theatrical production
theatrical production, the planning, rehearsal, and presentation of a work. Such a work is presented to an audience at a particular time and place by live performers, who use either themselves or inanimate figures, such as puppets, as the medium of presentation. A theatrical production can be either dramatic or nondramatic, depending upon the activity presented.
While dramatic productions frequently conform to a written text, it is not the use of such a text but rather the fictional mimetic (from Greek mimēsis, “imitation,” “representation”) nature of the performer’s behaviour that makes a work dramatic. For example, a person walking a tightrope is performing an acrobatic act, whereas a person who pretends to be an acrobat walking a tightrope is performing a dramatic act. Both performers are engaged in theatrical presentation, but only the latter is involved in the creation of dramatic illusion. Though a dramatic performance may include dancing, singing, juggling, acrobatics, or other nondramatic elements, it is concerned mainly with the representation of actual or imagined life.
In nondramatic theatrical productions there is no imitation of “another existence” but simply the entertainment or excitation of the audience by the performer. Whether acrobatic or musical, gestural or vocal, such activity is theatrical because it is presented by a live performer to an audience, but it remains nondramatic so long as it has a purely presentational quality rather than a representational one.
In any single theatrical production, one or another type of activity may so prevail that there is little difficulty in determining the aesthetic nature of the final work. A play by the 19th-century Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen, with its depiction of middle-class behaviour, minimizes nondramatic activity; the recital of a song by the 19th-century Romantic composer Franz Schubert, by contrast, with its emphasis upon musical values, may ignore dramatic elements and, to a considerable extent, even the act of presentation itself. Between these two extremes, however, there are many types of theatrical production in which the aesthetic nature of the form is less simple. Opera, for example, employs both drama and music in shifting patterns of emphasis.
In Europe and the United States several forms arose in the 20th century that combine dramatic and nondramatic material. Vaudeville, or music hall, for instance, employs a succession of various acts, such as fictional sketches, musical and dance numbers, and feats of dexterity, of which some are representational and others are not. In the musical theatre, song and dance serve both to further the narrative and to provide a break from purely dramatic presentation. This variety also characterizes much Asian theatre, in which dramatic moments are elaborated in dance exhibitions. In light of these examples, the definition of what constitutes theatrical production must remain elastic.
For a general discussion of theatre as an art form, as well as a specific treatment of the crafts of acting and directing, see theatre, directing, and acting. The aesthetic dimension of a dramatic production is discussed under stage design. Drama as a literary genre is treated under dramatic literature. Drama or dramatic literature is also treated in numerous other articles, including those on the literature or theatre of a specific country or region, of which the following are examples: Western theatre; African literature; American literature; English literature; French literature; German literature; Greek literature; Japanese literature; and Oceanic literature. Other articles that pertain to theatrical production include circus and puppetry.
Elements of theatrical production
According to the British director Peter Brook, theatre occurs whenever someone crosses neutral space and is watched by another person. This definition of theatre raises some problems, such as the difficulty of determining neutral space, but it is useful in its firm commitment to demystifying theatrical production. In former times the idea of the actor as motivated by a desire to create astonishment and wonder was sometimes seen as the basis of all theatre. Certainly there are types of theatrical performance that entail ritual and magic, but theatre is far more frequently rooted in attempts to structure emotion and experience.
Generally speaking, all theatrical productions have certain elements in common: the performer or performers, their acting in space (usually some sort of stage) and time (some limited duration of performance), and a producing process and organization. These elements are treated in separate sections below.
The performer
Skills and attributes
The work of the actor falls into five main areas: (1) the exhibition of particular physical, including vocal, skills; (2) the exhibition of mimetic skills, in which physical states and activities are simulated; (3) the imaginative exploration of fictitious situations; (4) the exhibition of patterns of human behaviour that are not natural to the actor; and (5) interaction, while engaging in these activities, with other actor-characters and with members of the audience.
At certain times in the history of Western theatre, the highest degree of physical skill has been associated with nondramatic performance. In Asian theatre, however, such distinctions do not apply. Chinese opera and Japanese drama require an actor to play one type of role for his entire professional life. The actor must play this role in a manner strictly determined by tradition, reproducing specific patterns of movement and speech that can be mastered only by first gaining control of complex physical skills. Later, if especially gifted, an actor may bring to a role certain refinements of the tradition, which may be handed down to a succeeding generation.
Western drama, however, does not usually provide the actor with quite so defined a repertoire of movements and utterances. It is true that actors in the Italian commedia dell’arte of the 16th to the 18th centuries specialized in one role and transmitted to their successors a body of situations, speeches, and lazzi (stage sketches, or routines). Nevertheless, they seem to have had more leeway than their Asian counterparts in exercising invention and personal expression. Great rhetorical skill has been demanded of the Western actor, for the intricate metrical patterns of Greek, Latin, French, English, and Spanish drama have been part of the glory of their respective theatres.
Naturalistic theatre, which flowered in the late 19th century, made rhetoric obsolete, requiring the actor to hide virtuoso performing skills by creating the illusion of everyday behaviour. This meant that more weight was given to the actor’s depictions of psychological attributes. The magnetism of a performance derived no longer from stylized behaviour but from intense personal revelation. This requires a marked ability to focus energies, to concentrate intently either upon the audience directly or upon a fellow actor and, thereby, indirectly upon the audience. All good actors can project a concentrated force, or “presence,” which has become increasingly important to the actor as set patterns of playing have disappeared. Presence is not a fixed, definable quality but rather a process of continuous growth and change that takes place before the eyes of the audience.