Plays written between the two world wars reflecting the idea that life did not make sense. A style of speech from a particular country or area

Transcription

1 Glossary Absurd Accent Plays written between the two world wars reflecting the idea that life did not make sense A style of speech from a particular country or area Alienation/Verfremdungseffekt Brechtian term meaning to make strange. Brecht sought to remind the audience that the action was not real. Amphitheatre A round building containing tiers of seats with. Originated from the Greek theatre - the Olivier Theatre at the National Theatre is a good example. Antagonist A character who opposes the protagonist. The clash makes the play dramatic Apron The front of a stage that juts out in front of the proscenium arch Aside A comment made by an actor to the audience but not heard by other characters on stage. Auditorium The space in a theatre where the audience are seated Auteur A director who is considered a co-author because they significantly revise the original play Avant-garde New and experimental work Barn door A metal device with four shutters that slots onto the font of a lamp to prevent spill Blank verse Unrhymed poetry based on iambic pentameter, used in Shakespearean and Jacobean plays Box-set Set depicting the inside of a room, the audience looks through the invisible fourth wall Chorus Originated in Greek theatre, a character or group of characters provide a summary or narrative link Climax/Anti-climax Climax is a moment of great or culminating intensity in a narrative, a turning point in a plot or dramatic action. An anti climax is a disappointing decline after a previous rise in dramatic action. Crossfade black out Cue Lighting changes from one state to another without going to A marker - spoken or technical- for a line, action or sound effect

2 Cyclorama A cloth with a uniform surface extending around and above the stage, used for the projection of light, designs or shadow. Declarative A statement, giving information Denouement Moment of untangling of the plot Dialect a form of a language which is peculiar to a specific region or social group. Dialectic The clash of opposites and the resulting conflict. Often applied to Brechtian theatre Dialogue The spoken language of a play Direct address An actor speaks to the audience rather than to another character Dramatic irony The audience know something of which one or more of the characters is unaware Duologue Epic time A conversation between two characters Brechtian term for his plays that covered extended periods of Epilogue A final section of a play acting as a summary, leaving the audience thinking about the key themes or aspects. Eponymous of Hamlet Having the same name - Hamlet is the eponymous hero Exposition Giving the audience the background information in the opening scenes Flood focussed Follow Spot and musicals A lantern that covers the area with a wash of light. Cannot be Used for highlighting one character- often used in pantomime Forum theatre the action Boal s theatrical from where the audience participate in Fourth Wall The imaginary through which the audience sees a room. Associated with naturalistic drama. Fresnel Gel A lantern that gives a soft edged light Material placed in front of a lantern to provide colour.

3 Genre Gestus A dramatic from that has identifiable characteristics Physical actions which expose the underlying theme of the play Gobo Metal or similar material, cut out and shaped then placed in front of a lantern to project an image. e.g. prison bars, dappled sunlight Imperative An instruction, command or advice Inflection A variation in intonation or pitch of the voice Interrogative Asks questions Intonation the rise and fall of the voice in speaking Juxtaposition Placing close together in order to make a comparison Lighting state Lights set at particular levels. When there is a change of lighting a new state is used. The lighting may return to an earlier state at another point in the play Limelight The burning of lime sticks, introduced in 1816, gave a bright white light used to illuminate important actors. Melodrama Originated in France and became popular in 19 th century England. Stock characters with good triumphing over evil. Mise-en-scene Literally, what is put in the scene. Refers to the how the director, designer and performer have interpreted the play. Monologue A lengthy speech for one person. Montage Used by Brecht and in film. The putting together of short sections or scenes that are dissimilar. Morality play Late 15 th /early16th century drama of moral instruction using personified or abstract characters e.g. Envy Narrative The story of the play Pace The speed of the play or the delivery of dialogue Pause Moments of stillness or silences; pause can be voiced with a cough or er and um or unvoiced and silent. Plot The story of the play Preset Lighting that has been programmed into a board or where the next cue has been set up in advance

4 Profile Prologue audience A lantern that gives a hard edged spot An introductory section to a play, an entry into the piece for the Promenade The audience moves from one location to another, following the action of the play Proscenium arch An architectural partition that designates the outer limit of the stage, introduced in the eighteenth century Protagonist The main character of a play Proxemics The physical relationship between the actor and the audience or between the actors in the stage Pun A humorous play on words, dependent on the words having a double meaning Rake An auditorium or stage that is sloped with the rear section above the front. Used to enable the audience to see the action clearly. Reception The understanding of the play by the audience, who construct their own meaning from the performance Rhythm The effect produced by the combination or arrangement of formal elements such as length of scenes, dialogue or timing to create movement, tension, and emotional value. Rigging stage space Semiotics The erecting of lights on the grid and focussing them onto the The meanings in a play that are decoded by the audience Soliloquy A speech by one character who is alone on the stage. Often used to share emotions with the audience Sub plot A secondary plot running alongside the main story of the play Subtext The information, not made directly clear by he playwright, learned from reading between the lines Thrust stage The stage juts out into the audience who surround it on three sides. The Elizabethan theatres such as The Globe and The Swan had thrust stages Traverse staging The audience are positioned on either side of a corridor in which the action takes place.

5 Names of Lights and what they do There are six main types of lanterns in the world of stage lighting: 1) Flood This is the simplest type of lantern, consisting of a lamp and a reflector in a box, with no lens. The reflector concentrates the light towards the opening in the box. There is no control over the focussing of a flood, other than its general direction. Some floods have an asymmetric / directional reflector and are designed to light cycloramas. Older type symmetrical floods use standard ES (Edison Screw) or GES (Giant Edison Screw) filament lamps. The newer asymmetrical reflector floods (often called Cyc Floods) use linear lamps (to ensure an even cover across the reflector). Floods are often available in battens (a number of individually-controllable floods in a single box) which can take different gels, so that colour mixing is easier. Floods such as the Coda 4 Batten (4 x 500W linear floods) have four separate cables and units can be daisy-chained together up to the maximum load each dimmer circuit can take. 2) Fresnel The Fresnel (pronounced Frennel ) is a soft-edged spotlight with more control over beam angle than floods, but less control than profiles. The lens is a series of stepped concentric circles on the front and pebbled on the back and is named after its French inventor, Augustin-Jean Fresnel ( ). He developed the lens for French lighthouses so that they could be seen further out to sea and could achieve a longer focal length with a lot less glass than a standard plano-convex lens. It was first used in stage lighting in the late 1920s. The size of the beam can be adjusted by moving the lamp and reflector closer to or farther from the lens, either by a screw mechanism or a simple slide. The beam can be shaped by the four barndoors attached to the front of the lantern. 3) P.C. (Pebble Convex / Prism Convex) The PC is common in Europe, but is rarely seen in the US. The basic design of this lantern dates back to the first days of stage lighting, but the modern version has one important difference. This lantern uses a modified plano-

6 convex lens with a pebbled effect on the plano (flat) side. The pebbled effect gives the beam its characteristic soft edge. The edge of the beam is slightly harder than a Fresnel, but is not hard edged. The pebble convex lens uses the efficiency of the plano convex lens and gives the light a softer edge. Like a Fresnel, there is one focussing knob to change the beam angle, and barndoors are used to shape the beam. 4) Profile Profile lanterns produce clearly defined spots of light (hard-edged or softedged) and are the most focussable and versatile of the lanterns. They have a lens (some have two lenses), a lamp and a reflector, and they also have shutters and a gate. Profiles get their name from their ability to project the shape of anything placed in the gate of the lantern between the lamp and the lens. These shapes may be formed by the shutters, or they may be cut out of thin metal (a gobo see below). The shutters are a more flexible (and accurate) version of the barndoors which can be used on Fresnels or PCs. You can t use barndoors on a profile as the shutters do a better job, and the way the optics of the profile work, the barndoors would not work anyway. Some profiles with only one lens have two sets of shutters, one of which gives a hard edge to the beam, and one which gives a softer edge. These are known as bifocal profiles. Profiles with two lenses (zoom profiles) are best for projecting gobos and other shapes, as the size and sharpness of the beam is fully adjustable throughout the beam angle range of the lantern. A zoom profile lantern is known by the range of its beam angle (e.g. Prelude 16/30, Cantata 18/32 are both zoom profiles from Strand Lighting s range). The beam size can be reduced even further by the use of an iris diaphragm. This is inserted into the gate of the profile (where the gobo holder would go, so both can t be used together) and features an adjustable aperture which can cut the beam down to almost nothing.

7 A Leko is an ellipsoidal profile spot. Lekos are much more common in the US than the Zoom Profiles we tend to prefer in the UK. They are of fixed beam angle. The name Leko is a contraction of the original manufacturer s names (Joseph Levy and Edward F. Kook founders of Century Lighting). Leko s were originally patented in 1933, and are still manufactured today by Strand Lighting (which now owns Century Lighting). Ellipsoidal profile spots are sometimes known as ERS (Ellipsoidal Reflector Spots). Gobos Gobos are metal cutouts or metal etched onto glass, which are used in a gobo holder to project a defined shape or two break up a beam in a particular pattern.. A followspot is a special type of profile lantern with additional controls, extra handles, sights, built-in colour changer and iris, and is usually of much higher power. 5) Parcan Strand Lighting Parblazers (1980s) Par64 Parcan This lantern first came into use in the late 1960s (introduced in the UK by concert hire company ESP in 1968) in the Rock & Roll industry. It quickly found favour due to the relative cheapness of the lantern, the weight and the ease of focussing. The lantern itself is simply a can in which the PAR lamp is contained (hence Parcan ). The PAR (Parabolic Aluminised Reflector) lamps are available in a range of beam angles (see table below), depending on the amount of diffusion on the front lens of the lamp. The lamp is a sealed beam unit consisting of a lamp, reflector and lens in one. Because the light produced can be very intense, Parcans are especially suited to strong colours or for special effect. Be aware that deep colours can burn out quickly at full intensity.

8 The beam produced by a Parcan is an projection of the filament of the lamp, and this can sometimes be seen (as shadowed lines across the beam) in the Narrow lamps. The beam is an elliptical shape because of the shape of the filament, and can be rotated simply by rotating the lamp. Access to the lamp is via the rear of the lantern. Although they re not widely used, barndoor accessories are available for Parcans. They re not as effective at cutting off the beam than they are on a Fresnel or a PC, but can still help tidy the edge of the beam. Parcans are not suitable to use for general wash lighting except for music or comedy venues where the amount of light and splodgy beam are not a problem. Many venues are replacing Parcans with LED units as they are far more energy efficient, and enable an (almost) infinite variety of colours to be produced. CP60, CP61, CP62 Par64 Lamps PARCAN LAMP SIZES The size of the parcan is given by a number which relates to the diameter of the lens in eighths of an inch. The most common is the Par W. Other sizes are the Par 16 (used in Birdies (see below), and now superceded by the MR 16 dichroic lamp), Par 36, Par 38 (150W), Par 56 (300W). There are many variations of lens and wattage within a given size bracket. 6) Moving Heads You can use moving lights to create a variety of lighting looks. Moving lights will look the most interesting in haze, creating large beams in the air, made even more interesting with gobos. Mixing wash and spot units allows you to bring greater complexity to your looks. By using focus positions, or pallets, you can vary the look on stage greatly with simple programming. But moving lights aren t just for haze-filled, moving, band-style lighting. If you look at the use theatrically, you can replace many conventional lights with a few moving lights, allowing changes in sets to be quicker and keeping dimmer quantities and power needs down. Moving lights can be used to texture scenery, create specials for actors, speakers and musicians, and do special effects such as an underwater effect.