Chinese Plays for Kids

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Because so few of the common people understood Latin, everyday language was typically used in the plays instead. Performances were moved to the cathedral steps and churchyard. Here began the elaborate mystery plays, which told stories from the Bible in dramatic form. Later, miracle plays portrayed the lives of the saints.

Next to come were the morality plays, in which characters personified moral qualities such as charity or vice or abstractions as death or youth and in which moral lessons were taught. The Elizabethan Age in England showered the world with a burst of brilliant playwrights. Dramatists wrote in an enormous range of genres, mixing humor with passion, shifting between verse and prose and back, and testing and extending the English language. The early Elizabethan Christopher Marlowe —93 is best remembered for Doctor Faustus , in which Faustus sells his soul to the devil in exchange for years of power on Earth.

William Shakespeare — is the acknowledged master of Western drama not only for his own age but for all time. His plays, though often based on borrowed stories, are ingeniously plotted, filled with wonderful characters and extraordinary language. Above all, his genius penetrates and speaks to the human heart and mind.

Perhaps his finest tragedy, Hamlet , tells of a young prince who takes revenge on his uncle for having slain his father, the king. His history plays, such as Richard III and Henry V , use the history of England as the basis for their plots, but, like all his work, reveal the humanity of his characters and the magic and music of his language.

Meanwhile, Spain was experiencing its Golden Age of literature. His works frequently focused on a theme of honor, or reputation, and were less concerned with character than with action and intrigue. Seventeenth-century French drama took two distinct paths. These rules required a play to have a single action represented as unfolding over a single day and in a single setting.

His genius was for comedy. In England, in , the Puritans closed the theaters. In , when Charles II was restored to the throne, the theaters were reopened. This active period, known as the Restoration, produced the sophisticated comedy of manners, which amused the intellect.

The Way of the World is the masterpiece of William Congreve — , the finest Restoration dramatist. The 18th century in England opened on a sentimental note in drama. Comedy emphasized warmth, kindliness, and agreeableness rather than wit. Tragedy was equally sentimental, with the debut of domestic tragedy. Late 18th-century German drama was part of the romantic Sturm und Drang Storm and Stress movement, which glorified nature, feeling, and human individualism and denied that reason was the best way to understand the world. Friedrich Schiller — and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — began their careers as members of the movement.

Both physical and spiritual freedom were issues in the work of Schiller, who is perhaps best known for William Tell Many 19th-century dramatists focused on writing melodramas.

Use Role Plays to Motivate Children to Learn Chinese

Their often lurid stage effects, improbable plots, stock character types, and naive moral lessons offered little artistic merit—but they were vastly popular. However, the end of the 19th century marked the beginning of modern drama, with a naturalistic treatment of both subject matter and style. Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen — , one of the greatest of modern playwrights, put his characters into challenging social and personal situations and then examined their actions and attitudes with intense psychological scrutiny.

Modern British drama began in revolt against the general smugness of the Victorian Era. Real evils and troubles of English life were hidden from view by the self-satisfied attitudes of the upper classes. The dramatic revolt started slowly but soon gained speed. Henry Arthur Jones — was the first notable playwright of this movement.

Michael and His Lost Angel deals with religious hypocrisy. Tanqueray , a tragedy about a woman who cannot escape her past. Oscar Wilde — , the wittiest man of his day, wrote one play that has remained alive, the polished, superficial, but still delightful The Importance of Being Earnest. The long lifetime of one of the greatest of modern playwrights spanned this era.

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George Bernard Shaw — excelled in the world of ideas. He could make a host of contrary notions acceptable by the brilliance of his presentation. His galaxy is large. His Justice is a harsh condemnation of law untempered by mercy. Somerset Maugham — wrote drama as well as fiction. The Irish Renaissance in literature aimed to revive the old Celtic language and stories. The genius of this group was John Millington Synge — He wrote only seven plays during his short life and career, the most famous being The Playboy of the Western World. But in collecting in his works the flights of fancy and colorful, earthy sayings of the Irish peasants, he created a new dramatic mode of expression, spoken in English but given vitality by Irish rhythms, ways of thought, and imagery.

Russian playwrights of this period produced strong character studies. The characters recognize the need for growth and change, they make vague gestures toward achieving it, but in the end they fall back on their old ways. The greatest Russian playwright was Anton Chekhov — The tragedy is that the characters cannot change too. Their only solution is to live as best they can.

Modern dramatists began by putting the speech and behavior of real life onstage in their plays.

As the 20th century moved forward, they and their audiences grew interested in the symbolic revelation of the human condition. The groundbreaking work of German playwright Bertolt Brecht — pushed past the limits of conventional Western drama. He wanted theater to teach and to promote a critical detachment in the audience that made them think and question. Characters in the marathon psychological drama Strange Interlude speak often in soliloquies and in asides to the audience that reveal their deepest thoughts.

During the s Clifford Odets —63 dramatized the struggles of working-class people with Awake and Sing and Golden Boy. The naturalistic movement and subsequent developments in modern drama freed playwrights of the 20th and the early 21st centuries to pursue every kind of style—and they experimented wildly. Since World War II, European and American playwrights have adopted the dramatic mode, style, and effects that best suit their subject or story.

Principal among mid-century French dramatists was Jean Anouilh — Anouilh advocated the return of poetry and imagination to the experience of theater, utilizing many styles to accomplish this in his plays. By contrast, an eerie realism and despair marked the work of French philosopher-dramatist Jean-Paul Sartre — In the s and s two major dramatists dominated the American stage: Arthur Miller — and Tennessee Williams — He created exquisitely drawn characters, particularly women, whose dreams and illusions are dashed by harsh reality. The Theater of the Absurd is a term of convenience created to describe various mid-century dramatists whose themes and techniques grew largely out of those introduced by Brecht and Sartre.

He is probably best known for The Odd Couple , about two newly divorced men who share an apartment in New York City. With his semiautobiographical trilogy— Brighton Beach Memoirs , Biloxi Blues , and Broadway Bound —Simon augmented his trademark humor with fuller characterizations and more meaningful insights. The s also witnessed further theatrical experimentation and excitement that developed in off-off-Broadway and regional theaters.

There were attempts to break down the distinction between audience and performers, and taboos regarding subject matter and language were often abandoned. David Mamet American Buffalo , ; Glengarry Glen Ross , ; Oleanna , became known for his gritty realism, in both content and characteristically clipped and profanity-riddled dialogue. Among the increasing number of women playwrights being produced around the turn of the 21st century, one of the most highly regarded was Wendy Wasserstein The Heidi Chronicles , ; The Sisters Rosenzweig , , who aimed intelligence and humor on the dilemmas facing educated women of the era.

One of the most acclaimed black dramatists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, August Wilson , earned Pulitzer prizes for Fences in and The Piano Lesson in His plays present finely wrought characters, often embroiled in domestic and social conflict. Of the many fine British dramatists who were writing in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, two of particular note are Tom Stoppard and Michael Frayn.

Stoppard established his reputation for verbal brilliance, penetrating intellect, and extremely nimble and imaginative dramatic craft with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead The play centers entirely on two minor characters from Hamlet in order to examine the idea that man is simply a tiny cog in a very large and unfathomable wheel. Stoppard continued to dazzle both audiences and critics with the virtuosity of such plays as Travesties , The Real Thing , Arcadia , and The Invention of Love Michael Frayn captured international attention with his dizzyingly clever play-within-a-play farce, Noises Off He demonstrated great versatility and depth in his drama of ideas that probes the morality of atomic physics, Copenhagen , and in Democracy , set in the office of the chancellor of West Germany in the s.

The story of Asian drama is a sharp contrast to the development of drama in Europe and North America.

Why Chineasy?

Asian drama, most prominently that of India, Japan, and China, shows neither the variety of styles nor the frequent and striking patterns of change found throughout the history of Western theater. The reasons for these differences lie in the very different cultural and religious backgrounds against which the two traditions have developed. The actual origins of Asian dramatic traditions are lost in time, though their themes and characteristic styles are likely much the same as before records were kept.

Cultural differences also account for the fact that the East, unlike the West, has never had a tradition of tragic drama. Tragedy requires a strong belief in individualism—an esteem for questioning fate, the gods, chance, the past, or an unjust universe. Asian cultural traditions, on the other hand, tend to value the group and social harmony over the individual, to prize agreement with accepted beliefs rather than defiance of them. According to ancient Hindu scripture, the gods fought the demons before the world was created, and the god Brahma asked the gods to reenact the battle among themselves for their own entertainment.

Myth also declares that Brahma ordered that dance and drama be combined. In the West, by contrast, music or dance is considered an additive ingredient. And so, without strong boundaries between the arts, Asian drama has developed extremely complex artistic forms that produce on their audiences a wonderfully rich and subtle effect.

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In a strange sense to Western ways of thinking , classical Asian drama is probably the most formal, controlled, and yet, at the same time, imaginatively suggestive and stimulating tradition in world theater. This extreme theatricality provides an imaginative freedom to its artists and audiences.

In order to share this freedom, however, the playwright, performers, and audience must understand and share an appreciation for the many strict and long-standing stage conventions—that is, customs or norms—that control character, action and plot, and style. Over centuries of refinement by devoted theater professionals, Asian performance modes became highly stylized and very difficult to change. The performances that resulted are exceptionally elegant, precisely detailed, and sophisticated. To Western eyes and ears, Asian drama can seem more like a fusion of ballet and opera in which the written text takes a subordinate role.

To understand and enjoy such challenging dramatic literature and performance modes requires considerable time, energy, and commitment. Most dramatic forms in Asia were originally created exclusively for the aristocratic elite and royalty. Those groups were the only ones who had the leisure to study and attend the theater often enough to gain an appreciation of such complexity and nuance. Folk drama did exist in most Asian cultures, for the entertainment of the largely uneducated masses.

And though they often developed out of the elite forms, the folk dramas were simpler, more flexible, more accessible. Indian theater is often considered the oldest in Asia, having developed its dance and drama by the 8th century bc. Among the elements of classical Indian drama—poetry, music, and dance—the sound of the words took on greater importance than the action or the narrative. Staging, therefore, was basically the enactment of poetry. To Western viewers, productions often seem to wander. This is because classical playwrights relied heavily on the poetic techniques of simile and metaphor, rather than presenting a chronological tale.

Sometime between the 2nd century bc and about the 4th century ad , the Natya-sastra Treatise on the Dramatic Arts was written. This complete collection of rules for all the performing arts, especially for the sacred art of drama, contains, for example, the code of hand gestures for the dancer and the actor and describes the various patterns that drama can assume.

Every imaginable aspect of a play is covered. His love and adventure tales soar effortlessly between different times and places mingling wit and courtly humor with charming sentiment and religious devotion. The plays combine music, speech, song, and dance to deal with a broad range of subjects and styles—heroic legends, moral stories, and brilliant farces.

What other effects can you produce? Add music and sound effects to make your show truly magical.

Share your voice

This is a good way to involve several kids in your show. One or two move the puppets, and other s who are also hidden behind the screen play music or make noises to enhance the story. Be creative and think rain sticks , drums , shaking bottles of water…. Take turns manipulating the puppets during your rehearsal so everyone can see what shadows look like to the audience.

Kids love being in charge. Let them create leaflets or signs to promote your shadow puppet show to friends and family. Take some pictures during your rehearsal and post an invitation on Facebook or send emails to special guests. Those are fairly easy for young kids to master. If you have older kids, they may want to try hand shadow puppetry. Watch a great example of cute animal hand shadows here. There are many characters and animals you can make with your hands to produce a show from nothing but a light and a screen.

Check out this amazing shadow dance. The sky is the limit in terms of using light and shadows, so if you have teens you could challenge them to create a shadow dance. Our kids performed Chinese shadow theater for our relatives during the Christmas holidays and all were impressed by how creative their story was. Everybody fell quiet as soon as the room got dark, and this unusual silence helped the kids focus. Our shadow-puppet show proved a great experience for my shy daughter, because she could be the star of the show without actually being seen!

What do you think? Have you ever played with shadows with your kids? Did they surprise you with their stories?

Which shadows worked best? About the Author , Gaelle Cuillerot. Mother of two kids, she writes about her craft projects for kids on Inspiration Nature. My kids love to put on puppet shows. Adding the shadow element will make it even more fun. This is an amazing activity — very creative, Gaelle!

Thanks for the nice comment! Chinese shadows are easy to set up, and playing with light is really cool…. This is a great activity. My daughter and I watched a shadow puppet show this summer at our county fair and she loved it. Great activity — thank you! Dear Crystal, I love the idea of recording it on video! Creating a world of their own. Searching online for your theme. Hold the printed shape over the black cardstock and cut both.

Tape your puppet to the wooden skewer. Use a doorframe to create your theater screen. You can place the portable Chinese shadow theater anywhere you want. Use a cardboard box to hide kids from the audience. Moving your puppet toward the light source makes its shadow larger. A colander creates magical stars. And let the show begin. January 29, at 9: January 29, at 1: January 29, at 3: January 29, at January 31, at

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