Hamlet
Hamlet
This assignment is for a & deconstructed& essay. You must use the following required format as you practice assembling the parts of a thoughtful critical review for an educated audience of theater-goers. Your paper should use the following section heads. You may cut-and-paste these directly into your report so that you have them all exactly as specified. Below this outline, you will find detailed instructions for each section. (You should use the theatrical vocabulary we are learning from our text in your answers. Once you have finished with a paragraph, go back and place in boldface all vocabulary words or concepts from the chapter that you are featuring, as I have done in the instructions below as an example.)
Make sure to use the key terms for chapter one and two.
I. Headline
II. Thesis Statement
III. Overview
IV. Plot
V. Character
VI. Theme
VII. Literary Qualities (Diction)
VIII. Music and Musicality
IX. Spectacle
X. Conventions
XI. Outstanding Moment
XII. Was the event "theatre" by our class definition?
XIII. Summary Statement
XIV. Photo, Caption and Citation
XV. Works Cited
Guidelines
Headline (5 points):
Give your report a title into which you have put some creative thought. Neither your name nor the name of the play is a title for a report. Think of it like an online link. Would the reader click it to read the review? Is it exciting, and does it preview the content of the report in a way that makes the reader want to know the details? Is the form correct, i.e., is it italicized and are the first word and all subsequent important words capitalized?
Use the following required format for your paper. Please divide your paper into sections and use the roman numerals and titles exactly as they appear above.
Thesis Statement (5 points)
Begin your report, as all reports, with a compelling thesis statement that gives a sense of what is to come and makes the reader want to find out what you have to say about it. "ACT’s production of The Normal Heart provoked the most profound response I have ever felt in the theater," or "The Wizard of Oz as a play is doomed to failure, I suppose, but The Westside Players attempt to mimic the movie on a low budget was pathetic," are interesting. "Last Wednesday I saw A Date With Judy," is not. You do not have to write in the first person, but you may do so.
Overview (5 points)
Your thesis statement should be followed by an overview paragraph which should contain, at minimum:
1. The full name of the play. (Make sure you spell it correctly and place it in italics. Underlining is NO LONGER acceptable practice for titles. ALL CAPS or Boldfacing never were.)
2. The author(s) of the play. Be certain to spell this, and all names, correctly.
3. The name of the theater company presenting the production.
4. The name of the physical theater in which you saw the play. (Chapter One contains information about the differences in the two ways we use the word "theatre" as it might apply to this and the previous question, if you need a review of the difference.)
5. The date and time you saw the show. (All credit and extra credit assignments must be seen within the semester or session of the class.)
6. The cost of the ticket, with a very short explanation of how you purchased it ? online, at the ticket window at showtime, at the half-price booth in Union Square, etc.
7. The exact seat and row number you sat in (usually available on your ticket) with a brief description of its location in the theater.
8. If anyone you knew shared this experience with you, say who and give the reader a brief sense of their response as compared to yours.
Plot (10 points)
The second paragraph of your report should be a brief summary of the plot, a maximum of 200 words ? about the same length as this paragraph. This is NOT the main point of a review. Most students tend to write far too much plot while ignoring other elements of analysis. It is important to remember, however, that Aristotle defines plot as "the arrangement of the incidents." Make sure your summary captures the major incidents in the play and gives us a sense of the arrangement, especially if that is anything besides linear and chronological. One way to get to the heart of the plot quickly is to use terms and concepts from the Timeline of a Play section of Chapter Two. In most cases if you cover the inciting incident, the major conflicts, the climax, and the denouement you will cover it well. When writing about the plot you can use the "continuing present" tense, (for example, "A ghost appears on the battlements.") or past tense, (for example, "A ghost appeared on the battlements.") but you must pick one and use it consistently throughout your description.
Character (6 points)
Indicate in this section which character is the protagonist, which (if any) is/are the antagonist(s), and any other characters that play interesting special functions. (Sometimes there is a narrator or chorus figure, sometimes a character whose primary purpose is to serve as a counter-example to the protagonist called a foil, etc.) This should take you less than 100 words total.
Theme (10 points)
The next section of your report, using one sentence, is a statement of the play’s theme, or meaning. This is often the hardest thing to infer from the play, because as Cohen tells us in our textbook, it is usually not explicitly stated in the play. It must be discerned by the audience member from the totality of the play. In later reports you might choose to discuss your feelings about this theme and how it relates to you. For the first report, however, concentrate on writing a single sentence that firmly states the play’s theme.
In past classes the most common errors in this section of the report are:
1. That the student confuses it with plot and tells the story again, or;
2. The student confuses it with the common notion of theme as, "repeated subject or motif," instead of using Aristotle’s sense of a statement about the play’s meaning.
Here are some statements from past reports that are not themes:
It is about good and evil.
It deals with a hurricane in Louisiana and the effect it has on the lives of people living in the bayou.
Love.
You can tell that these are not themes because they do not make sense as an answer to the question, "What did the play mean?" A tip-off that you are heading in the wrong direction is that the answer contains the words "is about" or "deals with."
Here are better examples from papers on the same topics as the three bad examples above:
War is absurd and humans should not perpetuate it.
Nature is awesome but people are stronger.
Love conquers all.
Literary Quality or Diction (6 points)
The fourth of the Aristotelian elements is the play’s "diction" or literary quality. (Note that this is not the same thing as the actor’s diction, meaning enunciation, but is instead about the playwright’s choice of words.) In this brief section you should note anything special about the language of the play. Some examples might be when the play is written in verse, uses a lot of poetic language or imagery, is written in a specific dialect like Irish or Southern, contains extensive rhetorical arguments, etc.
Music and Musicality (3 points)
If the play is a musical or opera, this section is apt to be extensive, but for most shows you are discussing such lesser issues as background music, or the musicality of the actor’s voices. It is always worth noting music (even background music) that is performed live.
Spectacle (10 points)
In this section of your report, probably 150-300 words long, discuss the spectacle of the play in general. (Later in the semester this section of your report will expand considerably as we know more about costumes, lights, sets, make-up and projections. For now, try to convey to the reader a sense of what the play looked like with enough specificity to convey an idea of the historical period and the impression made by the costumes, sets and lighting.)
Convention (3 points)
As discussed in our text and in the video, in addition to the usual six elements of a play, we also want to note how the conventions of the play work. Some conventions we want to be aware of: Plays that use mime, dance or movement to convey a sense of objects that are not physically present, actors that play more than one character ? especially if they change character in front of us instead of just re-entering as someone else, characters played by puppets ? especially if the puppeteers are visible, visual elements that are metaphorical instead of realistic ? for example the use of scaffolding in place of buildings, mixtures of presentational and representational performances, etc.
Outstanding Moment (5 points)
In a paragraph or less, describe the most outstanding moment of the production to you and tell why it was exceptional. Say specifically what happened in sufficient detail that someone who did not see the production would understand what occurred. Is this moment memorable because it produced a sense of pleasure or a sense of discomfort?
The Event as Theater (10 points)
In a section from one paragraph to one page in length, apply the "official class definition of theater" to the event you saw, and using the concepts from the discussion in Chapter One to defend or attack the proposition that this event was a piece of theater, as opposed to some other art form. Make sure you cover all aspects of the definition. In particular spend time on concrete examples of impersonation in the play, citing specific moments in the event and how the actor accomplished them. Talk about the skills and abilities of the actor using his/her actual name and the actions and choices of the character using the character’s name. Don’t confuse them. For example, Hamlet did not speak slowly and clearly, David Tennant did. David Tennant did not kill Polonius, Hamlet did. (Hint: for your first report, the play does NOT meet the class definition. Be sure and specify why not, and what art form we actually watched as opposed to theater.)
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