Fairytale

An old and traditionally oral story, often assumed to be suitable only for children, in which the ordinary laws of nature are superseded by fantasy and the fulfillment of wishes. Fairytales are often surprisingly violent and typically composed of conventional elements such as handsome princes and sleeping beauties, enchanted forests, talking animals, wicked mothers and witches, and trials or enchanted objects that come in threes. Fairytale characters often use magic or guile to defeat rivals, marry a rich monarch, and live happily ever after.

Farce

Sometimes classed as the "lowest" form of comedy. Its humour depends not on verbal wit, but on physicality and sight gags: pratfalls, beatings, peltings with pies, malfunctioning equipment, unpleasant surprises, and sudden necessities to hide in boxes and closets. However, most comedy contains some elements of farce, which requires highly skilled actors for its effects. Also called "slapstick" in honour of the double-shafted baton carried by Arlecchino in commedia dell'arte, which, when struck against another actor in a simulated beating, made a loud slap.

Folio Edition

A large-format printed version of a manuscript, often used in connection with Shakespeare's plays. After Shakespeare's death, two of his former partners in the King's Company, John Heminges and Henry Condell, collected thirty-six of his plays (excluding Pericles and Two Noble Kinsmen) and in 1623 published the collection in a volume that has since been called the First Folio. "Folio" refers to the size obtained when a sheet of paper of standard size is folded once, making two leaves or four pages, which can then be sewn together along the fold to make a book. When the sheet is folded twice—creating four leaves or eight pages—it is called a " quarto."

Forestage

See apron.

Fringe Theatre

The production of plays and performance pieces outside or "on the margins" of mainstream theatre institutions.

Furies

In the Oresteia trilogy, the spirits of vengeance. They were conceived in Greek mythology as underworld goddesses who punish murderers or incite the victim's surviving relatives to do so. Euphemistically called the Eumenides, "the kindly ones" (out of fear of offending them, as their cruelty was notorious), these frightful goddesses comprise the chorus of the final tragedy in Aeschylus's trilogy.

Gallery

Used in several senses to refer to an upper balcony in a theatre. In the Elizabethan public theatre, musicians sat in a "musicians' gallery" above the stage; indoor London theatre auditoriums of the next few centuries were divided intp pit, boxes, and gallery, the last being the uppermost and least expensive seats. To "play to the gallery" is to pitch the level of one's performance to (what was assumed to be) the least discerning members of the audience, originally servants of those sitting below.

Harlequinades

A form of theatrical entertainment popular in England in the eighteenth century, consisting of English versions of the stock characters of Italian commedia dell'arte. See also pantomime.

History Play

A dramatic re-imagining of real people and events drawn from the annals of the past. Shakespeare and Schiller are considered among the greatest writers of history plays; Büchner and Strindberg are also noted for them. From time to time, such works have played important roles in the establishment of a nation's self-image and founding myths. Some degree of anachronism tends to be considered acceptable in historical dramas.

Humorous Comedy

A play emphasizing laughter; used in the context of eighteenth-century theatre in contrast with sentimental comedy. (Sentimental comedy was meant to induce "a joy too exquisite for laughter." Advanced by writers such as Richard Steele in the early eighteenth century, it was a wholesome, anti-aristocratic, middle-class alternative to the sex-and-adultery comedy of the Restoration.)


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