Курсовая работа: Theatre concept in the semantic space of W.S.Maugham’s Theatre

Drama (literally translated as action, from a verbal root meaning ‘To do”) is the branch of theatre in which speech, either from written text (plays), or improvised is paramount. And the companion word drama is also Greek, dran meaning to do. Classical forms of drama, including Greek and Roman drama, classic English drama including William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe and French drama including Moliere is still performed today.

Music and theatre have always had a close relationship. Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining music, songs, dance routines, and spoken dialogue. Modern musical theatre emerged from the variety, vaudeville, and music hall genres of the late 19th and early 20th century. Musical theatre generally includes a combination of dialogue, song and dance, and spectacle. Contemporary Broadway musicals often include lavish costumes and sets supported by million dollar budgets.

Theatre productions that use humor as a vehicle to tell a story qualify as comedies. This may include a modern farce such as “Boeing Boeing” or a classical play such as “As You Like It”. Theatre expressing bleak, controversial or taboo subject matter in a deliberately humorous way is referred to as black comedy.

2. The THEATRE concept in the semantic space of W.S.Maugham’s “Theatre”

2.1 Theatre as it is viewed by W.S.Maugham

We have made some research of notion of concept and the THEATRE concept in particular, and now we can consider the THEATRE concept in the W. S. Maugham’s novel "Theatre". The analysis of 20 fragments showed that the THEATRE concept is widely represented in the novel.

In the following fragment we can see an author's particular relation to the theatre: “That’s because the public isn’t really interested in the theatre. In the great days of the English stage people didn’t go to see the plays, they went to see the players. It didn’t matter what Kemble and Mrs. Siddons acted. The public went to see them. And even now, though I don’t deny that if the play’s wrong you’re dished, I do contend that if the play’s right, it’s the actors the public go to see, not the play” [27; 17].

On an example of Julia we can see what things are important for actors and help to stay popular: “She had her clothes made in Paris, both for the stage and for private life, and the dressmakers said that no one brought them more orders. She had a lovely figure, everyone admitted that; she was fairly tall for a woman, and she had long legs. It was а pity she had never had a chance of playing Rosalind, she would have looked all right in boy’s clothes, of course it was too late now, but perhaps it was just as well she hadn’t risked it. Though you would have thought, with her brilliance, her roguishness, her sense of comedy she would have been perfect. The critics hadn’t really liked her Beatrice. It was that damned blank verse. Her voice, her rather low rich voice, with that effective hoarseness, which wrung your heart in an emotional passage or gave so much humor to a comedy line, seemed to sound all wrong when she spoke it. And then her articulation; it was so distinct that, without raising her voice, she could make you hear her every word in the last row of the gallery; they said it made verse sound like prose. The fact was, she supposed, that she was much too-modern” [27; 19].

In this case the events represented by the author introduce the mentioned concept: “She felt like a high-born damsel, with all the tradition of a great and ancient family to keep up; her purity was a pearl of great price; she also felt that she was making a wonderfully good impression: of course he was I a great gentleman, and “damn it all” it behaved her to be a great lady. She was so pleased with her performance that when she had got into her room and somewhat noisily locked the door, she paraded up and down bowing right and left graciously to her obsequious retainers. She stretched out her lily white hand for the trembling old steward to kiss (as a baby he had often dandled her on his knee, and when he pressed it with his pallid lips she felt something fall upon it” [27; 60].

The literary character’s retorts also represent the THEATRE concept: “In this business you have to take the rough with the smooth. You’re the best actress in England” [27; 79].

From this fragment we can make conclusion that the author considered that an actress must be integral personality, and it is not enough to have good career only: “With him she sought to be neither gay nor brilliant, she was tender and wistful. Her heart ached, notwithstanding the scintillating performance she had given during the day; arid ‘it was with almost complete sincerity that with sighs, sad looks and broken sentences, she made him understand that her life was hollow and despite the long continued success of her career she could not but feel that she had missed something. Sometimes she thought of the villa at Sorrento on the bay of Naples” [27; 141]. In this case the real theatre is represented by the author.

Besides, the THEATRE concept is represented with the help of the introduction of the literary character’s activities:

1) “Men were creatures of habit; that gave women such a hold on them. She did not feel a day older than he, and she was convinced that the disparity in their ages had never occurred to him” [27; 163]

2) “She could go and act in America for a year till the scandal had died down and then go into management with somebody else. But it would be a bore” [27; 172]

The THEATRE concept is also represented in the description of the events of the novel: “The play went well from the beginning; the audience, notwithstanding the season, a fashionable one, were pleased after the holidays to find themselves once more in a playhouse, and were ready to be amused” [27; 273].

So the THEATRE concept is very wide-spread in the novel “Theatre” by W.S. Maugham.

2.2 Theatre as people for W.S.Maugham’s

We have made some analysis of the fragments of the novel and can make conclusions that W.S. Maugham did not considered theatre as we used to. In the novel he showed us another side of theatre – theatre as people, actors; theatre as business, as money.

Theatre as people is mainly represented by W.S.Maugham with the help of the concept “actor”. The mentioned concept is mainly represented with the help of Julia’s image. So the author underlines the peculiarities of the actor’s activity in the following context: “She did it, if not mechanically, from an instinctive desire to please” [27; 18].

Besides, the concept “actor” is introduced with the help of the literary character’s retorts. For instance, this phenomenon is typical for Michael’s opinion: “Don’t be natural <…> The stage isn’t the place for that. The stage is make-believe. But seem natural” [27; 20].

The use of the elements of Julia’s biography also represents the concept “actor”: “Her own career had been singularly lacking in hardship <…> She learnt to speak French like a Frenchwoman. She was a born actress and it was an understood thing for as long as she could remember that she was to go on the stage <…> When Julia was a child of twelve this actress was a boisterous, fat old woman of more than sixty, but of great vitality, who loved food more than anything else in the world. She had a great, ringing laugh, like a man’s, and she talked in a deep, loud voice. It was she who gave Julia her first lessons. She taught her all the arts that she had herself learnt at the Conservatoire and she talked to her of Reichenberg who had played ingenues20 till she was seventy, of Sarah Bernhardt and her golden voice, of Mounet-Sully and his majesty, and of Coquelin the greatest actor of them all. She recited to her the great tirades of Corneille and Racine as she had learnt to say them at the Francaise and taught her to say them in the same way. It was charming to hear Julia in her childish voice recite those languorous, passionate speeches of Phedre, emphasizing the beat of the Alexandrines and mouthing her words in that manner which is so artificial and yet so wonderfully dramatic. Jane Taitbout must always have been a very stagy actress, but she taught Julia to articulate with extreme distinctness, she taught her how to walk and how to hold herself, she taught her not to be afraid of her own voice, and she made deliberate that wonderful sense of timing which Julia had by instinct and which afterwards was one of her greatest gifts.

When Julia was sixteen and went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in Gower Street she knew already much that they could teach her there. She had to get rid of a certain number of tricks that were out of date and she had to acquire a mere conversational style. But she won every prize that was open to her, and when she was finished with the school her good French got her almost immediately a small part in London as a French maid. It looked for a while as though her knowledge of French would specialize her in parts needing a foreign accent, for after this she was engaged to play an Austrian waitress” [27; 23].

The conversations between the literary characters of the novel represent the concept “actor” best of all. So the literary character’s retorts represent the mentioned concept:

1) “That’s the face an actress wants. The face that can look anything, even beautiful, the face that can show every thought that passes through the mind. That’s the face Duse’s got” [27; 24].

2) “Actors are rotten, not parts. You’ve got a wonderful-voice, the voice that can wring an audience’s heart; I don’t know about your comedy, I’m prepared to risk that” [27; 24].

3) “You’re going to be a star. Nothing can stop you” [27; 39]

4) “The critics are right, damn, you’re an actress and no mistake” [27; 39].

Some other fragments also represent the concept “actor”:

1) “Charles Tamerley always said that what an actress needed was not intelligence, but sensibility, and he might be right; perhaps she wasn’t clever, but her feelings were alert and she trusted them” [27; 127].