Weekly Task 3: What is theatre? How do you think theatre, as a media form, communicates messages to its audience?

              Based from the research and references that I have found through Wikipedia, theatre is known as a collaborative form of fine art or performing arts that uses performers to present experience of a real or event which is being imagined before a live audience in a specific place. The performers will bring the audience an imagined or live events to let the audience experience them through the combinations of songs, music, dances, gestures as well as speeches. All these elements enhance the quality of a good theatre on the stage. In this modern era, theatre nowadays also includes performances of plays and musicals. One good example is the "Phantom of The Opera". Despite that, theatre can also be broadly defined to ballet and opera.
             
              A movie theatre is the venue where the audience gathered together and sat together to view and watch the film. Every theatre film possess a meaning behind of the story which is in fact written by the script writer. The director will request the actors or actress on the stage to perform well so that the messages can be reached to the target audience. For instance, the director will ensure the performers to act well so that the true emotions are being shown to everyone. The audience will feel sadness when they can see there droplets of tears around the performers. They can sense happiness through hearing the tone of their dialogues. This shows that theatre can even convey messages not only in a direct manner but also int can be in a indirect way.
         
              Furthermore, we can determine the settings of the story or the background settings of the story through the visual appearance of the costumes being wore by the performers. We can also know the origins of the characters through listening to the slang or accent as they are delivering their speeches. Another way we can determine the settings and the mood of the story is through observing the settings on the camera settings and lightings as well. We will see horror story or mystery story tend to focus on low key lighting and shadows are being used well to amplify the effect of the eeriness. We can sense danger upon seeing the character is looking down from the top of a skyscraper building.

               
              The last point that I would like to pinpoint is the scenes of a film or theatre plays an essential role to communicate the message to the audience as well. For example, we can know the flow of the story after watching them, since the involvement of the three acts structures. We can know the beginning, climax and the resolution of the story to be told through paying attention the details of the story. Some stories also make good use of the adaptation of the flashback technique and also the suspense style. Even these adaptations are depicted for the particular story, we as the audience will still be able to grasp the idea of the whole story since there will be hints and brief explanations by the characters involved through dialogues or even actings.




Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre