Glossary

Ballet. A dance with musical accompaniment characterized by precision of movement and an elaborate formal technique conventionally used to convey a story. In the 1500s and 1600s, European aristocrats performed in lavish ballet spectacles at royal courts. See also masques.

Baroque aesthetics. A late seventeenth-century orientation, especially popular in the Catholic courts of Europe, that celebrated allegory, grandeur, metamorphosis, sensuality, playfulness, and emotional extremes. In contrast with neoclassicism, it reasserted the centrality of visual and oral culture.

Beijing Opera. See jingju.

Bhava. The actor’s embodiment of a character’s state of mind/being/doing. A key element of Indian aesthetic theory. See rasa.

Biomechanics. A mode of training actors originated by the Russian director Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874–1940) designed to produce performers who could combine the arts of characterization, singing, dancing, and acrobatics with precise physical and vocal expression.

Blackface. A long tradition of Western performance in which masks, cosmetics, or other forms of makeup are used to give white performers the appearance of being street rowdies, circus clowns, and, in nineteenth-century American minstrel shows, African-Americans. Although often racist in intent, blackface has also served a variety of other purposes. See also yellowface.

Bourgeoisie. A socio-economic class consisting of property owners, merchants, bankers, shopkeepers, entrepreneurs, professionals, and similar figures. In Western Europe, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the bourgeoisie gained political power, supplanting the rule of royalty and landed aristocrats. Industrialists, merchants and commodity brokers, and financiers are the most powerful portion of the bourgeoisie and as a group are called capitalists. See also capitalism.

Box set. A stage setting that consists of the interior of a single room, usually under a proscenium arch, with an imaginary fourth wall facing the audience through which the audience watches the action.

Box. A private, enclosed seating area either adjacent or facing the stage.

Bunraku. Also known as ningyō jōruri, this is the traditional puppet theatre of Japan. In its current form, it is distinguished by the use of dolls that are expertly manipulated by a trio of visible puppeteers and voiced by a single chanter, accompanied by the shaminsen (a three-stringed instrument).

Burlesque. A form of variety theatre, particularly in the United States, that featured male comics, comic sketches, dance acts, musical pieces, plus scantily clad females in all of the numbers. It achieved the peak of its popularity in the early twentieth century.

Butoh. A genre of Japanese dance-drama that first appeared in between the late 1950s and the early 1960s, and which has had a major impact on modern dance worldwide. It typically employs grotesque gestures, slow movement, facial distortion, all-white body makeup, and extreme or even painful physicality. There are many varieties. Also spelled butō.

Capitalism. A complex system of economic organization based on the private ownership of property and other assets, the production of commodities for profit, and the loose regulation of supply and demand by market forces. Capitalists are part of the bourgeoisie. Capitalism also functions as an ideology (which may be believed by people who aren’t capitalists) that is usually hostile to socialism and communism.

Carnival. In medieval Europe, a festival preceding the Catholic season of Lent. Lent is a pre-Easter period of self-denial and deprivation, whereas Carnival celebrates excess, pleasure, and humor. See carnivalesque.

Carnivalesque. As theorized by Mikhail Bakhtin, a type of humor that originated in the European Carnival tradition and similar cultural performances. Its chief characteristic is concern with the material base of reality, such as daily labor or the functions of the body. It also often involves reversals in social status.

Castrati. Male singers whose testicles have been removed to preserve the boyish pitch and purity of their voices. A few of them flourished as operatic stars during the eighteenth century.

Chariot-and-pole system. Stage machinery for quickly changing scenic “flats” riding on substage trolleys, invented by Giacomo Torelli in the 1640s.

Chorus. An organized group of performers who may either sing, dance, and/or speak dialogue. Examples of choric performance are those of ancient Greece (the dithyramb, tragedy, and Old Comedy) and the Japanese nō theatre.

Cognitive science. The sciences that study how the mind/brain consciously and unconsciously processes perceptions, engages emotionally with the world, and makes meaning from these

experiences.

Comedia. A term originating in the Spanish Golden Age to describe the predominant form of secular drama in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: a three-act play combining serious and comic elements, in complex plots involving love, intrigue, and honor. Most often associated with the playwrights Félix Lope de Vega (1562–1635) and Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600–1681).

Comédie larmoyante. Literally, “tearful comedy.” The French version of sentimental comedy. See sentimentalism.

Comedy. A term covering an extremely wide variety of humorous plays. The earliest extant written comedies were written in ancient Greece during the fifth century BCE, and usually involved topical satire (see Old Comedy). Later comedies focused on domestic matters such as love (see New Comedy). Many other comedic genres exist.

Commedia dell’arte. A form of street theatre that originated in Italy during the 1540s. Professional troupes of between eight and twelve actors specialized in performing stock characters (indicated by grotesque half-masks and specific dialects), pre-arranged comic business (lazzi), and improvisations based on scenarios primarily drawn from the plays of Plautus and Terence.

Commedia erudita. Sixteenth-century European academic comedies for aristocratic patrons

based on the texts of Plautus and Terence.

Commemorative drama. An umbrella term given to performances which have as their focus the memorialization of religious or civic events in a community’s history. They can include a mixture of pious and carnivalesque elements.

Communism. A radical form of socialism initially developed by Karl Marx (1818–1883) that advocates the overthrow of capitalism in order to create a classless society. With the success of the Russian Revolution (1917), the political and economic theory of communism was soon conflated with the policies of the Communist Party (by both its supporters and opponents). Historically, governments controlled by a Communist Party have eschewed democracy in favor of single-party rule and state control over all social spheres, from the economy to the arts.

Community-based theatre (in the U.K. and elsewhere, called community theatre). Theatres dependent upon ongoing dialogue between artists and spectators, usually for the purpose of exploring ways in which the social agency of a local audience can be maximized.

Constructivism. The artistic synthesis of Retrospectivism and Futurism achieved by Russian director Vsevolod Meyerhold in the 1920s. It incorporated his acting experiments with biomechanics, and is best represented by Lyubov Popova’s set designs consisting of elaborate ramps, slides, ladders, and moving wheels that allowed actors to demonstrate how human beings could use their emotions and machines to produce engaging art and a more productive life. Stalin censored these techniques during the 1930s in favor of promoting socialist realism.

Copyright. A legal protection extended to authors giving them control over the publication and performance of their work. The first comprehensive copyright law was enacted by France in 1790.

Corpus Christi cycle. See cycle play.

Corral. An enclosed, open-air theatre in Spain during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, originally the courtyard of an inn and later purpose-built.

Counter-Reformation. The years 1545–1648 in which the Catholic Church sought to suppress the Protestant Reformation through various reforms, new religious orders, and spiritual movements. It included the encouragement of Baroque art.

Cultural hybridity. A term used to describe the results of intercultural encounter, in which elements of each original culture combine to create something new, which nevertheless bears traces of the original separate contributions.

Cycle play. A series of short plays dramatizing key episodes from the Old and New Testaments, performed in medieval England during the Feast of Corpus Christi. The plays were produced and performed by trade guilds.

Dada. An avant-garde movement initiated in Switzerland during the First World War that employed cabaret sketches to experiment with the chance ordering of sounds, simultaneous poetry, and movements that mocked the absurdity of Western notions of logic and harmony.

Decorum. The precept of neoclassicism that plays should uphold the standards of taste and morality, and that there are behaviors appropriate for different social classes.

Devised theatre. Theatre or drama developed collectively by a group, usually of actors, starting from improvisations.

Dithyrambs. Choral songs and dances in honor of Dionysus performed at Athens’ major theatre festival (the City Dionysia) and elsewhere in ancient Greece.

Drame. French domestic tragedy, comparable to sentimental drama. See sentimentalism.

Electric and electronic culture. A culture which utilizes electromagnetism (in forms such as electricity, radio waves, and visible light) for communication media. Electrical media include telegraphs, film projectors, photography (using photochemical reactions), and early telephones, phonographs, and radios. With the invention of the vacuum tube and later the transistor, media such as television, computers, mobile phones, and digital cameras became not only practical, but widespread and increasingly portable. When distant computers were connected, the internet was born, providing the foundation for networked culture, a subtype of electronic culture. Because of electronic media’s usage level, it has already begun to have cognitive effects.

Elizabethan era. The period when Queen Elizabeth I reigned in England (1558–1603). It is often considered the high point of the English Renaissance. It was followed by the Jacobean era.

Empathy. A cognitive operation that has been defined in various ways. As we use the term, empathy is a relationship to another person that involves an attempt to take the perspective of and understand the emotions of that other.

Empiricism. The theory that knowledge is only or mainly derived from individual sense experience, such as the direct observation of natural phenomena and scientific experiments.

Enlightenment. An eighteenth-century European intellectual movement that asserted that human progress could only be achieved on the basis of political liberty, individual freedoms, and the rights of private property. See empiricism and rationalism.

Environmental theatre. See immersive theatre.

Evolution. The theory established by Charles Darwin and others that plants and animals flourish, mutate, or become extinct over time based solely on the process of natural selection, that is, their success within their environment based on the species’ variations.

Exorcism. A ritual performance, common to many cultures, that addresses and expels demonic forces in order to heal an individual or a community.

Expressionism. An avant-garde movement that flourished in Germany after the First World War (1914–1918). Expressionist plays called for such anti-realist techniques as grotesquely painted scenery, exaggerated acting, and “telegraphic” dialogue. They frequently invited spectators to view the distorted dramatic action through the fevered eyes of the protagonist.

Farce. A type of comedy focusing on ridiculous and unlikely situations rather than character development. Often it includes confusion, slapstick, and absurdities.

Fascism. An extreme form of nationalism that emerged in Europe after the First World War (1914–1918). This ideology rejected Enlightenment universalism and liberal democracy in favor of racial purity and violent authoritarian rule.

Fourth wall. The realist convention of an imaginary “wall” across the proscenium opening enclosing an interior room in a box set. The spectators observe the action through this imaginary wall, and the actors perform as if they were unaware of the audience’s presence.

Fringe theatre. Often small and experimental troupes that perform in the same cities hosting major international theatre events, but are not on the official program. The most famous sites for fringe theatre are the Edinburgh and Avignon festivals.

Futurism. An avant-garde movement that was launched in Italy in 1909 with the publication of a manifesto by F.T. Marinetti (1876–1944) damning the art of the past and advocating new forms exalting the dynamism of the machine age. Russian Futurists, led by Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893–1930), attempted to align this movement with the Soviet revolution until the onset of Stalinist persecution. See Constructivism.

Gallery. A balcony seating area. A theatre often has several levels of galleries.

Gesamtkunstwerk. Richard Wagner’s (1813–83) influential term for a total, synthesized artwork in which all elements of a theatrical production are controlled by the vision of a single master-artist. See auteur director.

Gestus. Bertolt Brecht’s term for the expressive means an actor can employ – such as a way of standing, or moving, or a pattern of behavior – that indicates to the audience the social position or condition of the character that the actor is playing. See Verfremdungseffekt.

Globalization. The ongoing and accelerating process of widespread transnational engagement, driven largely by economic systems and aided by information technology, in which interaction among cultures has become commonplace.

Glocal. A term combining “global” and “local” to describe the ways global culture influences local culture, and vice versa.

Guilds. Medieval European associations of artisans or merchants that regulated wages and trade, trained apprentices, and undertook charitable projects such as the sponsorship of cycle plays.

Happenings. Performance events designed to blur the boundaries between the experience of art and commonplace experiences that were first created in New York and elsewhere in the 1960s.

High modernism. An orientation to the European stage prominent between 1910 and 1940 that emphasized written dialogue and frequently employed metatheatricality and the minimization of the actor’s physical presence to create a theatre that would move people to transcend the material realities of the modern world. Exemplary figures were William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) and Luigi Pirandello (1867–1936). See modernism.

Historiography. The theories, methodologies, techniques, and narrative strategies involved in writing history. Also used to refer to the products of historical research, such as books and websites.

Huaju. Chinese spoken drama, originally based on Western models of realism. The first play in this style was written in 1907.

Humanism. Central to Western thought since the Renaissance, humanism arose during the fourteenth century as the study and emulation of classical Roman (and later, Greek) writings in order to return to the cultural heights of antiquity. It became a core of education throughout Europe, and its methodologies underlie what is now called “the humanities.” In the sixteenth century humanism began to mean an emphasis on human experience and potential, rather than Christian faith. Today humanism is fundamentally the assumption that all people everywhere, in all times, share a common essence.

Iconology. The interpretive analysis of images to understand the cultural work the image was doing in its time. Among other things, such analysis considers visual vocabularies and conventions, inherited or innovative, and the cultural forces surrounding the artwork.

Ideology. The implicit and explicit ideas, theories, and assumptions about the social and natural world that inform people’s interpretation of their individual and collective condition. An ideology often validates the status quo, in support of the interests of the most powerful social group(s).

Immersive theatre (a recent expansion of “environmental theatre”). Staging in which there is no demarcation between actor and spectator space, multiple events compete with each other to diffuse any single focus, and actors interact with audience members both in character and personally.

Imperialism. The ideology and action of creating and maintaining empires. Imperialism can be political, economic, military, religious, cultural, or a combination. Imperialist countries typically take control over conquered peoples and land by establishing colonies – subordinate political entities that are often subjected to ruthless exploitation. Imperialist countries usually justified this by claiming that “civilized” nations have the right (and moral obligation) to rule over “inferior” cultures (see Orientalism). Modern imperialism often consists of economic dominance over other countries, without direct political control.

Industrial Revolution. The late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century process of rapidly expanding capitalism, urbanization, and technological breakthroughs, particularly in the areas of manufacturing, transportation, and communications.

Inquisition. Institutions within the Roman Catholic Church which combated heresy through censorship, forced conversions, torture, execution, and other means, starting in the twelfth century and in most areas ending in the early nineteenth century. It was particularly aggressive in Spain, Portugal, and Mexico.

Interculturalism. The practice in which theatre artists use the texts, acting styles, music, costumes, masks, dance, or scenic vocabularies from more than one culture in a single production. Although intercultural artworks have always developed whenever one culture encounters another, consciously intercultural productions have proliferated during the past three decades in the context of globalization.

Internet. A system interconnecting many computer networks into one extremely large global network, in principle allowing any computer or similar digital device to communicate with any other via established protocols. One portion of the internet is the World Wide Web (“Web” for short), which features content that has been specially encoded to allow users easy access, interaction, and navigation of material on the Web.

Jacobean era. The period when King James I reigned in England and Scotland (1603–1625). It is considered the final part of the English Renaissance.

Jingju. The Chinese term for what is known elsewhere as “Beijing Opera.” Created in 1790, it is a form of musical theatre that relates historical, romantic, and melodramatic stories through a mix of song, stylized speech, spectacular dance, pantomimed action, acrobatics, and orchestral music consisting of stringed and percussive instruments. Also known as jingxi.

Kabuki. A still-popular form of traditional Japanese theatre noted for its lavish use of scenic display, costumes, and makeup; the physical and emotional style of its actors; and its repertoire of plays, often involving painful complications between duty and emotion. It originated around 1600 as a mode of dance-drama that reflected an outrageous disdain for acceptable social behavior. Various restrictions eventually resulted in kabuki troupes being composed only of adult males. See onnagata, aragoto, and wagoto.

Kathakali. Literally “story” (katha), “dance” or “play,” this form of south Indian dance-drama is distinguished by a highly physicalized style of performance based on traditional martial arts and its complex use of both gesture and expression to communicate the emotions/actions of a character.

Kōken. In both the Japanese nō and kabuki theatres, these are stage assistants who visibly, but unobtrusively, handle props, straighten costumes, and prompt actors. When dressed all in black, they are called kurogo.

Kunqu. A type of Chinese musical drama favored by elite Confucian audiences during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644).

Kusemai. Secular entertainments mainly performed by women dressed in male clothing that were popular in fourteenth-century Japan. Also the main dance in nō.

Kutiyattam. A style of staging late-Sanskrit drama that originated in the Indian state of Kerala, that employs Sanskrit and Pakrit as well as the local language, and takes place within a specific type of temple architecture.

Kyōgen. Short, often farcical interludes or entire short comedies performed with Japanese nō plays.

Lazzi. Comic, often physical stage actions performed in commedia dell’arte.

Liberalism. As political orientation, belief in the right of individuals to pursue their own interests as equals, unrestrained by aristocratic privileges or state constraints. As an economic orientation, support for individuals’ pursuit of “free market” capitalism under minimal government regulation. Classical liberalism is also meritocratic, emphasizing the necessity of individuals to earn their social and economic security through their own efforts.

Literate culture. A culture in which the dominant means for verbal communication is writing. By itself, the presence of writing in a society doesn’t necessarily make it a literate culture: cf. oral culture. Instead, writing must be dominant. This does not refer to the percentage of the population who can read and write, which can in fact be a small minority. Writing is dominant when it is considered more authoritative than speech or memory for political, legal, and cultural purposes, and has had significant cognitive effects upon those who use it. There are four main types of literate culture: manuscript culture, print culture, periodical print culture, and electric and electronic culture.

Locus. Latin for “place.” In medieval theatre, a single stage, often an elevated platform or a pageant wagon, which is partly or totally surrounded by an open space (see platea). It is used to represent a specific location, such as a manger or a house. The dramatic location may be identified only by language, or the stage may have a setting or special effects scenery. See also mansions.

Ludi. “Games” to mark the observance of Roman public holidays as well as great funerals, military victories, and other state occasions. These eclectic festivities presented chariot racing, boxing, and gladiatorial contests as well as dramatic performances. The most important of these events were the Ludi Romani in honor of the god Jupiter.

Mansions. From a Latin term for “station” or “house.” Elevated platforms representing different scene locations in medieval Christian dramas, and spectators generally move from one mansion to the next (see simultaneous staging). Arranged around an open space within a cathedral (see platea), or perhaps outdoors in ancient earthen rounds, mansions offered allegorical, rather than illusionistic, depictions of places within the Christian imagination, such as Eden and Hell. See also locus.

Manuscript culture. A type of literate culture in which writing can only be accomplished by hand. This includes inscriptions on wood, wax, stones, pottery, etc. Although writing has a significant place in manuscript cultures (in some of them, anchored by one or more sacred texts), the oral culture continues to be vibrant throughout the society, including among the literate elite.

Masques. Lavish court spectacles, often employing perspective scenery, which celebrated the nobility of seventeenth-century England, France, and Spain as powerful mythological figures. These expensive entertainments allegorically supported the prerogatives of absolutism.

Melodrama. A form of theatre that dramatizes social morality: it names “good guys” and “bad guys,” helping audiences to negotiate such problems as political power, economic justice, and racial inequality.

Metatheatricality. Theatrical self-reference. Metatheatrical techniques include plays-within-plays (e.g., Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author), production techniques and characters’ comments pointing out that the current activity is a play performance (the former occurs in Brechtian productions, the latter in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot), characters’ discussions of plays and performance (like Hamlet’s advice to the itinerant players), plays about actors or playwrights (such as a play about Molière), and more. The purpose of metatheatricality can vary. Metatheatrical plays are sometimes called “metatheatre” or “meta drama.”

Method acting. A twentieth-century style of American acting that marries the personality of the actor to the character she or he is playing through psychological techniques of extreme empathy. It is often part of psychological realism.

Mie. A fierce pose struck by a kabuki actor. At climactic moments of a play, he may toss his head, raise his leg and stamp his foot, pose with open, outreached hand, grunt, and freeze his face in a cross-eyed grimace. See aragoto.

Mimesis. Aristotle’s term in the Poetics (c.380 BCE) for the imitation or representation of action and characters.

Minstrel show. A form of racist blackface performance popular in the United States from the 1840s until the rise of vaudeville in the 1880s. A form of variety show, minstrel acts consisted of white male performers imitating slave festivities in the South, musical numbers, and parody.

Mise en scène. A French term denoting all visual aspects of a production, including set design, costumes, makeup, lighting, and the placement and movement of actors.

Modernism. A general orientation to the stage that emphasized the written texts of the playwright, questioned the representational basis of the theatre (often through the use of metatheatricality), and often posited the existence of an ideal realm that could transcend the anguish of material conditions, such as the perceived chaos of the modern city. In Europe and the U.S., modernism in the theatre lasted from 1920 to about 1975.

Monomane. A key aspect of Zeami’s aesthetic theory, it refers to the nō actor’s revelation of the fictional character’s “invisible body” or essence. Sometimes translated as “imitation.”

Morality plays. Late medieval Christian allegories usually focused on an “everyman” figure faced with a choice between good and bad behavior.

Moros y cristianos. A Spanish play of the fifteenth or sixteenth century pitting “Moors” (Muslims) against Christians.

Multiculturalism. A term describing works combining performance modes drawn from different cultural traditions within nation-state boundaries, rather than across them. Often critiqued for a tendency toward tokenism of minority cultures within a larger dominant one.

Mummers plays. Christianized versions of pagan rituals designed to ensure the return of spring, often featuring a white knight combating a blackened Turk.

Music hall. Although an English Victorian term, it may be used to designate any type of variety theatre that features a series of unconnected entertainments on an indoor stage.

Mystery cycle. See cycle play.

Nationalism. A political ideology based in the belief that a nation – a group loosely united by territory, language, and/or culture – has an inherent right to live and flourish within its own geographical and political state. Nationalism began in Europe in the seventeenth century and has taken several historical forms. Liberal nationalism involves a commitment to the Enlightenment ideals of individual liberty and constitutionalism. Cultural nationalism centers on a belief in the uniqueness and greatness of one’s language-based culture. Racial nationalism mixes notions of racial superiority with cultural nationalism to produce the belief that a nation’s superiority is based on racial purity.

Naturalism. An avant-garde movement, which flourished between 1880 and 1914, that portrayed heredity and environmental factors as the primary causes of human behaviour through the accurate rendition of external realities.

Natyasastra. An encyclopaedic work on all aspects of drama attributed to the sage Bharata, authored or collected between 200 BCE and 200 CE. See Sanskrit drama.

Naumachiae. Sea battle re-enactments based upon episodes from Greek history that were staged as lavish public spectacles in ancient Rome.

Neoclassicism. A development in the Renaissance recovery of classical ideals and practices in art and literature and the rationalist elaboration of them, especially in the service of the absolutist monarchy in France in the mid- to late seventeenth century, when verisimilitude, decorum, and poetic justice were emphasized. See the rules.

Networked culture. A culture in which the internet is a major mode of communication, which people access using personal computers and mobile devices. Although it can be considered a type of literate culture because to some extent it uses text, it is also similar to oral culture because the same medium can be used both for communication between individuals, and for communication to a very large audience that includes the possibility of responses back.

New Comedy. A form of ancient Greek comedy, focusing on domestic (rather than political) issues. Its period is typically considered to be 323–260 BCE. The only extant plays are by Menander. Adapted by the Romans Plautus and Terence as fabula palliata, it became the model for Western comedy up to the present. Compare with Old Comedy.

Nō. A traditional form of Japanese theatre that was developed in the fourteenth century with multiple origins including Shinto ritual, Buddhist philosophy, and kusemai dance. Among its distinctive features are its stage architecture, finely wrought masks, delicate movement and dance, onstage musicians, and the use of a seated chorus who vocalize narration and dialogue. The dramatic texts of its greatest playwright, Zeami (c.1363–1443), often borrow plots from historical epics or novels and usually feature ghosts or characters of supernatural origin. Also spelled noh.

Old Comedy. Satirical commentaries on socio-political problems, sometimes employing bawdy humor and costumes, that were performed in ancient Athens. The only surviving examples are the comedies of Aristophanes (c.448–c.387 BCE). Compare with New Comedy.

Onnagata. A male kabuki actor who specializes in female roles.

Opera. A form of dramatic musical theatre in which the performers sing all their lines in the script. Opera began in Europe in 1607 and remains popular in the West today. Following the reign of Baroque opera in the seventeenth century, European opera split into two primary strands. Opera buffa (comic opera) drew much of its energy, many of its plots, and most of its stock characters from commedia dell’arte. In contrast, opera seria (serious opera) dealt with serious subjects and became an arena for the performance of castrati singers.

Opéra-comique. Eighteenth-century French comic opera in which the audience sang lyrics printed on a placard and set to a popular tune.

Operetta. Light operatic entertainments that emerged in the nineteenth century in Vienna, Paris, and London to amuse mostly bourgeois spectators.

Oral culture. A culture in which the dominant means for verbal communication is speech. Oral cultures may have writing, but it plays a relatively minor and subordinate cultural role and has few if any cognitive effects. Cf. literate culture.

Orientalism. Edward Said’s term for the way Western countries represented the East, a vast territory that was imagined to stretch from the modern Middle East to Japan, and which was largely subjected to European imperialism in the nineteenth century. “Orientals” were depicted as weak, cunning, inscrutable, culturally backward, feminine, dangerous, and, above all, exotic. Today, the term is widely understood to refer to any culture that is seen as incomprehensibly “Other.”

Pageant wagons. Mobile stages that were used in processional routes and sometimes gathered in fixed arrangements in a playing area for the performance of medieval cycle plays. A wagon usually provides the locus for a play, and the street around it is the platea.

Pantomime. A genre that developed in ancient Rome, consisting of solo performances to musical accompaniment that silently enacted all of the characters of a drama using a series of costumes and masks. A form of it re-emerged in eighteenth-century England, which became enormously popular and long-lived.

Passion play. Dramas depicting Jesus’s sufferings that originated in medieval Europe and, in some places, remain in production, such as the Oberammergau Passion Play.

Patent. A license granting a company or an individual the privilege to pursue an activity that is otherwise subjected to restriction. Historically, governments, such as that of the English King Charles II (1630–1685), have made theatrical performances subject to a patenting process as a form of censorship.

Patrimonialization. The socio-political process by which certain traditions are turned into treasures of cultural, national, or international heritage.

Patronage. Support extended by a powerful individual or an elite to an arts-producing entity. Examples include legal permission to perform, financial subsidy, and protection from competing social groups. See patent.

Performance art. A contemporary expression of the avant-garde consisting of either solo works or larger spectacles that always seek to break through the separation of art and life. Often taking up social and political concerns, performance artists typically use their own lives as subjects and their own bodies as instruments.

Periodical print culture. A type of print culture is which periodicals – publications that appear on a recurrent cycle (often annually, monthly, weekly, or daily) and are distributed across a region (ranging from a city to the world) – play a significant social role. The transportation systems that enabled regular mail delivery were crucial to making periodical publication feasible. Periodicals provided a major practical basis for the public sphere.

Periodization. In writing historical narratives, the strategy of organizing human events and practices into shared categories of time, or “periods.”

Perspective scenery. Scenery that depicts a landscape, urban location, or large building in a realistic manner by using the principle of perspective, in which objects appear to recede into the distance in a mathematically accurate manner.

Pit. The ground level of an English Renaissance theatre, usually below the stage, where spectators stood to watch the play. In France it was called the parterre; in Spain, the patio.

Platea. Latin for “plaza” or “broad street.” In the staging of medieval European drama, an open space such as the nave of a cathedral or a city street, used as a neutral, unlocalized playing area that could be whatever location the text required at a given moment. See mansions and locus.

Poetic justice. A precept in neoclassicism, and a common plot device in general, that evil characters should be punished and good ones rewarded. Often poetic justice occurs through an ironic twist.

Poor theatre. Jerzy Grotowski’s (1934–1999) conception of a theatre stripped of elaborate production elements and dedicated to the performance of “holy actors” athletically embodying the sufferings and ecstasies of the human spirit.

Positivism. The philosophy that scientific knowledge derives solely from measurable sensory experience, allowing for the detection of invariant general laws of both nature and society.

Postdramatic theatre. A term coined in 1999 by theatre scholar Hans-Thies Lehmann, to describe experimental or avant-garde theatre appearing after the 1960s in which the dramatic text and/or dramatic action are subordinated to a ruling idea, or sometimes eliminated entirely, with the aim of producing an effect upon the audience that is not dependent upon text or plot.

Postmodernism. A much-debated concept that was prevalent during the late twentieth century. Within philosophy, it is generally associated with a critique of the possibility of establishing and/or communicating stable meanings, e.g., the idea that binary oppositions can be clearly maintained, and often raises the connection between knowledge and power. Postmodern theatre and performance artists tend to emphasize a deep skepticism toward modernism’s desire to wrap experience in a single, unified, pleasingly cohesive vision, and often take an ironic view of society and culture.

Print culture. A type of literate culture in which texts can be reproduced quickly, precisely, and in large quantities by mechanical means. The earliest form of printing used woodblocks on which were carved whole pages, but the production scale was small enough that the societies remained manuscript cultures. Machines that composed pages using small pieces for each word or letter were invented separately in China (c.1040), Korea (1234), and Europe (c.1440), but their use became far more widespread in Europe. Thus China and Korea continued to be manuscript cultures, but in Europe printing gained dominance over manuscript. In print cultures, oral culture takes a subordinate position, strongest in religion and the arts, but weak in most other realms. Handwriting assumes an even narrower role. Print culture began with books, but eventually periodical print culture became feasible.

Private sphere. The facet of social life consisting of personal matters, such as family, the home, friendship, religious feelings, and emotions. For many years, women were confined to activities in the private sphere. It is contrasted with the public sphere.

Proscenium arch. First created in the Renaissance, a visible and often highly ornate frame around the stage that is a permanent architectural element of some theatres.

Protestant Reformation. The schism in Western Europe in which Christianity split into Roman Catholicism and various types of Protestantism. It is often dated 1517–1648, although some scholars place the end either in 1555 or around 1750.

Psychological realism. An orientation to playwriting and staging that strives to present characters’ thoughts, feelings, and psychological development in a realistic manner. Its hallmarks are psychologically attuned directing and (particularly in the U.S.) variations on Method Acting. Scenography can be somewhat flexible, rather than wholly realist. It effectively became the national style of the United States during the 1950s.

Public sphere. The facet of social life in which people discuss politics, economics, laws, and similar matters which (in theory) are open to debate by all people. It is contrasted with the private sphere. Although the terms “public sphere” and “private sphere” were developed in the twentieth century, the distinction itself dates from the eighteenth century with the political rise of the bourgeoisie and the formation of periodical print culture.

Purim shpil. A humorous, often satirical, play presenting the events commemorated in the Jewish holiday of Purim. The play is accompanied by enthusiastic audience involvement, such as hissing and noise-making.

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Ramlila. An Indian commemorative drama that allows its participants immediate access to an encounter with the Hindu god Ram (sometimes called Rama). It is celebrated as a pluralistic, open-air event that features re-enactments of episodes from Ram’s life. “Lila,” in the word Ramlila, is the Hindu concept of “divine play” or joyful intervention of the gods into the human sphere.

Rasa. An ideal aesthetic experience in Sanskrit drama, compared to the various “tastes” savoured at a meal. The concept, along with bhava, is central to Indian aesthetic theory.

Rationalism. A philosophy deriving from the ideas of René Descartes (1596–1650) that proposed that reason alone, independent of experience, is the source of truth. It seeks absolute, mathematical certainty in knowledge. See Enlightenment.

Realism. In theatre, a stage orientation that originated partly in response to the emerging technology of photography. It is also referred to as “stage realism.” Its hallmark was the presentation of scrupulously observed material realities, and typically used historically accurate costumes, the fourth wall, and box sets. Initially employed in the commercial theatre by producer-directors who appealed to the public’s desire for antiquarianism and melodrama, this style was later adapted for use by the Naturalists. It is still the dominant style in the West. See also psychological realism.

Remix. A term originally applied to a musical work that combines audio elements from other recordings, recently expanded to refer to any work of art or media that creates something new by adding, removing, or changing elements of one or more other works. Some use it to describe the dominant aesthetic of networked culture.

Renaissance. Literally “rebirth,” this is a traditional category of periodization for European history from, roughly, the fourteenth century to the seventeenth century, but the period varies from country to country. The word reflects the growing interest taken by European elites in the “classical” cultures of the ancient world, such as Greek and Roman drama. This period also produced the ideologies of humanism and absolutism.

Restoration. The period in English national history (after the Civil War) that began in 1660 with the restoration of King Charles II to the throne. Most historians date the end of the Restoration period at 1688. The Meiji Restoration in Japan refers to the downfall of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868 and the supposed return of authority to the emperor.

Retrospectivism. A stage orientation that arose in pre-revolutionary Russia that incorporated many of the elements of Symbolism. Retrospectivists like Nikolai Evreinov (1879–1953) aimed to recover older forms of theatre as a means of injecting their playful energy into contemporary life.

Rituals. Performances (often ceremonies) that occur on special occasions that form and reform self and social identity, and are viewed as efficacious, i.e., their participants conceptualize these events as having real consequences, such as curing a disease or maintaining cosmological balance. Masking, costuming, impersonation, dance, music, narrative, and humor are all recurrent features of ritual performance.

Romanticism. A European aesthetic movement (1790–1840) that prized the subjectivity of genius, looked to nature for inspiration, elevated strong emotions above reasonable restraint, and often sought to embody universal conflicts within individual figures.

Rules, the. A set of requirements that, according to neoclassicism, plays must meet in order to be considered good drama. They include the unities, decorum, poetic justice, and verisimilitude.

Saint plays. Medieval European plays about Christian saints.

Sanskrit drama. An umbrella term for a rich variety of Sanskrit- and Prakrit-language theatre practices that date back at least to 300 BCE in what is modern-day India. See Natyasastra.

Satyr plays. Farcical renditions of Greek myth performed at ancient Athens’ major theatre festival after a day’s program of tragedies.

Sentimentalism. During the eighteenth century, this was a positive term for a social philosophy in which the intellect, emotions, and morality were harmoniously integrated. Sentimentalism emphasized virtuous decision-making and tearful reconciliations in drama, and shared many of the moral ideas of rationalism. Not to be confused with “sentimentality,” which involves indulgent or mawkish emotions.

Shaman. The Siberian Tungus word for “one who is excited, moved, raised.” The term can be applied broadly to a range of traditional specialists in rituals. Shamans are usually attributed with possessing specific powers (curing illness, counteracting misfortune) and they are typically able to access the spirit world after entering a trance.

Sharing system. The business model upon which many Elizabethan and European theatre companies were run in the sixteenth century. In this system, actor-managers, leading actors, financiers, and sometimes playwrights shared in the profits of a given run or theatrical season.

Shimpa. Literally “new style,” the term refers to the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century

fashion of adapting Western dramatic forms, such as the “well-made play,” to Japanese tastes. It is sometimes seen as a transitional form between kabuki and shingeki. Both actresses and onnagata sometimes portray female roles in the same play.

Shingeki. Western-style Japanese theatre, originated in 1909. At first referred only to spoken plays, but now includes musicals as well. After the Second World War, young theatre artists rebelled against shingeki and created alternative and experimental genres, such as angura.

Simultaneous staging. A medieval theatre convention in which the various scenes of a play were set on individual fixed stages (mansions) that were all visible at the same time. The actors (and spectators) progressed from set to set as the scenes changed and the dramatic action proceeded.

Social Darwinism. The discredited assumption that cultures, like species, have evolved, and can be viewed hierarchically from the “primitive” cultures on the bottom to the “great civilizations” at the top.

Socialism. A political and economic orientation that arose in the early nineteenth century that aims to have social needs and benefits prioritized over profits by establishing public or collective ownership of industry and public services. The socialist economist and philosopher Karl Marx (1818–1883) argued that there is an inherent class conflict between workers and capitalists. Unlike communism (and Marx), socialists have historically sought to promote economic justice through reform rather than violent revolution.

Socialist realism. The official aesthetic policy of the Soviet Union from 1930 to 1953, instituted by Joseph Stalin, which favored idealistic and heroic images of and plays about workers and Communist leaders to advance the aims of the state. This art was “realistic” only in so far as it was not abstract. The dictates of socialist realism were used against Communist artists such as Meyerhold who practiced other styles and forms.

Surrealism. A 1920s avant-garde movement that emphasized spontaneity, shock effects, and psychological imagery based in dreams.

Symbolism. An avant-garde movement flourishing in the 1890s that rejected Naturalism in order to concretize the unseen spiritual realities that the artists believed shaped human fate.

Ta’ziyeh. An Islamic/Persian commemorative mourning drama dedicated to Hussein ibn Ali, who was martyred at the Battle of Karbala (680 CE). Ta’ziyeh plays chronicle each episode of the event over the course of ten days.

Theatre of the Absurd. An expression coined by the critic Martin Esslin in 1961 to categorize plays by Arthur Adamov, Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, and Jean Genet. Relating them all to the existentialist philosophy of Albert Camus (1913–1960), Esslin presented these playwrights as unified in their portrayal of the human condition as meaningless. Once influential, this interpretation of certain post-Second World War drama is in declining usage.

Theatre of Cruelty. Antonin Artaud’s (1896–1948) title for a theatre that would “break through language” to access the mysteries and darker forces of life left untouched by literary masterpieces.

Theatre for development. A kind of theatre used in the so-called “developing world” as a tool for community problem-solving and empowerment.

Theater of the Oppressed. A type of theatre developed by Brazilian director Augusto Boal, based on the pedagogical theories of Paulo Freire, which aims to raise awareness of the roots of oppression and rehearse responses to it.

Theatre for social change. An umbrella term for a variety of theatre activities aiming for improvements in political, economic, cultural, medical, or other conditions. Three major types are theatre for development, Theater of the Oppressed, and community-based theatre.

Tragedy. Originally, a form of drama created in ancient Athens, Greece, performed by three actors and a chorus of 12–15 men. An early form had been developed by 534 BCE. Greek tragedy was serious and sometimes involved misfortunes and terrible mistakes, but plays could also end on a positive note. When ancient Roman authors emulated Greek tragedy, it became more focused on awful and even horrific events. In modern times the term generally refers to drama with an unhappy ending in which the protagonist(s) suffers a major personal loss or even death.

Tropes. Bits of dialogue sung by the choir during parts of the medieval Mass, especially during the Easter observance, where they dramatized the story of the visitors to Christ’s tomb. Some argue for the tropes as an early form of Church drama.

Übermarionette. Large puppets that, according to Edward Gordon Craig (1872–1966), should replace live performers because they would be easier to control than actors and more effective in evoking spiritual realities. Also see Gesamtskunstwerk.

Unities. According to neoclassicism, drama must meet the three “unities” of time, place, and action. The unity of time demanded that the dramatic action take place within one day. The unity of place required plays to be set in only one location. The unity of action prohibited multiple plots.

Variety theatre. A major form of popular performance that proliferated after 1850 that consisted of light entertainments unconnected by any overriding theme, story, or major star. See Vaudeville.

Vaudeville. A form of variety theatre that gradually replaced (and absorbed) the minstrel show in the United States during the 1880s. Representative acts included skits, comics who specialized in ethnic humor, trained animals, singers, dancers, and acrobats. Vaudeville declined during the 1920s as many of its performers began working in the new media of radio and film.

Verfremdungseffekt. Bertolt Brecht’s term for the process of providing spectators of his productions with some distance and insight by rendering their past and present worlds strange and unusual for them, thus preparing them to accept his own vision of events. The term is sometimes mistranslated as “alienation effect.”

Verisimilitude. The quality of appearing true, realistic, or probable which neoclassicism held to be a prime requirement of drama. In order to achieve verisimilitude, plays needed to obey the three unities of time, place, and action. See the rules, decorum.

Virtual. A term generally meaning “in effect, but not actually,” by the end of the twentieth century it frequently referred to a computerized, non-physical environment or an item or activity within it. Although initially “virtual worlds” were wholly textual, today the term usually means a visual, onscreen depiction of a three-dimensional location, often the setting for a game; people are represented in this environment through avatars. Sometimes “virtual world” is misapplied to communication platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

Volksgeist. Literally meaning the “spirit of the nation.” The German historian Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744–1803) employed this Romantic belief to affirm that all nations possess highly distinct identities to counter Enlightenment notions of the potential universality of historical interpretation. Herder’s ideas about history shaped most discussions about cultural nationalism during the nineteenth century.

Wagoto. A style of kabuki acting with more-or-less realistic voice, gestures, and costumes. Compare with aragoto.

Wayang golek. The Sudanese-language puppet theatre of West Java. Since the 1970s, a hybrid comic form of it has been regularly performed on Indonesian television.

Wayang Kulit. The traditional shadow puppet theatre of Java.

Well-made play. A form of drama pioneered by French playwright Eugene Scribe (1791–1861) that cleverly manipulates plot to reveal a secret whose disclosure in an “obligatory scene” is key to resolving the play’s central conflict.

Wing-and-groove system. The British counterpart to the continental “chariot-and-pole” system for rapidly changing perspective scenery during the early eighteenth century, it operated by using flats that slid in grooves built on the stage floor and in supporting tracks behind the borders above.

World fairs. Urban carnivals that became potent entertainments to legitimate the capitalist-industrial (and often imperialist) order in the pre-1914 era, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. The first world fair was the Crystal Palace Exhibition in London in 1851.

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Yangbanxi. “Model revolutionary opera,” a genre of Chinese performance created during the Cultural Revolution, that combines aspects of jingju and Western performance.

Yellowface. The practice of using makeup and/or facial prosthetics to mimic Asian features (such as shape of eyes or skin color) by an actor who is not of Asian descent. It is the equivalent of blackface.

Yūgen. A deep, quiet, mysterious beauty tinged with sadness produced by nō dramas. A crucial aspect of Zeami’s aesthetic theory.

Zaju. A Chinese variety theatre consisting of song, dance, monologues, and farce popular during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644).

Zanni. Servants in commedia dell’arte. They are usually smart and wily, and often try to fool their masters.