I recently received another email from an old student. A student whose work on theoretical kissing during the lockdowns of the plague years was truly exceptional. I might even call them a ‘star student’. I sent them off into the world confidently - but then a few weeks ago, I received this message:
PLEASE HELP ME! AAAARRGHH! NO!! I do t konwwhat’s REAL any more!!!! HELP ME PLEEEASE!!!
Sadly, I could imagine all too well what had created such confusion.
Post lockdown, this student had almost certainly gone to the theatre. Probably before they were ready to do so. And there, they would have come face to face with all sorts of questions. Questions such as - is that wood? is that paint? is that whisky? is he really drunk? is this theatre? why is this awkward? are those her lips? is that paint? is that his thumb? where is his tongue? where is the stage? what’s on tv? why am i so thirsty? is this a real bar? can i touch your lips? can i drink your soul?
That sort of thing.
What we really need, when encountering these sort of questions (which I’m afraid are an almost inevitable part of a visit to the theatre) is a decent glossary of theatrical terms. Now this isn’t strictly speaking my area, but I have done what I can.
I hope its useful!
theatre :
/θέατρο/
The word theatre comes from the Greek, θέατρο. It literally means the ‘Song of the Goat’. The theory is that there was a goat in Ancient Greece who was exceptionally good at singing and everyone loved it and so it started a popular new art form. Typically, humans saw the success of the goat and stole the idea. They started wearing animal masks and singing for themselves, putting the goat out of business. We call this - the first tragedy.
tragedy :
/τραγωδία/
Tragedy is by far and away the least funny form of theatre. It was the Ancient Greeks who championed this model of unfunny entertainment and now we have to put up with it too. Tragedies do however teach us things, such as not to have sex with our parents, which can lead to blindness (Oedipus). Not to be prudish, which can lead to tearing apart your own children (The Bacchae). And not to go to war, which will lead to devastation (The Orestaia).
If only more people went to the theatre!
shakespearean tragedy :
/σαιξπηρική τραγωδία/
This is a messier form of tragedy, written in English, by (some argue) a slice of bacon.
hamlet :
/ˈhæm.lət/
The most famous tragedy in the whole world. Hamlet has been performed more than any other play ever. Imagine that! So what does The Tragedy of Hamlet teach us? It teaches us not to think too much, because Hamlet thinks loads and it gets him absolutely nowhere. Hamlet can, for example, be spotted thinking next to an open grave, where he ends up talking to a skull. The skull turns out to be the skull of Yorick, a now-dead clown, whom Hamlet remembers kissing ‘I know not how oft!’ when he was a little boy. The skull’s lips have long since disappeared, so Hamlet does not kiss the skull. There is no physical kiss in Hmalet. He just thinks about kissing. We call this his ‘tragic flaw’.
the clown :
/clown/
Clowns enjoy kissing and singing and talking nonsense. Anyone who kisses or sings or talks nonsense in a tragedy gets killed off smartish.
tragic flaw :
/τραγικό ελάττωμα/
The special something that could lead to someone’s glory but in fact leads to their demise. Not to be confused with the tragic floor.
stage:
/τραγικό πάτωμα/
The part of the floor where fiction happens.
stage kiss :
/σκηνικό φιλί/
A fictional kiss where you keep your tongue in your mouth and put your thumb in the way of your lips. I have never seen this kiss. I doubt it’s existence.
mouth :
/στόμα/
If my mouth was a stage, and my lips the proscenium arch, could I contain a tragedy inside my mouth?
empty space :
/κενο διαστημα/
Peter Brook said that he could take any empty space and make it into a stage.
fourth wall :
/τέταρτος τοίχος/
The fourth wall is an invisible wall between the stage and the audience. It was built especially for realistic or naturalistic theatre in the late nineteenth century. Antonin Artaud (1896-48) didn’t like the fourth wall because he said it turned the audience into ‘peeping toms’. Whether or not you like to peep will probably affect the kind of theatre you enjoy.
Henrik Ibsen :
/Χένρικ Ίψεν/
Henrik Ibsen was a famous late nineteenth century playwright of realistic plays which used the fourth wall, so if you like peeping, check him out.
immersive theatre :
/καθηλωτικό θέατρο/
Nowadays it is quite common for audiences to want to wander about right in the middle of the fiction. Sometimes they ‘get in the way’. When this happens, the actors can either look the audience in the eye like a man or they can hide behind a sort of flexible fourth wall and pretend that they are in a Henrik Ibsen play, even though the audience is nearly touching their nose.
theatre of war :
/θέατρο πολέμου/
The place where battle happens in a war can be referred to as the ‘theatre of war’. Does this mean that humans believe that war is less real than reality? or that theatre is more real than reality?
wooden O :
/ξύλινος ο/
The Globe Theatre in London is referred to as a ‘Wooden O’ in a famous prologue to Henry V. The O evokes the circle of the external wall of the wooden theatre. The O is also the empty space of imagination. It is also Nothing. In Shakespeare’s day, ‘nothing’ or ‘O-thing’ was also another word for cunt. ‘nothing… is a fair thought to lie between a maids legs’ (Hamlet).
the story of O :
/ιστορία του ο/
The ‘Story of O’ is an extreme pornographic novel written by Pauline Reage in the 1950s. O is the heroine.
the university of O :
/πανεπιστήμιο του ο/
A university dedicated to the consideration of these nothings all together.
Nothing. Death. Desire. Pretending. Theatre. Woman.
'“May we cram within this wooden O… war war war”
No, sir, you may not.
Go away.
the actors’ studio :
/στούντιο ηθοποιών/
An American School where you can learn to be real and on stage at the same time, which sounds nice, so I have included contact details. Tel : +1 212-757-0870.
applause :
/χειροκροτήματα/
The end.