What Is Theater? Crash Course Theater #1

Summary

Crash Course Theater's inaugural episode introduces viewers to the world of theater with Mike Rugnetta as the host. He explores the definition of theater, its origins, and various theories behind its emergence, such as the connection to religious rituals, the evolution from myths, and the human 'mimetic impulse' to imitate. The episode also touches on the debate over the spelling of 'theater' versus 'theatre' and emphasizes the importance of theater in understanding human emotions and history.

Takeaways

• 🎭 The script introduces the concept of theater, encompassing various forms and spaces where performances take place, including non-traditional venues.
• 📜 Theater is not just a physical building but also refers to the performances, literature, and documentation associated with plays, including closet dramas and non-verbal scripts.
• 👤 The traditional definition of theater involves at least one actor and one audience member, but the script challenges this by mentioning performances by robots, animals, and puppets.
• 🤔 The script raises the question of what constitutes theater, with John Cage suggesting that theater is an omnipresent art form that can be facilitated by various means.
• 🎭 The script defines 'theater' more narrowly as a deliberate performance by live actors intended for a live audience, typically using scripted language.
• 📝 The debate over the spelling 'theatre' vs 'theater' is addressed, with the script opting for 'theater' for consistency, despite both being acceptable.
• 🌐 The origin of theater is not universally agreed upon, with the script presenting various theories, starting with the connection between theater and religious ritual.
• 📚 Rituals are described as a means of mediating between the human and supernatural realms, often re-enacting significant events, which is similar to what theater does.
• 🎭 The Cambridge Ritualists, including James Frazer, are mentioned for their theory that theater evolved from religious rituals, with a focus on the 'scientific' approach to theater's origins.
• 🤹‍♂️ Another theory presented is that of functionalism, suggesting that myths and theater serve to explain and rationalize the world, with theater being a way to understand ourselves.
• 🎭 The script also touches on other theories of theater's origins, such as the influence of clown figures, the ludic impulse, and Aristotle's 'mimetic impulse', which is the innate human desire to imitate and pretend.

Q & A

What is the primary focus of the Crash Course Theater series?

The series focuses on exploring the history of theater, how to understand and analyze it, and it will cover various types of plays and performances.

Who is Dionysus and why is he significant in the context of this series?

Dionysus is the Greek god of theater and wine, and he is introduced as a symbol of the theatrical tradition that the series will explore.

What is the etymological meaning of the word 'theater'?

The word 'theater' traces back to its Greek origins and literally means 'the seeing place', emphasizing the aspect of witnessing performances.

Can theater be performed in non-traditional spaces?

Yes, theater can be performed in a variety of spaces including parks, parking lots, sidewalks, or private homes, not limited to traditional theater buildings.

What is a 'closet drama' in the context of theater?

A closet drama refers to a play that is not written to be performed, but is still considered part of the theater literature and documentation.

What is the basic requirement for a performance to be considered as theater?

The basic requirement for theater is the presence of at least one actor and at least one audience member.

What are some alternative forms of actors in theater?

Besides human actors, theater can also involve robots, laptops with voice synthesizers, animals, and puppets as performers.

What does the composer John Cage suggest about the nature of theater?

John Cage suggests that theater takes place all the time wherever one is, and that the art of theater simply facilitates recognizing this fact.

What is the difference between the spellings 'theater' and 'theatre'?

Both spellings are correct, with 'theatre' being more common outside the US. The spelling choice can sometimes reflect a distinction between the building ('theater') and the art form ('theatre').

What is the Ritualism theory and how does it relate to the origins of theater?

The Ritualism theory posits that theater evolved from religious rituals, which were performed to mediate between the human and supernatural worlds, and over time these rituals became more sophisticated and transformed into theater.

What is the Cambridge Ritualists' approach to understanding theater's origins?

The Cambridge Ritualists, including James Frazer, took an anthropological approach, studying 'primitive' societies to understand how their rituals might have evolved into theater.

What are some criticisms of the Cambridge Ritualists' theory of theater's origins?

Critics argue that the Cambridge Ritualists made many non-scientific guesses based on limited knowledge of the societies they studied and operated under the assumption of Euro-centrism and positivism, believing all societies evolve toward Western civilization.

What is the functionalist theory of myth and how does it differ from the ritualist perspective?

The functionalist theory suggests that myths serve an etiological function, explaining the world and justifying the existing order. Unlike the ritualists, functionalists do not assume that all societies create the same myths or evolve in the same way.

How does the 'mimetic impulse' theory contribute to the understanding of theater?

The 'mimetic impulse' theory, linked to Aristotle, suggests that humans have an innate desire to imitate and pretend, which is refined and codified into theater as a form of expression and learning.

Why does theater matter according to Percy Bysshe Shelley?

Percy Bysshe Shelley believed that theater matters because it serves the highest moral purpose of teaching the human heart about itself through its sympathies and antipathies.

Outlines

00:00

🎭 Introduction to Crash Course Theater

Mike Rugnetta introduces the Crash Course Theater series, promising a comprehensive exploration of theater's history, analysis, and significant plays. He humorously lists various genres and introduces Dionysus, the Greek god of theater and wine. The episode's focus is to define theater, discuss its origins, and explore its significance beyond just a building or performance. The definition of theater is expanded to include various forms, from scripted plays to improvised performances and even non-human actors. The episode ponders the expansive nature of theater and settles on a working definition that includes live actors and a live audience, typically involving scripted language.

05:03

📜 Theories of Theater's Origins

This section delves into the theories surrounding the origins of theater, particularly focusing on the Western tradition. It discusses the connection between early religious rituals and theater, highlighting how rituals re-present past events and ideas, similar to theater's function. The Cambridge Ritualists, including James Frazer, are introduced as proponents of the idea that theater evolved from these rituals. The Golden Bough is cited as a key work in this theory, which suggests that theater developed from primitive societies' rituals into a sophisticated art form. The summary also critiques the Ritualists' Eurocentric perspective and their lack of understanding of the 'primitive' societies they studied.

10:07

🎭 Alternative Theories on Theater's Development

The final paragraph presents alternative theories to the ritualistic origins of theater. It introduces functionalism, which posits that myths, and by extension theater, serve to explain and justify the existing social order. Bronislaw Malinowski's view on myth as a justification for societal institutions is highlighted. The paragraph also mentions other theories such as the clown figure's role in early societies, the ludic impulse related to games and play, and Aristotle's mimetic impulse, which suggests an innate human desire to imitate and pretend. The summary concludes by questioning the importance of theater, referencing Percy Bysshe Shelley's idea that theater's highest purpose is to educate the human heart through emotional engagement.

Keywords

💡Theater

Theater, both as a building and as a form of performance, is central to the video's theme. Defined as 'the seeing place' in Greek origins, it can range from grand structures to makeshift spaces, emphasizing the flexibility and adaptability of spaces for performance. The script discusses the evolution of theater from religious rituals to secular performances, highlighting its significance in human culture.

💡Dionysus

Dionysus, the Greek god of theater and wine, is introduced as a symbol of the origins of theater. His mention in the script serves to connect the ancient roots of theater to its divine patron, suggesting a spiritual and celebratory aspect of early performances.

💡Ritual

Rituals are depicted as precursors to theater, serving as a means to mediate between the human and supernatural realms. The script explains that rituals often re-enact significant events, making them a precursor to the storytelling nature of theater. The example of the Egyptian ceremony described by Herodotus illustrates this connection.

💡Myth

Myths are presented as narratives that may have evolved into theater, serving an etiological function to explain the world. The script mentions that myths can be a source for theater, as seen in the 'Oresteia' and 'Prometheus Bound,' which explain societal structures and origins of fire and technology, respectively.

💡Ritualism

Ritualism is a theory proposed by the Cambridge Ritualists, suggesting that theater evolved from religious rituals. The script critiques this theory for its Eurocentric bias and its underlying assumption of societal evolution towards Western civilization, exemplified by James Frazer's 'The Golden Bough.'

💡Functionalism

Functionalism is another theory discussed in the script, positing that myths and theater serve to explain and justify the social order. Bronislaw Malinowski's view is cited, suggesting that myths are statements of primeval reality that live in community institutions, thus theater can be seen as a reflection of societal norms.

💡Ludic Impulse

The ludic impulse refers to the human instinct for play and games, which is suggested as a possible origin of theater. The script links this impulse to the clown figure in early societies, indicating that the playful and satirical aspects of performance have deep historical roots.

💡Mimetic Impulse

The mimetic impulse is the innate human desire to imitate and pretend, which Aristotle believed eventually evolved into theater. The script uses this concept to explain how the act of performing and storytelling is a natural human tendency that has been refined over time.

💡Political Theater

Political theater is mentioned in the script as a form of theater that engages with social and political issues. While not elaborated upon in detail, the term suggests that theater can serve as a platform for expressing and exploring societal concerns and ideas.

💡Immersive Theater

Immersive theater is briefly alluded to in the script as a form of performance where the audience participates in the experience. This concept challenges the traditional separation between performer and audience, suggesting a more interactive and engaging form of theater.

💡Theatre vs. Theater

The spelling of 'theatre' versus 'theater' is discussed in the script, noting that both are acceptable but that 'theater' with an 'er' is used for consistency in the series. This highlights the flexibility and variability in the English language, as well as cultural preferences in spelling.

Highlights

Introduction to the first episode of Crash Course Theater with Mike Rugnetta.

Definition of 'theater' as a place for play performance, tracing its Greek origins meaning 'the seeing place'.

Theater's flexibility in performance spaces, including unconventional locations like parks or parking lots.

Inclusion of closet dramas and non-verbal plays in the theater's broad definition.

Discussion on the necessity of actors and audience in defining theater.

Exploration of the boundaries of what constitutes theater, including John Cage's expansive definition.

Introduction of the Greek god Dionysus as a symbol of theater and wine.

The distinction between theater and ritual, highlighting their differences in sacredness and audience participation.

James Frazer's anthropological approach to theater's origins from religious rituals, as detailed in 'The Golden Bough'.

Critique of the Ritualism theory for its Eurocentric view and assumptions about societal evolution.

Introduction of functionalism, where myths serve to explain the world and theater as a reflection of these myths.

Bronislaw Malinowski's view on myth as a justification for the existing social order.

The alternative theory of theater originating from clown figures and the ludic impulse.

Aristotle's 'mimetic impulse' theory suggesting humans have an innate desire to imitate, leading to theater.

Questioning the importance of theater and its role in teaching the human heart through empathy and antipathy, as per Percy Bysshe Shelley.

The ongoing debate on the correct spelling of 'theatre' versus 'theater' and the decision to use 'theater' for consistency.

Transcripts

Hey there!

I’m Mike Rugnetta and THIS is the first episode of Crash Course Theater.

Welcome!

In the episodes to come we’ll have it all: tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical,

historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral-expealidocious.

Yup, this series could go on forever.

And let me introduce you to Dionysus, Greek god of the theater.

[[[Maybe Dionysus belches from offstage.]]]

And wine.

They can’t all be charming, genius birdmen, I guess.

In this series we’ll explore the history of theater and how we can understand and analyze

it.

We’ll take a look at significant plays and performances along the way, but in this episode

we’re going to define theater and look at some theories about how it got started.

So, Prologue over!

Act 1, Scene 1, BEGIN!

INTRO First!

Let’s define “theater, the building”: a theater is a place in which a play is performed.

If you trace the word back to its Greek origins and it literally means “the seeing place.”

It can be big or small, indoors or outdoors, purpose-built or just borrowed.

Sometimes plays are performed in spaces that aren’t really theaters at all—in a park

or a parking lot, on a sidewalk, or in a private home.

Theater also refers to the performance of plays and to the body of literature and other

documentation that has accompanied it.

Some plays, known as closet dramas, aren’t even written to be performed.

And that’s theater, too.

So are improvised plays that don’t have a script and plays that have a script, but

don’t use words, like some of Samuel Beckett’s shorts.

A familiar definition is that theater requires at least one actor and at least one audience

member and that definitely covers a lot of stuff.

But - what’s an actor?

What’s an audience member?

While most plays use human actors, there are plays performed by robots and laptops with

voice synthesizers.

There are plays performed by animals and by puppets, though usually there’s a human

helping out with those.

I hope.

Sooooo … Is everything theater?

If you want a really expansive definition, the composer John Cage said that “theater

takes place all the time, wherever one is; an art simply facilitates persuading one this

is the case.”

So…is this theater?

Well, not for you.

You’re watching a video recorded earlier.

But here.

In this room.

I’m performing, right?

And there’s an audience if you include Stan and Zulaiha watching me.

Am I doing theater?

Want to hear my “To be or not to be,” guys?

Yorick?

Aw.

They say no every time!

A plague on both your houses.

What is and isn’t theater is the kind of question that can make your head spin.

We’ll come back to it a couple of times, especially when we talk about political theater

and protest theater and immersive theater, but for now we’ll use a more narrow definition:

theater is a deliberate performance created by live actors and intended for a live audience,

typically making use of scripted language.

We may meet some exceptions along the way—lookin’ at you, robo-actors—but this’ll work for

now.

And, before we get too far, let’s confront the perennial controversy: should you spell

theatre re or er?

And the short answer is, both of them are fine!

RE is more common outside of the US but for some folks, this spelling acts as a shibboleth.

You may have heard someone say “a theater is a building; but the theatre is an art!”

or “theater is a destination, but theatre is a journey”.

Here at Crash Course, we don’t mind either... but have chosen to stick with er for consistency.

There’s no origin story for theater that everyone agrees on, but there are some theories

we can explore.

In the West, at least, up until the sixth or seventh century BCE we didn’t have theater

as we know it today, but we did have religious ritual, which can get pretty theatrical.

Rituals are often ways of mediating between the human and the supernatural.

They can serve to enact or re-enact significant events in the human or supernatural world—births,

marriages, deaths, harvests.

In ritual, according to the mythology scholar Mircea Eliade, “The time of the event that

the ritual commemorates or reenacts is made present.”

So ritual represents, literally re-presents—old stories or ideas and makes them happen now,

which is a lot like what theater does.

This doesn’t mean that ritual is identical with theater.

Ritual is sacred, and theater is usually secular (though not always, as we’ll see!).

Theater and ritual can draw on similar mythological sources, but ritual typically treats those

sources as fact and theater as fiction.

In ritual the audience often participates; in theatre, they usually sit politely.

Unless there’s audience participation, which is universally adored.

In the late nineteenth century, a group of classical scholars decided to search for the

origins of theater.

They took an anthropological approach and saw theater as a direct evolution of religious

ritual.

This theory really got going with James Frazer, whom we also discuss in the Crash Course Mythology

episode on Theories of Myth.

In The Golden Bough, written between 1896 and 1915, Frazer and his contemporaries, the

Cambridge Ritualists (btw, this is obvs the name of my new band) tried to take a “scientific

approach” to the question of theater’s origins.

He looked around at so-called “primitive” societies in Africa and Asia, societies he

didn’t really “know much about,” and decided that theater had emerged as a sophisticated

refining of ritual.

According to Frazer, here’s how it goes: You start out worshipping some kind of god

or practice, and that worship gets distilled into rituals to attract the attention of that

god or guarantee good fortune.

Once your primitive society really gets going, those rituals generate myths and those myths

get transmuted ... into theater.

Eventually you get jazz hands and sequins.

As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan puts it, in this view, “Art became a sort of

civilized substitute for magical games and rituals….

Art like game became a mimetic echo of and a relief from the old magic of total involvement.”

For an example of the (sometimes questionable) evidence that the Cambridge Ritualists drew

on to support their idea that ritual evolved into theater, let’s look at the Greek historian

Herodotus, writing in the 5th century BCE, describing a ceremony he witnessed in Egypt.

Take the stage, Thoughtbubble: Thought Bubble

This ceremony occurs at sunset in a temple.

Some priests attend to a statue of Ares, but most of the people involved are doing something

very different: “The majority of them hold clubs made of

wood and stand at the temple's entrance while others make vows, more than a thousand men,

all holding clubs...

And those few left behind with the statue pull a four-wheeled wagon carrying the shrine

and the statue which is in the shrine, and the others standing at the front gates do

not let them enter.”

If things seem tense to you… very perceptive!

Probably the clubs that tipped you off, right?

Herodotus says “Those who vowed to defend the god strike those resisting [...] As I

understand, many even die from their wounds...”

The ritual continues all through the night.

And, as you might if you were Herodotus, he asks some locals why the poundings?

They tell him: “There lived in this temple Ares' mother, and Ares who was raised elsewhere

came -- after having become a man -- wishing to lay with his mother, and the servants of

his mother, for not having seen him before, did not look the other way when he entered,

rather they fended him off, and he fetching men from another city handled the servants

roughly and went inside to his mother.

For this reason this fight in behalf of Ares at the festival has become a tradition, they

say.”

Thanks Thoughtbubble.

So - the Ritualists look to stories like this to illustrate their idea that worship becomes

ritual.

Ritual becomes myth.

Myth becomes performance.

Someone writes a few songs to go along with the skull-splitting, someone else turns the

battle into a dance, let it all simmer for a millennia or two, and voila “West Side

Story”!

This ritualism theory is useful in some ways and as we’ll see in the next episode, it

fits very nicely with Greek drama, mostly because the whole theory was pretty much based

on Greek drama.

That’s a welcome fix to how previous generations of scholars viewed Greek drama—as something

very pure and stately, not as something that might have evolved from passion and magic–but

this theory causes problems when you try to apply the history of Greek Drama to OTHER

dramatic traditions.

Turns out, Frazer and his colleagues didn’t actually know all that much about the so-called

“primitive” societies whose theater they wanted to study; the rich and sophisticated

cultures the Ritualists encountered throughout Africa and Asia were lost on the Cambridge

types ... because Euro-centrism.

So they did a lot of pretty non-scientific guessing, working backward from what they

knew about classical theater and hypothesizing about what kind of rituals may have produced

it.

Frazer also operates with the underlying belief that all societies basically evolve in the

same way and that even though, in his view, so-called primitive societies are inherently

inferior, given enough time and care they’ll get more and more sophisticated until they

too can produce “Cats.”

Okay, Frazer didn’t talk a lot about Broadway musicals, but maybe you’re starting to understand

a couple of the major problems with this theory and the assumption that all societies are

on a trajectory toward Western civilization, which in this view is getting better and better

all the time.

(This view, by the way, is known as “positivism”).

Another theory that gets going after Frazer is the idea that people create myths out of

a desire to explain and rationalize the world around them.

In ritualism, myths and theater emerge as a response to pre-existing rituals.

But in this other theory, known as functionalism, myths serve an etiological function, a way

of explaining how and why things came to be the way they are.

According to one of the leading functionalist theorists, Bronislaw Malinowski, myth “is

a statement of primeval reality which lives in the institutions and pursuits of a community.

It justifies by precedent the existing order.”

Unlike the ritualists, the functionalists didn’t assume that all societies operate

and evolve in the same way or will create the same kinds of myths.

Malinowski didn’t really discuss theater, but some of his followers did, and they locked

on to the idea that many early Greek dramas have their origins in myth and some of those

myths are etiological.

The “Oresteia,” explains the legal system, “Prometheus Bound,” explains that liver

is tasty.

JK.

It explains how we get fire... and technology.

So, if myths explain the world, and theatre is based in myth, we can think about theater

as a way of explaining the world to ourselves.

But such a view has some drawbacks.

Take one of the very earliest recorded plays, Aeschylus’s “The Persians.

That was based in contemporaneous historical events, not in myth.

Besides the ritualists and the functionalists, there are a few other theories, too.

One is that theater derives at least in part from the clown figure – who is sort of the

secular equivalent of the shaman in early societies.

Their job was to make fun of the headman and other establishment figures and practices.

We can maybe see this influence in satyr plays, which we’ll visit in the next episode.

And it’s linked, at least a little, to the idea that theater may originate from games

and the playful instincts of humankind, a phenomenon called the ludic impulse.

Another related theory, which really gets going with Aristotle, is that human beings

have a “mimetic impulse”: humans have an in-built desire to imitate, to act, to

pretend--and that’s how we learn.

According to Aristotle, this desire eventually gets refined and codified into theater.

To sum up: Ritual, myth, clowning, playing games, playing pretend.

Somehow out of all of this or maybe out of none of it we get “Hamilton.”

And now let’s turn to our last question for today: Why should we care?

In other words, why does theater matter?

Well, that’s a question we’ll be coming back to throughout the series as we see how

and why people make theatre, and the impact it has throughout history.

But let me leave you with one idea borrowed from Percy from Percy Bysshe Shelley: “The

highest moral purpose aimed at in the highest species of the drama, is the teaching the

human heart, through its sympathies and antipathies, the knowledge of itself.”

Thanks for watching and ... curtain!