Aristotelian Theatre: An Example Of A Curious Theatre

An example of an Aristotelian Theatre character is be Roy M. Cohn from Angels In America. An example of a Curious Theatre character is Wordsworth from The Appeal. The two theatrical approaches to characters are very different. Although both authors use real people and real events or circumstance as a base for their own creation, Aristotelian and Curious Theatre build their character differently and for different purposes. The audience are able to witness Roy’s character development and he is there to contribute to the plot of the play. There is not really a plot in The Appeal, there is more push towards a message in attempt to challenge thoughts of audience members. The audience do not really see Wordsworth develop to who he is in the play.

In Lee’s The Appeal, Dorothy asks Bryon to let her listen to one of his poems. Bryon proceeds to recite a cringe worthy, racist poem about Chinese people (Lee 176). To some real life readers, they might find the poem funny over offensive because they do not see how problematic and insulting the poem is. They do not have a problem with it because they are not the ones who are being insulted. When Bryon asks, “What’s wrong,” Dorothy’s reaction is priceless as she says, “It’s just this fear, this horrible fear, of having something lovely and dreamed of and hoped for snatched away from be because of this veil of illusion striped over my eyes” (Lee 176). Dorothy is unpleased by Bryon’s poem. She was once attracted to him until his poem broke the “illusion” of a lovely, dream-like man into an ignorant man who legitimately thinks that poem was good. Dorothy’s comment was said in a humorous way, but it had a political undertone. Lee is trying to say that she is not impressed by cheap Chinese jokes and the people who entertain these types of things are not attractive, and they are not as great of people they think they are. Lee is implying that no matter how good a person makes themselves out to be, to actually find something like that poem to be entertaining ruins their entire persona. To tell someone up front that they not are good people because

But subtext cannot work in all the ways it can work in Curious Theatre within Narrative Theatre. There are two realms subtext can work with in both theatres. There is the realm of the play, which means the subtext gives ideas or comments within the world of the play. An example of this is when Booth asked Lincoln if he cried, the subtext was that Lincoln felt more pain than he showed when he lost his job (Parks 75). The subtext stayed within the play. Then, there is the realm of the real world, where the subtext gets political by suggesting things about the real world. An example of this is when Booth points out that Lincoln gets paid less than a white man even though he is doing the same job. The subtext can reach beyond the play and into the real world by implying that black men get treated unfairly (Parks 27). In these two ways, subtext work the same in both Curious and Narrative Theatre. Curious Theatre is special in a way, because Curious Theatre has a third way of using subtext that Narrative Theatre cannot. Basically Curious Theatre can make something have a subtext, but they can do any way they want with it. An example of this is Alice Tuan’s Ajax (por nobody)’s “wienettes”, certainly there is an underling meaning for why Annette felt so strong about calling the wieners “wienettes.” Surely, they symbolizes something within the play or they are there to make a political statement later,