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The fragments of Alexis’ comedy Agonis or Hippiskos suggest a scenario based on a love intrigue: a young man is in love with a hetaira but is impeded by a foreigner; he therefore puts to practice a cunning scheme, which involves duping the obstructing character with a false display of wealth. The hippiskos, a kind of garment, probably functioned as a recognition token. The use of an item of clothing as a means of anagnorisis — instead of more standard objects, such as necklaces and jewels — was Alexis’ deliberate innovation, intended to breathe new life into the trite topos of recognition by tokens. Alexis drew attention to his innovation by naming his comedy after a garment, a virtually unique phenomenon in the Greek comic canon. A key scene of Agonis or Hippiskos may be illustrated on a calyx-krater of the Varrese Painter (Naples, 118333, ca. 340 b.c.), in which the main love triangle of Alexis’ scenario is shown on stage. No other South Italian vase showcases a piece of clothing offered in this way, and the uniqueness of the image matches the singularity of Alexis’ unconventional title. The elderly man’s figure in the vase-painting suggests that the foreigner of Alexis’ play was not a miles gloriosus but was either a pimp or a senex amator. The Agonis or Hippiskos must have been produced in Magna Graecia soon after its original performance in Athens in the 340s. The vase-painting provides an interesting testimonium for the evolution of comic costume and footwear in the later phases of Middle Comedy. In combination with the textual fragments, it indicates Alexis’ skill in the representation of dramatic characters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The second part of the twentieth century has been influenced by in-yer-face aesthetics exemplified by innovative and shocking tragedies of the representative playwrights such as Howard Brenton, Mark Ravenhill and Sarah Kane. In the beginning of the twenty first century verbal and political theatre have been defined by the plays of Martin Crimp, Tim Crouch and Simon Stephens within the context of 1999 Hans Thies Lehmann's ground-breaking study Postdramatic Theatre. Stephens latest play Nuclear War (2017) represents postdramaticity to its most extreme form. nameless woman character in the play, mourning the loss of a loved man on the seventh anniversary of his death, always staggers around the city and sometimes speaks by the help of a chorus of four actors-dancers and thoughts inside her head, searches connection, affection and sexual fulfilment. On the other hand, Simon Stephens's latest play Nuclear War can be analysed within the context of postdramatic traits. Hans Thies Lehmann's deconstructs traditions of pre-dramatic and dramatic theatre and especially his notion of postdramatic traits are well suited to describe postdramatic performance in Stephens's play. Applying postdramatic theory and traits, this paper will analyse postdramatic performance in Nuclear War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the rhetorical nature of "tangled" memories, what Marita Sturken describes as an intermeshing of sanctioned histories with personal and/or public narratives. To exemplify this phenomenon, the author examines the public memories of Rose O'Neal Greenhow and Belle Boyd. Greenhow and Boyd actively promoted slavery in their published accounts yet common "retellings" of their lives often elide these positions, and instead focus on their sensational work as Confederate spies. Such a reframing depicts them as progressive women, creating a tangled memory that uncritically lionizes them. Ultimately, the author argues, more complex "retellings" of historical figures are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents author thoughts on opera performance in the twenty first century. Topics include claims on identity between performers and audience within operatic, theatrical, and art historical contexts; several claims underwritten and foremost by the American and German racial identity; and ability of scholars to conduct public discourse considered the case of Brahms work and removal by artists and journalists.

The article focuses on the analysis of the incorporation of Robot K-456 animatronic doppelganger by performance artists Charlotte Moorman and Nam June Paik. Topics discussed include the first exposure of the robot at the Karlheinz Stockhausen's musical "Originale" which they co-produced, the development of their collaboration rooted from the avatar of failure and fear, and exploration of the first solo act of the robot on the opera titled "Robot Opera."

Throughout the history of music, the vision of the historicalstylistic perspective of the lyrical and dramatic musical genre has suffered many construction turns, due to various social and political contexts. Thus, opera music develops along with other arts (literature, painting), becoming a language accessible to the masses, and supporting the transposition of the surrounding reality in art. A new music is born, a living music with a substrate embedded in the ordinary, which will be reflected in the work of Georges Bizet and Giacomo Puccini and will serve as a basis for the evolution of opera vocals, giving rise to controversial opera characters, both from the point of view of the vocal score and from the point of view of the psychological and theatrical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work of Rossini Il Barbiere di Siviglia (L'Inutile Precauzione or Almaviva), written on Cesare Sterbini's libretto in 1816, originates in the play Le Barbier de Séville or Précaution inutile by Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais. Stendhal states that it is "a masterpiece". About the Rosinian work, and Grigore Constantinescu defines it as "a model of concision and musical and theatrical logic whose freshness was not shadowed by nearly two centuries of existence. Although Rossini uses many fragments of his previous works, the way he has built his architecture impresses through the unity of expression and the coherence of solutions". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literary criticism of the play "A Trip to the Moon (An Opera for All Ages)," directed by Karen Gillingham and starring Robert Murray, Iwona Sobotka, and Sophia Burgos, performed at the Barbican Hall in London, England on July 9, 2017 is presented. It outlines the characters and explores their symbolic significance. It examines the libretto created by composer Andrew Norman, the challenges he faced, and how they shape his decision. An overview of the story is also given.

A literary criticism of the play "Love's Last Shift," by Colley Cibber is presented. The author states that the play has been successful at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane in London, England, and it has entered the repertory. The author mentions that the play exposes the incompatibility between the moralistic reform movements of the 1690s and the inherited plotlines and character types.

Traditionally it has been considered that the change in the configuration of the character of Helen in Euripides does not take place until its tragedy Helen. This is, without doubt, the central work in which the redefinition and positivation of Helen will reach a full theatrical development. We think, with everything, that a more attentive reading of the motives used in previous tragedies gives us the key for the correct interpretation of the innovations that the author is introducing in the tragic characterization of this mythical figure. This process can be fixed in a convulsed period in the Athenian life, which goes from Nicias's Peace to Euripides' definitive march of Athens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the heretofore unexamined role of women characters as performing agents in Thomas Kilroy’s play, Talbot’s Box. Employing a close analysis of textual patterns, it argues that the first Priest Figure and the Woman represent a collaborative effort by two women to highlight and to resist their confinement into roles of symbolized motherhood. In this aim, they are ultimately unsuccessful. Their relationship is fractured, and its object thwarted by the actions of the play’s male characters. We see their suppression as shameful indictment of what it means to be a woman in the world Kilroy is showing us, and by drawing attention to their pain, we are better able to understand why Matt Talbot seeks a life of solitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the function of the dramatic score the first theater of Encina for creating a dramatic or fictional space that viewers will see on stage is analyzed; understood spectacular movements, gestures and dialogue of the characters score. These elements acquire an essential significant burden for the development of the story on stage, that although were part of the dramatic conventions of the time, will be Juan del Encina who explore complex theatrical strategies from them to solve a problem that began to appear: grant a space-time unity increasingly autonomous despite sharing the physical space (the court of the Dukes) with viewers, even integrating them into fiction, demonstrating the complexity and diversity of nuances that are configured on the conception of a total spectacle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the paper "Los significados de lo demoníaco: abstracciones del mal en la narrativa de Roberto el Diablo" ("The Meanings of the Demoniac: Abstractions of Evil in the Narrative of Roberto el Diablo"), the author identifies abstract concepts that are implicit in the concrete features that define the main character of Robert le Diable. These notions may be: subversion, deformity, disproportion or plurality. In this way, representations of evil in Western culture are registered and deconfigured thorough a popular and traditional character of European culture. Thus, it is a study of the forms and conceptualizations of the diabolical, and its application in a 16th century Spanish play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the aspects of theatrical actors performing animal characters reflecting on the adapted theatrical performance "Kafka's Monkey," scripted by Colin Teevan and narrative by Franz Kafka. Topics discussed include the feature of the performances performed by various artists such as Kathryn Hunter, the aspects of the performance's interaction with the audience members, and the influence of Kafka on practitioners and individuals who theorised theater.

This article, a continuation of “Orpheus and Pickleherring in the Kremlin: The ‘Ballet’ for the Tsar of February 1672” (Scando-Slavica59:2), focuses on the second performance given for Tsar Aleksej Michajlovič by foreign residents of Moscow. This encore production, in May 1672, expanded upon the programme of the February event: it was longer, featured more characters on stage, and even included some female characters (certainly portrayed by male performers). In addition to revealing this May entertainment, we discuss the identities of the performers (largely drawn from the merchant population of Moscow's Foreign Quarter), and we suggest that the author of the eyewitness account describing the February performance was Christoff Koch (ennobled von Kochen), a Swedish correspondent and commercial representative in Moscow. Almost simultaneously with the May performance, the Russian court began to make plans for a more permanent theatre; we trace the court's attempts to contact the important German acting troupe headed by the Paulsen and Velten families. Finally, we discuss the impacts these two performances may have had on the plays offered by the tsar's court theatre beginning in October 1672, with special focus on the character Pickleherring. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the character of Gurnemanz in Richard Wagner's opera "Parsifal." It contends that Wagner's depiction of the character is a squire and not a knight as referred to in the 1865 sketch reproduced in his "The Brown Book." It contrasts the performance of René Pape as knight with those of Hans Hotter, John Tomlinson and Kwangchul Youn who sung the character as squire.

This paper explores the universe of the actor's dilemma from a psychological point of view; this famous dilemma illustrates the paradoxical connection between the actors' authentic emotions and the characters' emotions interpreted on stage. The actor has always been confronted with the phenomenon which has its starting point in Diderot's Paradox and which is summarized by the following question: Is the actor allowed to express his own emotions on stage? According to theatrologists, this question represents the essence of the actors' art. According to psychologists, the manner in which the actor lives his own emotions, as well as the character' s, is a fascinating subject which encompasses issues connected with empathy, the theory of mind, the processuality of emotions, emotional expressivity, emotional memory, imagination, creativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Giuseppe Verdi creates, in his opera "Rigoletto", a different type of Seducer, who is not punished for his deeds; he creates the Duke of Mantua. Verdi's Don Juan is the man of the ephemeral moment, of the futureless conquests, He characterizes himself in his ballad: "La donna è mobile." "The woman changes her mind, oftentimes, Insane is the one who believes in her." Giuseppe Verdi went even further than W.A. Mozart and opened other gates to the Seducer, where the moral does no longer exist or is no longer considered. Verdi, in contrast with Mozart, played with the real and the surreal, with the sublime and the grotesque, alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is intended to outline the multilateral and contradicting portrait of Alexandru Lăpuşneanu, presented as a musical character by the composer Gheorghe Mustea. He places the emphasis not on the historic episode, but on the human situations generated by the main character, Alexandru Lăpuşneanu, thus highlighting his psychological, theological, philosophical and moral profiles, as resulted from the hero's behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As early as 1844, Henry Fothergill Chorley, one of the most authoritative figures of Victorian journalism, drew attention to two young composers, Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner, whose recent success could not escape the critic's attention. However, while Verdi's operas made their regular appearance in London over the decades following Ernani's premier at Her Majesty's Theatre in 1845, it was not until 1870 (with L'Olandese Dannato, alias Der Fliegende Holländer) that the first full performance of a dramatic work by Wagner was given in the English capital city. Notwithstanding this disparity, a first glance at the reviews that appeared in The Times, The Musical World, The Athenaeum, The Sunday Times and The Spectator, and that were then reproduced in the columns of The Musical World, shows the extent to which, between 1845 and 1855, both composers became object of severe critical scrutiny. By the mid-1850s Wagner's figure was conceptualized on the basis of factors that only in part depended on the quality of his music; yet, the manner in which his controversial writings impinged on the Victorian musical milieu benefited Verdi's image, which came to be understood as a more reassuring popular composer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the representation of American native populations in European theatrical productions from the late 17th to the mid-18th centuries. The author comments on the operas produced by the Purcell brothers in 1695 and Carl Heinrich Graun in 1755. He also considers the characteristics of the Spanish comedias (comedies) at the time, including their representation of American Indians. The so-called Leyenda Negra (Black Legend), a type of writing that demonizes the Spanish empire, is also explored.

An essay is presented on the influence of the character of Ruzante, created and played by Paduan actor Angelo Beolco, on the threatrical work of English poet and playwright William Shakespeare such as the character of Launce e Launcelot. Topics include the similarities between the roles acted by actor William Kemp and the characters of Launce and Launcelot il Gobbo, the Venetian reception of Ruzante, and the link between the works of Ruzante and Shakespeare.

The article presents a study which examines the characterisation of suicide in western opera from 1607 to 2006. The study analyzes the synopses of all the operas listed in the monograph including the completed suicides, non-fatal suicidal acts, and suicidal thoughts to determine the relation of a mental disorder. Results show that suicide has been considered as an option when characters are faced with distressing event or situation.