Robert Cohen - Theatre, Brief Version-McGraw-Hill Education (2016)

Glossary G-5
during this period collected, edited, and preserved the masterpieces
of the golden age.
high comedy A comedy of verbal wit and visual elegance,
primarily peopled with upper-class characters. The Restoration
comedies of William Congreve (1670–1729) and the Victorian
comedies of Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) are often cited as
examples.
hikimaku The traditional striped curtain of the kabuki theatre.
himation The gownlike basic costume of the Greek tragic
actor.
house The audience portion of the theatre building.
hubris In Greek, “an excess of pride”; the most common
character defect (one interpretation of the Greek hamartia) of
the protagonist in Greek tragedy. “Pride goeth before a fall” is
a Biblical expression of this foundation of tragedy.
improvisation Dialogue or stage business invented by the
actor, often during the performance itself. Some plays are
wholly improvised, even to the extent that the audience may
suggest situations that the actors must then create. More often,
improvisation is used to “fill in the gaps” between more traditionally
memorized and rehearsed scenes.
inciting action In play construction, the single action that initiates
the major conflict of the play.
ingenue The young, pretty, and innocent girl role in certain
plays; also used to denote an actress capable of playing such
roles.
interlude A scene or staged event in a play not specifically
tied to the plot; in medieval England, a short moral play, usually
comic, that could be presented at a court banquet amid
other activities.
intermission A pause in the action, marked by a fall of the
curtain or a fade-out of the stage lights, during which the audience
may leave their seats for a short time, usually ten or fifteen
minutes. Intermissions divide the play into separate acts.
In England, known as “the interval.”
jing In xiqu, the “painted-face” roles, often of gods, nobles,
or villains.
jingju “Capital theatre” in Chinese; the Beijing (Peking)
opera is the most famous form of xiqu.
kabuki One of the national theatre styles of Japan. Dating
from the seventeenth century, kabuki features magnificent
flowing costumes; highly stylized scenery, acting, and
makeup; and elaborately styled choreography.
kakegoe Traditional shouts that kabuki enthusiasts in the
audience cry out to their favorite actors during the play.
kathakali Literally, “story play”; a traditional dance-drama of
India.
kōken Black-garbed and veiled actors’ assistants who perform
various functions onstage and off in kabuki theatre.
kunqu (sometimes kunju) The oldest form of Chinese xiqu
still performed, dating from the sixteenth century.
kyōgen A comic, often farcical, counterpoint to Japanese nō
drama, to which it is, surprisingly, historically related.
lazzo A physical joke, refined into traditional business and
regularly inserted into performances of commedia dell’arte.
“Eating the fly” is a famous lazzo.
LED The recently developed light-emitting diode is a light
source that, because of its extremely long life, is beginning
to replace incandescent sources in a variety of stage lighting
instruments.
Lenaea The winter dramatic festival of ancient Athens.
Because there were fewer foreigners in town in the winter,
comedies that might embarrass the Athenians were often performed
at this festival rather than at the springtime Dionysia.
light plot The layout—on paper—showing the positions where
stage lights are to be hung and how they are wired (connected)
into the numbered electrical circuits of the theatre facility.
liturgical drama Dramatic material that was written into the
official Catholic Church liturgy and staged as part of regular
church services in the medieval period, mainly in the tenth
through twelfth centuries. See also mystery play.
low comedy Comic actions based on broad physical humor,
scatology, crude punning, and the argumentative behavior of
ignorant and lower-class characters. Despite the pejorative
connotation of its name, low comedy can be inspired, as in the
“mechanicals” scenes in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s
Dream. Good plays, such as this one, can mix low comedy
with high comedy in a highly sophisticated pattern.
mask (noun) A covering of the face, used conventionally by
actors in many periods, including Greek, Roman, and commedia
dell’arte. The mask was also used in other sorts of plays for
certain occasions, such as the masked balls in Shakespeare’s
Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado about Nothing. The mask
is a symbol of the theatre, particularly the two classic masks
of Comedy and Tragedy. (verb) To hide backstage storage or
activity by placing in front of it neutrally colored flats or drapery
(which then become “masking pieces”).
masque A minor dramatic form combining dance, music, a
short allegorical text, and elegant scenery and costuming; often
presented at court, as in the royal masques written by Ben Jonson,
with scenery designed by Inigo Jones, during the Stuart
era (early seventeenth century).
melodrama Originally a term for musical theatre, by the nineteenth
century this became the designation of a suspenseful,
plot-oriented drama featuring all-good heroes, all-bad villains,
simplistic dialogue, soaring moral conclusions, and bravura
acting.
metaphor A literary term designating a figure of speech that
implies a comparison or identity of one thing with something
else. It permits concise communication of a complex idea by
use of associative imagery, as with Shakespeare’s “morn in
russet mantle clad.”
metatheatre Literally, “beyond theatre”; plays or theatrical
acts that are self-consciously theatrical, that refer back to
the art of the theatre and call attention to their own theatrical
nature. Developed by many authors, including Shakespeare
(in plays-within-plays in Hamlet and A Midsummer
Night’s Dream) and particularly the twentieth-century Italian
playwright Luigi Pirandello (Six Characters in Search of
an Author, Tonight We Improvise), thus leading to the term
“Pirandellian” (meaning “metatheatrical”). See also theatricalist
and play-within-the-play.
mie A “moment” in kabuki theatre in which the actor (usually
in an aragoto role) suddenly “freezes” in a tense and symbolic
pose.
mime A stylized art of acting without words. Probably
derived from the commedia dell’arte, mime was revived in
France during the mid-twentieth century and is now popular
again in the theatre and in street performances in Europe
and the United States. Mime performers traditionally employ
whiteface makeup to stylize and exaggerate their features and
expressions.