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Theatre Arts for Advanced Secondary Schools

(d) Creating empathy to the audience: Realistic theatre encourages audience
to empathise with characters and their struggles. This fosters a greater
understanding of diverse perspectives and experiences of theatrical
performances. Through empathy, the audience develop a deeper
appreciation for the complexities of human existence on earth.
FOR ONLINE READING ONLY
Activity 1.1

Read a play “Ushuhuda wa Mifupa” by Ibrahim Ngozi. Then, give yourselves
roles to play based on characters and their descriptions of characterisation.
While assuming your characters, read aloud the dialogues and observe each
other closely. Imagine how characters behave, move and speak in various
situations. Pay attention to details such as body language, facial expressions
and vocal tone. Rehearse the play and perform the play for the audience or
participants.

Exercise 1.1

In the process of producing a play to be staged during a welcome form five
celebration, your colleagues are eager to create a realistic play but they do not
know how they would develop a setting for that play. Enlighten your colleagues
on how the setting for the realist play should be.

Naturalism
Naturalism is a movement in theatre which originated in France and other parts of
Europe in the late half of the nineteenth century. Naturalism refers more broadly
to attempts to put on stage as exact copy of life as possible. Naturalism was
propounded by the French playwright, Emile Zola (1840-1902). Zola suggested
that theatre should follow the scientific principles established by Charles Darwin.
According to Zola’s theory of naturalism, drama should look for the causes of
diseases in the society as the way a doctor looks for disease in a patient. Therefore,
theatre should expose social infections in their utmost ugliness. Following
Darwin’s view of life, Zola suggested that theatre should portray human beings
as products of heredity and environment which will result into a drama often
depicting the ugly underside of life but also of expressing a pessimistic point of
view of life. Naturalists suggest that drama should not be carefully constructed
but rather be presented as “a slice of life” which is an attempt to look at life

Form Five 4

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