

B) the theatre holds the only reality and should be paid more attention.

C) ultimate truth is highly attainable.

D) the theatre has no real power over relationships and politics.

14) Which dramatic theorist founded the Théâtre Alfred Jarry in 1926, produced Strindberg's Dream Play, adapted Shelley's The Cenci, and theorized a theatre of cruelty which was more significant for its ideas than the actual plays it produced?

A) George Bernard Shaw

B) Pirandello

C) Antonin Artaud

D) Alfred Jarry

15) The saying "no more masterpieces" exemplifies a philosophy of

A) Stanislavsky's school of realism.

B) Artaud's theatre of cruelty.

C) Pirandello's theatricalism.

D) Brecht's epic theatre.

16) Which famously witty playwright—also a social reformer, street orator, essayist, and prodigious letter writer—used the stage as a vehicle for ideas by emphasizing dialogue that led to a superhuman verbal cascading?

A) Alfred Jarry

B) Jean Genet

C) Luigi Pirandello

D) George Bernard Shaw

17) Verfremdung is a German word meaning

A) "absurdity."

B) "alienation or distancing."

C)  "monologue."

D) "existential truth."

18) Which German playwright emerged from World War I as a dedicated Marxist and pacifist, later consolidating his theories about drama into a body of plays that include The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny and The Good Person of Szechuan?

A) Antonin Artaud

B) Konstantin Stanislavsky

C) Herbert Hauptmann

D) Bertolt Brecht

19) This theatre attempted to repudiate realistic conventions through stagecraft that called attention to its own artificiality and a didactic performance style that required the actor to "demonstrate," rather than "integrate with," his character.

A) Brecht's theatre of alienation

B) Artaud's theatre of cruelty

C) Pirandello's metatheatre

D) Beckett's realism

20) Which playwright and dramatist provided a new kind of dramaturgy that intended a wholesale repudiation of Aristotelian catharsis (which depends on the audience's empathy with a noble character) and a denial of Stanislavsky's basic principles concerning the aims of acting?

A) Antonin Artaud

B) Meyerhold

C) Eugene O'Neill

D) Bertolt Brecht

21) Which movement based itself on the idea that the search for some meaning or purpose in human life can be met only with the immutable irrationality of the universe, making all attempts at understanding futile?

A) symbolism

B) theatre of alienation

C) absurdism

D) theatre of cruelty

22) Which playwright eschewed realism, romanticism, and rationality to create relentlessly unenlightening plays, saying, "Art has nothing to do with clarity, does not dabble in the clear, and does not make clear?"

A) George Bernard Shaw

B) Samuel Beckett

C) Antonin Artaud

D) Eugene Ionesco

23) This play presents a parable without a message, revealing a paradigm of human condition in which characters exchange songs, accounts of dreams, and try to make the best of a hopeless situation.

A) Sartre's No Exit

B) Beckett's Waiting for Godot

C) Jarry's Ubu Roi

D) Maeterlinck's The Intruder

24) Which of the following antirealist movements dominated the theatre during the Cold War era?

A) theatre of alienation

B) theatre of cruelty

C) the intellectual comedy

D) symbolism

25) Which director and critic made the distinction between "holy" and "rough" theatres?

A) Bertolt Brecht

B) Alan Ayckbourn

C) Edward Albee

D) Peter Brook

26) Characters in symbolist drama represent true-to-life individuals.

27) Typical themes of the symbolist theatre include the loss of innocence and the futility of communication.

28) The term avant-garde means, literally, "the major assault" or "shock troops."

29) Surrealism, which means "beyond realism," was invented by Pablo Picasso.

30) An example of a dramatic style in which the theatre itself becomes a theme in the play, rather than simply the vehicle for the drama, is Six Characters in Search of an Author.

31) Of all the isms, expressionism has given rise to the most significant body of modern theatre.

32) Happy Days is a play about two tramps waiting for a happier day and ends very happily.

33) Because it ritualizes humanity's permanent condition, a play like Happy Days would be considered an example of "holy" theatre and is almost a one-woman show.

34) George Bernard Shaw's legacy of a witty, unsentimental, and fiercely intelligent verbal style has never been matched by other playwrights.

35) Brecht's "alienation effect" attempts to bring the audience closer to the inner lives of the characters.

36) Explain how The Hairy Ape shows expressionist principles, and how these principles add to the themes of the play.

37) In the preface to his The Theater and Its Double, Artaud states that "to break through language in order to touch life is to create or recreate the theater." Starting with this quote, explore Artaud's relationship to the spoken and written word. Take a traditional play that you have already studied, such as Prometheus Bound, The Castle of Perseverance, or Romeo and Juliet and explain how it could be staged in the style of the theatre of cruelty. Think of how you would want the playwright's words communicated to your audience.

38) How did World War I influence the antirealist theatre? What opinions do you have on the relationship of historical events to the theatre, in terms of responsibility and innovation?

39) Imagine you are directing King Lear by Shakespeare and you wanted to stage it as theatre of the absurd. Write a one- to two-page concept statement covering all the theatrical elements to start a dialogue with your design team.

40) You meet Bertolt Brecht in a coffee shop. (He is time traveling.) What questions do you have for him? What is he like, his ideas about the theatre, his theatrical experiences, and so on. Use your imagination!