The Audience Complete Test Bank Chapter 11

Theatre, Brief, 12e (Cohen)

Chapter 11 The Audience

1) A play's final repository is

A) the stage, in a living performance.

B) the promptbook, containing record of the script's words and play's movements.

C) the minds and memories of its audiences.

D) the critical record of the play's performance in newspapers, blogs, and scholarly journals.

2) The public form of play analysis following a production is called

A) dramatic criticism.

B) literary criticism.

C) semiotic criticism.

D) post-structural criticism.

3) Dramatic criticism usually appears in all the following forms EXCEPT

A) production reviews in newspapers or periodicals.

B) reactions to the play posted on blogs and online magazines.

C) director's notes in a program.

D) scholarly articles or books on dramatic literature.

4) Examples of theatres that have been created or sustained by governments or ruling elites include all of the following EXCEPT the

A) ancient Greek.

B) medieval liturgical and Corpus Christi drama.

C) theatre of the absurd and antirealism theatre.

D) Royal era.

5) Why is the theatre in a unique position to force and focus public confrontation about social issues?

A) Playwrights' politics have usually been the main reason they write plays in the first place.

B) The theatre has traditionally served as the best medium to transmit a direct statement on an issue, thus convincing the audience of a specific point of view in an aggressive manner.

C) Most productions do not act as propaganda but present the issues in all their complexity as food for thought and as such focus public debate, stimulate dialogue, and turn public attention and compassion to important issues.

D) The theatre has never been historically connected with government institutions and therefore has nothing to do with social issues or government decisions.

6) A play's ability to connect with audience members on a personal level is due to the fact that the best plays

A) focus on the theatrical personnel who put on the play itself.

B) have no connection at all with individual needs or desires.

C) link up with our deepest musings and help us to put our unconnected ideas into some sort of order or philosophy.

D) do not involve individual struggles but reflect solely on group ponderings.

7) An audience member's aesthetic sensibility and response are

A) consistent with all those individuals within the same national culture.

B) consistent with all those individuals with the same ethnic and economic background.

C) generally determined by educational background.

D) a composite of many individual reactions and therefore entirely subjective.

8) Plays that refer to theatrical matter not simply as a vehicle but as a theme are called

A) metadrama or metatheatre.

B) hyperdrama or hypertheatre.

C) hypodrama or hypotheatre.

D) sur-drama or sur-theatre.

9) Which of the following is NOT an example of a play that makes the theatre a matter in the play itself?

A) Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

B) Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author

C) Shakespeare's Hamlet

D) Sophocles' Oedipus The King

10) What word fits the definition of "that which holds the attention"?

A) suspense

B) entertainment

C) tension

D) anxiety

11) Theatre can be seen as entertainment

A) in all cases.

B) only when it conforms to strict cultural definitions of "pleasure."

C) only when it amuses and is humorous.

D) only when it contains wit, activities, or spectacles that grip us.

12) A member of the audience may see a play from five different critical perspectives. What are the five perspectives?

A) social significance, human significance, artistic quality, theatrical expression, and entertainment value

B) tragic, comic, satiric, ironic, and tragicomic

C) pastoral, ironic, idyllic, epic, and lyric

D) thematic, characterological, spectacular, intensity, and dramaturgical

13) What form does professional dramatic criticism take?

A) panel discussions among members of the audience following a performance

B) group sessions between actors, directors, and producers

C) academic seminars at fringe festivals

D) newspaper and television news reviews, scholarly works, theatre websites, online blogs and journals

14) The journalist's review generally is

A) extended to a detailed and exhaustive study based on consultation with critical articles.

B) limited to a brief, immediate reaction written within a few days of seeing the performance.

C) an extended discussion based on the journalist's impressions of the play and on interviews with the actors and playwright.

D) based on the consensus of audience reactions.

15) Which of the following is the newspaper critic's principal job qualification?

A) dramatic expertise

B) skilled at articulating their impressions immediately through their writing ability

C) playwriting or directing experience

D) willingness to attend performances

16) Scholarly critics generally write

A) detailed, comprehensive, and rigorously researched articles without the deadline or space limitations of newspapers.

B) without concern for the published opinions of other critics and scholars.

C) erudite apologia for their own biases.

D) historical surveys that strictly avoid aesthetic judgments.

17) The disciplines of scholarly writing and performance studies draw from what other scholarly fields?

A) mathematics and physics

B) biology and health sciences

C) political science and industrial technology

D) linguistics and anthropology

18) Which of the following is true of professional scholars?

A) They are content to repeat the opinions or discoveries of others.

B) They write from their own intuition.

C) They seek fresh insights from a body of literature while working within accepted methodologies.

D) They depend entirely upon received opinions and public consensus.

19) An example of a well-known New York theatre critic is

A) Annie Baker.

B) Bernard Shaw.

C) Hilton Als.

D) Charles NcNulty.

20) Which type of critic needs a sufficient background of knowledge and experience to provide a context for opinion and evaluation?

A) the closed-minded critic

B) the informed critic

C) the sensitive critic

D) the highly opinionated critic

21) Which type of critic holds the theatre to its highest possible standards and cuts against the inherent danger in drama to turn toward pure entertainment or sensationalism?

A) the observant critic

B) the informed critic

C) the audience pleasing critic

D) the demanding critic

22) Which type of critic expresses thoughts with precision, clarity, and grace, through the careful building up of ideas, a presentation of evidence, logical argument, the use of helpful analogy and example, and a clear style of expression?

A) the observant critic

B) the articulate critic

C) the inquisitive critic

D) the eager critic

23) The presence of a critical focus in the audience has the effect of keeping the theatre

A) cautious.

B) honest.

C) always part of social gossip.

D) safe.

24) A drama critic is a person who makes a living by publicly writing a dramatic analysis about a performance or a play text.

25) Scholarly dramatic criticism is itself a literary art, of which works by Aristotle, Goethe, Shaw, and Nietzsche have outlasted their presumed subjects and helped shape our vision of life.

26) Generally the playwright is more intelligent and better informed than the members of the audience.

27) Entertainment includes theatrical flourishes such as brilliant debate and witty epigrams; qualities such as the spectacular, the suspenseful, the foreign, and the grotesque; and can include any form of drama that stirs our feelings and heightens our awareness of the human condition.

28) Artistic quality has nothing to do with honesty or whether we as an audience feel anything from the production.

29) Today anyone can write a review for a production. What do you see as the benefits as well as pitfalls of using social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and other apps?

30) Attend a play and read a printed or online critique of that performance. Do you agree or disagree with that critic? Why or why not? Was it well written? Why or why not? Would you classify this person as a professional or amateur? Why or why not?

31) Which form of dramatic criticism do you think would have the most power and influence today: print media, television, or online? Compare and contrast each form and explain why you choose that form.

32) In a short review, evaluate a performance or written play, attempting to incorporate the five critical qualities—observant, informed, sensitive, demanding, and articulate—that make an ideal critic.

33) Explore and explain the phrase "We are the critics."