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Mr Puntila And His Man Matti
''Mr Puntila and his Man Matti'' (german: Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti) is an epic comedy by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. It was written in 1940 and first performed in 1948. The story describes the aristocratic land-owner Puntila's relationship to his servant, Matti, as well as his daughter, Eva, whom he wants to marry off to an Attaché. Eva herself loves Matti and so Puntila has to decide whether to marry his daughter to his driver or to an Attaché, while he also deals with a drinking problem. In his essay "Notes on the Folk Play" (written in 1940), Brecht warns that " naturalistic acting is not enough in this case" and recommends an approach to staging that draws on the ''Commedia dell'Arte''. The central relationship between Mr Puntila and Matti—in which Puntila is warm, friendly and loving when drunk, but cold, cynical and penny-pinching when sober—echoes the relationship between the Tramp and the Millionaire in Charlie Chaplin's ''City Lights ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bertolt Brecht
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a playwright in Munich and moved to Berlin in 1924, where he wrote ''The Threepenny Opera'' with Kurt Weill and began a life-long collaboration with the composer Hanns Eisler. Immersed in Marxist thought during this period, he wrote didactic ''Lehrstücke'' and became a leading theoretician of epic theatre (which he later preferred to call "dialectical theatre") and the . During the Nazi Germany period, Brecht fled his home country, first to Scandinavia, and during World War II to the United States, where he was surveilled by the FBI. After the war he was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Returning to East Berlin after the war, he established the theatre company Berliner Ensemble with his wife and long-time collaborator ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola
''Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola'' () is a 2013 Indian Hindi-language satirical black comedy film produced by Vishal Bhardwaj along with Fox Star Studios. Besides co-producing, Bhardwaj has also directed, co-scripted and scored the music for the film. The film stars Pankaj Kapur, Imran Khan and Anushka Sharma in the titular roles, while Shabana Azmi and Arya Babbar play supporting roles. The film was released worldwide on 11 January 2013. Plot The film tells the story of three individuals, Harphool Singh Mandola a.k.a. Harry, his daughter Bijlee Mandola, and Hukum Singh Matru known in short as 'Matru'. Harry is a wealthy, cynical businessman who dreams of turning the Mandola village (named after his family) into a shining example of his success and a microcosm of a fledgeling economy in itself, but this dream can only be realized if the villagers agree to sell their land to the government at unfairly low rates in order for the land to be converted into a Special Economic Zone. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alcohol (drug)
Alcohol, sometimes referred to by the chemical name ''ethanol'', is a depressant, depressant drug that is the active ingredient in alcoholic drink, drinks such as beer, wine, and distilled spirits (hard liquor). It is one of the oldest and most commonly consumed recreational drugs, causing the characteristic effects of alcohol intoxication ("drunkenness"). Among other effects, alcohol produces happiness and euphoria, anxiolytic, decreased anxiety, increased sociability, sedation, impairment of cognitive, memory, motor control, motor, and sense, sensory function, and generalized depression of central nervous system (CNS) function. Ethanol is only one of several types of Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol, but it is the only type of alcohol that is found in alcoholic beverages or commonly used for recreational purposes; other alcohols such as methanol and isopropyl alcohol are significantly more toxicity, toxic. A mild, brief exposure to isopropanol, being only moderately more toxic tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Class
A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for example be dependent on education, wealth, occupation, income, and belonging to a particular subculture or social network. "Class" is a subject of analysis for List of sociologists, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists and Social history, social historians. The term has a wide range of sometimes conflicting meanings, and there is no broad consensus on a definition of "class". Some people argue that due to social mobility, class boundaries do not exist. In common parlance, the term "social class" is usually synonymous with "Socioeconomic status, socio-economic class", defined as "people having the same social, economic, cultural, political or educational status", e.g., "the working class"; "an emerging professional class". H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, a prosaic ostensible meaning. A poem is a literary composition, written by a poet, using this principle. Poetry has a long and varied history, evolving differentially across the globe. It dates back at least to prehistoric times with hunting poetry in Africa and to panegyric and elegiac court poetry of the empires of the Nile, Niger, and Volta River valleys. Some of the earliest written poetry in Africa occurs among the Pyramid Texts written during the 25th century BCE. The earliest surviving Western Asian epic poetry, the '' Epic of Gilgamesh'', was written in Sumerian. Early poems in the Eurasian continent evolved from folk songs such as the Chinese ''Shijing'', as well as religious hymns (the S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Farce
Farce is a comedy that seeks to entertain an audience through situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant, ridiculous, absurd, and improbable. Farce is also characterized by heavy use of physical humor; the use of deliberate absurdity or nonsense; satire, parody, and mockery of real-life situations, people, events, and interactions; unlikely and humorous instances of miscommunication; ludicrous, improbable, and exaggerated characters; and broadly stylized performances. Genre Despite involving absurd situations and characters, the genre generally maintains at least a slight degree of realism and narrative continuity within the context of the irrational or ludicrous situations, often distinguishing it from completely absurdist or fantastical genres. Farces are often episodic or short in duration, often being set in one specific location where all events occur. Farces have historically been performed for the stage and film. Historical context The term ''farce'' is deri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Non-Aristotelian Drama
Non-Aristotelian drama, or the 'epic form' of the drama, is a kind of play whose dramaturgical structure departs from the features of classical tragedy in favour of the features of the epic, as defined in each case by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle in his ''Poetics'' (c.335 BCE) The German modernist theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht coined the term 'non-Aristotelian drama' to describe the dramaturgical dimensions of his own work, beginning in 1930 with a series of notes and essays entitled "On a non-aristotelian drama".Willett (1964, 46). In them, he identifies his musical ''The Threepenny Opera'' (1928) as an example of "epic form". " Aristotle's definition," Brecht writes, "the difference between the dramatic and epic forms was attributed to their different methods of construction."From an essay by Brecht probably written in 1936; Brecht (1964, 70). Method of construction here refers to the relation the play establishes between its parts and its whole: Brecht also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dionysus
In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; grc, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theatre. The Romans called him Bacchus ( or ; grc, Βάκχος ) for a frenzy he is said to induce called ''bakkheia''. As Dionysus Eleutherios ("the liberator"), his wine, music, and ecstatic dance free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful. His ''thyrsus'', a fennel-stem sceptre, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself. His origins are uncertain, and his cults took many forms; some are described by ancient sources as Thracian, others as Greek. In Orphic religion, he wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protagonist
A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a story contains a subplot, or is a narrative made up of several stories, then each subplot may have its own protagonist. The protagonist is the character whose fate is most closely followed by the reader or audience, and who is opposed by the antagonist. The antagonist provides obstacles and complications and creates conflicts that test the protagonist, revealing the strengths and weaknesses of the protagonist's character, and having the protagonist develop as a result. Etymology The term ''protagonist'' comes , combined of (, 'first') and (, 'actor, competitor'), which stems from (, 'contest') via (, 'I contend for a prize'). Ancient Greece The earliest known examples of a protagonist are found in Ancient Greece. At first, dramatic pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Well-made Play
The well-made play (french: la pièce bien faite, pronounced ) is a dramatic genre from nineteenth-century theatre, developed by the French dramatist Eugène Scribe. It is characterised by concise plotting, compelling narrative and a largely standardised structure, with little emphasis on characterisation and intellectual ideas. Scribe, a prolific playwright, wrote several hundred plays between 1815 and 1861, usually in collaboration with co-authors. His plays, breaking free from the old neoclassical style of drama seen at the Comédie Française, appealed to the theatre-going middle classes. The "well-made" form was adopted by other French and foreign playwrights and remained a key feature of the theatre well into the 20th century. Among later playwrights drawing on Scribe's formula were Alexandre Dumas ''fils'', Victorien Sardou and Georges Feydeau in France, W. S. Gilbert, Oscar Wilde, Noël Coward, and Alan Ayckbourn in Britain, and Lillian Hellman and Arthur Miller in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dramatic Structure
Dramatic structure (also known as dramaturgical structure) is the structure of a dramatic work such as a book, play, or film. There are different kinds of dramatic structures worldwide which have been hypothesized by critics, writers and scholars alike over time. This article covers the range of dramatic structures from around the world. How the acts are structured, what the center of the story is supposed to be about widely varies by region and time period. Africa and African diaspora Karibbean Kwik Kwak The structure is: #Tell riddles to test the audience. #Audience becomes a chorus and comments on the story. Usually there is a ritual ending. West Africa Griot A story structure commonly found in West Africa told by Griot storytellers, who tell their stories orally. Famous stories from this tradition include Anansi folktales. This storytelling type had influence on later African American, Creole, and Caribbean African diaspora stories. The story structure is as foll ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Margarete Steffin
Margarete Emilie Charlotte Steffin (21 March 1908 – 4 June 1941) was a German actress and writer, one of Bertold Brecht's closest collaborators, as well as a prolific translator from Russian and Scandinavian languages. Biography Born to a proletarian family, at the age of fourteen she went to work for the phone company but her interest in Social Democratic politics got her fired. She worked in publishing and agitprop theatre, and became secretary of the party's Lehreverband (1930) and worked at the ''Rote Revue''. In 1931, she took a diction class from Brecht's wife Helene Weigel and became his lover. She was introduced to the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, playing a maid in ''Die Mutter'' (1932). In 1933, Brecht and Weigel went into exile in Denmark. Though soon replaced as Brecht's lover by Ruth Berlau, Steffin entered an arranged marriage to a Danish citizen to stay as Brecht's secretary and followed the Brechts to Finland and Moscow when war broke out. She died from t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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