Understading Robert Edmond Jones' Towards a New Theater

A detailed Summary of Understading Robert Edmond Jones' Towards a New Theater

In the second chapter of his book "Towards a New Theatre", Robert Edmond Jones explains the loss of art in American theatre. Although American theatre puts on the best show, has beautiful sets, and can do a good job "faking it", what we [as American actors] are practicing is far from what theatre should be. Drama is all around us, Jones comments, but not in the theatre. Today's theatre is missing life and is terribly out of date, years behind our times. He attributes this lack of zest partially to our clinging to the realistic approach to the theatre that has kept us backward and shows our lack of vitality and creativity. Jones stresses that today's theatre needs to get back to creating life. The problem with this, he points out, is that "it takes life to create life in the theatre," and people today do not experience anything in life, they only learn about them and mimic. He emphasizes that to do theatre "correctly" we must use our hearts not our heads, our emotions and not our reason for t

Maybe I have not seen enough productions or been involved with the theatre long enough to pinpoint all these "problems" that Jones makes known. As far as American theatre losing its' "life" and being behind the times, I cannot see how theatre can possibly keep up with the times. Yes, the plot lines will change, the forms might change, but the emotions and behavior will remain the same because human nature remains the same. Of course certain actors portray those emotions in different ways, for example grief would be shown differently depending on the play, but the emotion itself will remain the same. So when Jones says that today's theatre has not changed and we must start anew, I cannot see where he is coming from. Perhaps its' just my shortsightedness and fear to let go of realism that makes me feel this way; I think Jones would agree. I do empathize with Jones' statement that today's theatre has lost its' focus on its biggest critics and the reason to why theatre has survived, the audience

Some common words found in the essay are:
Drama Jones, Edmond Jones, Overall Jones', today's theatre, , american theatre, biggest critics, public art, logic reason, theatre today's,

Approximate Word count = 676
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

join now Save Paper

Saved Paper

Save your papers so you can locate them quickly!

Newest Essays

Testimonials

"Thank You So Much!!! You have saved me once again!!!"
Jack M.
"With so many papers to chose from, I was able to get ideas to help me with all of my classes. Thank You!"
Brian P.
"I've used this site for the last 3 years to help me come up with ideas for my papers."
Sara J.
"I use this site every week to help me write my own papers!"
Rachel W.
"I love this site!!!"
Marie N.