Analyses - "The Blob"

Musical Theatre

The Analyses

If you can't explain it simply, the you don't understand it well enough.

 

Feynman Technique:

1. Take a piece of paper and write the concept's name at the top.
2. Explain the concept using simple language.
3. Identify problem areas, then go back to the sources to review.
4. Pinpoint any complicated terms and challenge yourself to simplify them.

 

Try the above method with one of the following concepts:

• How to make tea?
• How to understand the function: addition?
• When do I say please & thank you?
• How to win at Mario Kart?

Analyses - "Patrice Pavis"

Musical Theatre

The Analyses

 

Pavis Questionaire:
 

​A fourteen questionnaire that aims to be a fully pragmatic 

analysis of a piece of theatre.

 

One of the problems of applying semiotic techniques to theatre work has been a vocabulary which too often mystifies rather than clarifies the theatre experience for the non-specialist student. Patrice Pavis, in his work with students at the University of Paris III. has evolved a questionnaire about theatre performance which, while not in itself utilizing semiotic terminology, attempts to direct the respondents' attention to all the aspects of theatrical signification upon which it touches. In the following article, Patrice Pavis, whose major study of theatrical terminology, entitled Dictionnaire du Theatre, was published by Editions Sociales in 1980, outlines the purpose of the questionnaire, and provides explanatory notes to the individual questions, outlining an approach on which many involved in theatre teaching may wish to comment and build.

 

Let's run through it together:  LINK

Musical Theatre

The Analyses

Analyses - "Audience Theory"

Musical Theatre

The Analyses

​This takes the view that the Audience is a homogenised whole who can receive

a single message from a source. The theory was developed at a time when it was

felt that societal modelling was a science that could determine a uniform set of

responses for society as a whole. The study of Structuralism explores these issues in a wider context.

Magic Bullet
A common term for this type of audience reception is “Magic Bullet” (sometimes also Hypodermic Needle Model). The sender passes a single message and that is received equally by all and has the same effect on all.

Note that, even if we reject the Magic Bullet theory, there may still be a statistical position that is valid. We can say that the audience as a whole still receives one or more messages and that, for purposes of analysis, we are content that a proportion of the audience receives the same message. Segmentation of this kind is extremely common in advertising and will certainly be an assumption that we, as media analysts, make all the time.

Question: Why might the Magic Bullet model fail for music?

 

Musical Theatre

The Analyses

Two-Step Flow
Two-Step Flow does not address the issue of audience individuality but, instead, assumes that the audience comprises not individuals but many groups, each of which has a set of common influences. Whether the influencer is a leader, a societal preference or favoured media is not important. The premise is that there is an active leadership, receiving the first message and interpreting it for the members of the group.

In Politics (the originator of the Two-Step Flow theory), central politicians were not getting their message across. It was media, local leaders and word of mouth that delivered the message, almost certainly changing it en-route.

Single issue politics, societal groups, television and technology media such as YouTube and so on are massively influential transmitters and modifiers of the original message.

The Two-Step Flow model has been expanded into the Everett Rogers Diffusion of Innovation theory, which seeks to explain the stages of product adoption (Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, Laggards), causing societal fragmentation. Group Identity Politics.

Question: How does Diffusion of Innovation impact our theatre critique?
 

Semiotic Theory  - "I'm not that smart"

Musical Theatre

The Analyses

Semiotics is the study of signs of all types and their significance.

Firstly, a trawl through the difficulties of understanding what a sign is.

All of the following are signs: words, gestures, colours, shapes, sounds and pictures.
If I think of the animal canis lupus familiaris, I might say the word Dog. My stating that
word out loud is a sign, indicating what is in my mind. However, there are several problems:

• The audience may be deaf
• The audience may not speak English
• The audience may think of an alternative meaning for the word dog
• The audience may be frightened of dogs
•  The audience may either generalise or particularise their own image

 

In any case, the recipient will not have the same image as I do. Even if I show a photograph, say a Labrador, that picture is still no more than a sign. Arguably, there is nothing that I can do to get my concept into your mind, regardless of how much I try to explain, how many pictures I show or how much I describe my thoughts.  1984 vibes, "how many fingers am I holding up Winston?".

Ferdinand de Saussure broke transmission of signs into two parts: The Signifier and the Signified.

 

Musical Theatre

The Analyses

Signifiers
Assuming that you wish to transmit a message, you will pick a signifier that has maximum potential for indicating the signified. Given the difficulties listed above, it is essential that we seek some lowest common denominator for a sign that has cultural and societal mapping.

Ironically, signifiers are frequently polysemic, since the signified will not be the same for all people. Thus, the picture of an ashtray with a red line through it, while purporting to mean no smoking, probably means relief for non-smokers and torture for smokers.

Music as a signifier can also be polysemic. Country and Western, manufactured pop, opera and so on are tools of segmentation, not tools of homogenisation.

 

Signified
Were it to exist, the perfect sign would create a single meaning in the heads of all recipients. In practice, however, every signified is also a signifier. Smoke implies fire, implying danger, implying death, implying escape, implying life etc. Naturally, this is only one possible interpretation.

 

cons, Indexes & Symbols"

Musical Theatre

The Analyses

Charles Sanders Peirce suggested three types of signifiers.

Musical Theatre

The Analyses

Icon
In an Icon, the image itself is represented in the sign. This may be a photograph, a loosely symbol or an onomatopoeic sound. Thus a cuckoo whistle is an icon, as is a conventionally notated score, since it implies notes going up and down, along with the frequencies we hear (though the terms “up” and “down” are themselves arbitrary).
For the Icon to work, little shared knowledge is required between sender and receiver, though both should be capable of making the same observations.

Question: What other examples are there of the musical Icon?
 

Index
The Index has a spatio-temporal association. So, the term Northerner implies many things, not just geographical. “The Sixties” has much to do with the culture of that period rather than the calendar. Likewise, a picture of a champagne cork implies the drink, not the cork itself.
The important component of the Index is that it requires a common understanding between the sender and the receiver. Without a common culture, the index is neutered or generalised.

Question: What examples are there of the musical Index?
 

Symbol
The Symbol has an arbitrary, socially constructed association. Language is symbolic since the words and letters have nothing to do with the signified. Likewise the heart, representing love and green, meaning go. Without a dictionary or cultural experience it would not be possible to determine the signified for an arbitrary symbol.
To succeed, a Symbol requires both a shared culture and premeditated lexical agreement.

Question: What examples are there of the musical Symbol?

Musical Theatre

The Analyses

Narrative Arcs - "The Journey"

Three Act (Aristotle's Analysis - Complication & Unravelling) :​

• Protasis (Beginning)
• Epitasis (Middle)
• Catastrophe (End)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dramatic Structure (Freytag's Analysis) :

• Exposition (back-story): 'Tradition' - Fiddler On the Roof 
• Rising Action (inciting event) - 'Let it Go' - Frozen
• Climax (turning point) - 'Finale' - Pippin
• Falling Action (moment of final suspense) - 'Where did we go right?' - Producers
• Conclusion [Catastrophe/Denouement]  - 'For Now' - Avenue Q

Narrative Arcs - "Wonder"

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.

 

Also noted as the mono-myth.   Leads into archetypal territory.

 

• Departure
• Initiation
• Return

 

Split into a further 17 stages.  LINK

Musical Theatre

The Analyses

Musical Theatre

The Analyses

Narrative Arcs - "Into The Woods"

Musical Theatre

The Analyses

Character Arcs - "Company

Checking out your characters

• Positive – character develops positively (growth)
• Negative – character develops negatively (tragic)
• Static – character is challenged, but stays the same.

 

1. Rags to Riches (rise)

2. Riches to Rags (fall)

3. Man in a Hole (fall then rise)

4. Icarus (rise then fall)

5. Cinderella (rise then fall then rise)

6. Oedipus (fall then rise then fall)

 

Throw out  some character examples and write out their character arc as fully as you can.

 

To discuss: Expectation / Subversion Dynamic [Static Characters?]

                        Fantasy / Reality Dynamic - The Power of Fiction [Tropes]

Musical Theatre

The Analyses

Musical Theatre

The Analyses

Archetype - "24601"

All the most powerful ideas in history go back to archetypes. - Carl Jung

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Identify archetypes for some of the characters we have discussed.

Musical Theatre

The Analyses

Musical Theatre

The Analyses

Upgrade your notes

Spend 10 minutes upgrading your thoughts.

Then take some time out for 15 minutes.

 

Questions:

adamblosse@me.com

fb.com/adamblosse

 

Assignment: Make sure you have reviewed

Reading Week - Self Analysis

Resource & Referencing

Musical Theatre

The Analyses

We will be expecting a visit from Lisa from LRC to discuss the LRC, your resources, and referencing.

 

Interactive AUB Link: LINK

Harvard Referencing Presentation: LINK

 

Library App - Best thing to use.

Digital Theatre+:

• Username: lrcstaff@bpc.ac.uk
• Password: College

 

Shibboleth Login

• Username: Student ID Number
• PIN: dd/mm/yy

 

782* is musical theatre code for library sorting.