Robert Cohen - Theatre, Brief Version-McGraw-Hill Education (2016)

Presentational styles make little pretense of mimicking ordinary life. Here, director Susan Stroman creates a wonderful
farcical moment in The Producers as “theatre queen” director Roger De Bris (played in drag by Gary Beach) desperately
tries to keep his wig on. Facial expressions around the room focus the action and intensify the hilarity. Matthew
Broderick and Nathan Lane (at left) are the producers of the musical’s title. De Bris’s hangers-on (with the gaping Roger
Bart as his “common-law assistant,” Carmen Ghia) are perfectly arranged on the stairs by director Stroman to capture
every possible droll expression. Scenic design is by Robin Wagner, costumes by William Ivey Long, and lighting by
Peter Kaczorowski. © Paul Kolnik
Masks were used throughout the ancient Greek theatre
period, and as we shall see in the pages that follow,
they were also staples of many other theatres of the past,
including the masquerade dramas of Nigeria, the n ō and
kyōgen drama of Japan, and the commedia dell’arte of
Italy. They are still seen onstage today, not only in these
historic forms but in expressionist and avant-garde productions.
But beyond the mask’s physical presence, the
idea of masking—of hiding the performer while displaying
the character—remains at the heart of impersonation.
As such, the mask endures. The most recognizable symbols
of theatre, after all, are the side-by-side masks of
comedy and tragedy.
PERFORMANCE
Theatre is a kind of performance, but what, exactly,
does performance mean? Performance is an action
or series of actions taken for the ultimate benefit
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(attention, entertainment, enlightenment, or involvement)
of someone else. We call that “someone else” the audience.
All theatre is performance, but not all performance is
theatre. What counts as performance is quite broad. A
strictly private conversation between two people is simply
“communication.” If, however, they engage in a conversation
to impress or involve a third person who they
know is in a position to overhear it—someone listening
on a wiretap, say—the communication becomes a “performance”
and the third person becomes its “audience.”
Obviously, performance is a part of everyday life;
indeed, it has been analyzed as such in a number of
psychological and sociological works. When two high
school students arm-wrestle during lunch period, they
may well be performing their physical prowess for the
benefit of their peers. The student who asks a question
in the lecture hall is often “performing” for the other
students—and the professor performs for the same audience
in providing a response. Trial lawyers examining