Learn English Vocabulary: Going to the theatre

178,224 views ・ 2020-03-24

Learn English with Gill


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Hello, I'm Gill at www.engvid.com and today's lesson is on the subject of going to the theatre,
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okay?
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So, this links a little bit with another lesson we had with meeting up with a friend, one
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of the options was to go to the theatre, while another is to go to an art gallery, so this
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one is if you have arranged with your friend to go to the theatre, this is what to expect
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when you get there.
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And also, in the second part of the lesson, we'll be looking at ways of talking about
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the play that you're watching, maybe either in the interval or at the end of the play,
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you would want to talk to your friend about what you've been watching, okay.
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So, first of all, going to the theatre, you've probably been to the theatre in your own country,
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so you know what's involved.
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But this is specifically for a UK type of theatre, okay.
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So, you've probably arranged where to meet already, either outside the theatre or inside,
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in the foyer, which is just inside the entrance, the entrance hall of the theatre, the foyer,
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which is a French word, in the bar, or in the café, or in the shop.
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Not all theatres have all of these things in them, it depends.
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The bigger theatres will have all of those things.
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Smaller theatres will probably not have all of those.
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They may not have a shop.
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They may not have a bar.
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Some theatres are actually above a pub, the public house in the UK, they're very small
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theatres, so there is a pub, somewhere to drink, particularly the downstairs part of
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the building before you go up or behind to the back of the building to the theatre section,
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so we'll talk about that a little bit more later on.
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So, you arrange where to meet, so these are the names for different places to meet in
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or around the theatre.
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And then when you go in, you may have to, if you don't already have your tickets, you
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need to go to the box office.
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This is the place where you get your tickets.
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You may have already paid for them in advance or you may want to ask the person in the box
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office, "Do you have any seats for today's performance?" and they might show you a chart,
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the seating plan, where would you want to sit?
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Okay, so the box office is where you go for your tickets, right.
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And then once you've got your tickets, you may also want to buy a program, which is a
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little booklet containing a lot of information about the show that you're there to see.
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So, the program will list the names of the people performing in the show, the people
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who have been involved in the technical side, the lighting, the sound effects, the costumes,
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creating the scenery on the stage, all of the sort of artistic side that goes into a
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production.
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So, the program will give a sort of - it's a kind of way of giving credit, you get the
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credits in the program for everybody, because it's a big sort of team effort putting on
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a play, lots of people are involved.
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So, all the credits for everybody who has worked on that production will go into the
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program.
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And there will be a little bit about the story of - if it's a play or a musical or whatever
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it is, there will be a bit of information about the show itself, what it's about, so
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it's a useful thing to look at before you go in to see the show.
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Okay?
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So, then you're inside the theatre building, and then when it gets close to the time that
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the show is due to start, you will probably hear an announcement over a loudspeaker, usually.
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You will hear something like "Ladies and Gentlemen, the show will begin in five minutes.", something
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like that.
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"Please take your seats.", meaning please go in and sit down, it doesn't mean take,
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people joke about this.
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When you take your seat, it means you sit down in your seat, it doesn't mean you pick
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the seat up and take it somewhere.
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So, it's a little bit ambiguous, but "Please take your seats" means go in, sit down, we
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need you in there ready for the show to start.
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So, when you hear that, you go to the entrance, into what's called the auditorium, the sort
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of central part of the theatre where everybody sits, where the audience - the audience sits,
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and they're looking up at the stage where the performers are, so you have to go in.
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So, at the entrance, you have to usually show your ticket to somebody who is checking to
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make sure that people don't go in who have not bought a ticket.
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That person is called an usher.
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It's a funny old fashioned word, but they will check your ticket and they might say
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- they might give you some directions like "Turn left, just go up the steps and your
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seat is just over on the right", something like that, so you go in, into the auditorium.
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If - on your ticket, you may have some numbers and letters that tell you where your seat
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is, but there are some smaller theatres called "fringe theatre".
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They're not big theatres in, say, London, West End, the London West End, the big theatres
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in Central London.
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A fringe theatre, as I said earlier, it's often a little theatre above a pub or at the
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back of a pub building.
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So, those are quite small, often there is only seating for maybe 40 or 50 people, 60,
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70 at the most.
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So, with a fringe theatre, often there are no seat numbers.
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There's nothing on your ticket to say where you should sit.
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You just go in and look around and decide where you want to sit.
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So, if you're one of the last people in, you just have to sit wherever there's a space.
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If you go in early, you can probably find a really nice seat in the front row or something,
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okay?
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So, a larger theatre - on your ticket, you will usually have the row number and the seat
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number.
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So, in an auditorium, you've got all the rows of seats like that, and say that's the stage
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there, and then you've got rows and they're often "A, B, C, D, E", etc., so the rows are
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in letters and then within each row you have seat numbers.
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So, that would be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.
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So, if you have D3 on your ticket, you want Row D, Seat 3.
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If you have G38 on your ticket, you need Row G, and it must be a very long row to have
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at least 38 seats in it, go along, you often have to go past people, say "Excuse me, Excuse
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me, Sorry, Excuse me" to get past people who are already sitting there.
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So, find your seat, sit down, get comfortable, get ready for the show to begin, okay.
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One very important thing is to switch off your mobile phone, okay?
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If mobile phones ring during a performance, it's one of the worst things that can happen
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in the theatre world.
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It's very distracting for the performers and it's very distracting for other members of
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the audience.
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People get very angry if mobile phones start ringing.
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So, don't disrupt the show.
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Don't spoil the show for yourself and for other people.
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Turn off your mobile phone.
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And also, you know, you're there to see a show.
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You've paid money to see it.
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You need to concentrate on the show.
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If you had your mobile phone on and you were checking your text messages at the same time,
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it's not like watching television where maybe you've got your mobile phone on and you're
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also watching television, it's not like that.
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You really need to concentrate 100% on the play or the show that you're seeing.
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So, sometimes people have said they saw someone in the audience with the light from their
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mobile phone shining.
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They could see somebody was actually on their phone during a performance, so I know sometimes
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it's - there's an emergency or something, but really, you should turn your mobile phone
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off, okay, for various reasons.
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Right, and then you can really sit back and relax and enjoy what you're watching.
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So, and then quite often, any production, any performance will have an interval, usually
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there's a first half and a second half with an interval in between.
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So, you have a choice, quite often, whether to just stay if it's a 20-minute interval
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and, if you're like me, you'll think "Oh, I just want to sit here and read the program
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or something.
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I don't want to get up out of my seat and walk out with all these other people and then
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stand around not knowing what to do for 20 minutes.
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I just want to stay in my seat and just read the program or chat to my friend or whatever.",
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but you do have the option of going out in the interval.
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Some people order drinks for the interval.
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They may have ordered drinks in advance and paid given a name and they go out and they
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find that their drinks have been set out for them with their name to save time, or people
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just go out and get some drinks at the bar.
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Sometimes, though, you're not allowed to stay in your seat in the interval.
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Sometimes, because the production people want to change what's happening on the stage, if
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there's no curtain to close off the stage, if it's an open stage, they may want to change
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the set or do something and they don't want people sitting there watching them while they
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do that, so they might say "Ladies and Gentlemen, please leave the auditorium during the interval.",
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so it depends on the production, really.
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Okay, so that's the first half of our lesson.
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I hope that's been useful with some vocabulary and the kind of things to expect in a UK theatre,
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so we'll now move on to the second part of the lesson and have a look at a little bit
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more to do with talking about the theatre with the friend that you're with.
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Okay, so you've seen the play, the show, or you've seen half of it and you're in the interval
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and you're with your friend.
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So, the most logical thing to do is to talk about what you've just seen.
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So, what will you talk about?
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How do you talk about a play that you're in the middle of watching or that you've just
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seen?
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What kind of things can you say?
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So, I think it helps to look at different aspects of the play.
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All the different parts that go into it.
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So, the people performing, things connected with the story, who wrote it, the visual aspect
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of what it looks like onstage, so let's just go through those and see what kinds of things
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you can talk about.
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So, one of the obvious things when you go to a play is you're watching actors and actresses
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and you may be thinking "Oh, they're so good, the way they're performing, they're so good
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at what they're doing.", hopefully.
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So, the acting, but maybe they're so good that you forget that they're acting.
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You start to think these are real people, maybe.
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So, actors, that's the word for a male actor, but nowadays, female actresses are also called
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"actors" nowadays for reasons of equality.
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Women are often called "actors" as well, but the word "actress" is still used as well,
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so actors, actresses, the acting, the acting in general.
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So, you could say to your friend, "Oh, isn't the acting good?"
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Isn't the acting good?
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Meaning all of the actors, aren't they good?
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Okay.
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You may think, if you're at one of the big theatres where they have very famous people
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performing there sometimes, you may think you've seen one of those actors before, perhaps
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on television or in a film, so then you might have a look at the program to see which - what's
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the name of the actor playing that part?
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And then in the program also, you get little biographical notes for each performer to say
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where they have appeared before, other plays they've been in, films they've been in, television
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programs they've been in, so you can read a little bit about each actor in the program
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and then that might help to remind you of a TV program perhaps, where you saw that person
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before.
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They may have been in a completely different kind of role, the character, the role, it's
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called the role or the part that they're playing, actors sometimes play quite different personalities
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in the different roles that they do.
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So, you could find out from the program if you think you've seen someone before, okay?
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So that's one thing to talk about with your friend.
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And then, the production itself, the actors are playing characters, so they're fictional,
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often fictional characters, so each character has a different personality, they're all behaving
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in different ways.
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There will be relationships between the different characters onstage.
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So, you might want to talk about a particular character, what you think of them, if they're
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a nice person or not a nice person, whether you like them or dislike them.
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Of course, if in a play, if all the characters were nice people, it would probably be very
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- a very boring play because the thing about plays is that there has to be some kind of
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conflict, a problem to be resolved.
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So, if all the characters are nice to each other all the way through the play, there
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won't be very much drama in it.
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So, you have to have some bad characters or badly behaved characters in a play, otherwise
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there's nothing - nothing happening, okay.
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So, the characters and how they behave is another subject you can talk about.
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And then, what links in with that is the situation that the characters are in, the story that
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you're seeing.
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The plot, the word "plot" is to do with the sort of consequences - if somebody does something,
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then that makes something else happen, and then that makes something else happen, the
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plot is the sort of forward movement of the story, okay.
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So, you can talk about that, one character does something, and it sets off something
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else happening.
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It may cause an accident, for example, so if a character leaves a child's toy on the
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floor and they don't tidy it up and the child's toy is perhaps something with wheels on it,
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a little toy train, and then another character comes along and they don't see it but they
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step on it and they fall over and hit their head and hurt themselves, that's part of the
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plot.
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It's a consequence of somebody doing something.
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Okay, so you could talk about whether it seems realistic, true to life, or exaggerated, because
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in Drama, things can be exaggerated just to make it more exciting.
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It could be surreal, even, if it doesn't really feel real, it just feels - it seems very strange,
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strange things happen, that would be surreal.
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Not real, but surreal.
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Very, very odd things happening, okay.
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And then there's the question of who actually wrote the play or the show, whatever it is.
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Whether it's written by a man or a woman, what their nationality is, whether it's a
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translation that you're watching, maybe with a Russian play like by Chekhov, in the UK,
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that would be performed in an English translation, and there are lots of different translations
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of the same plays by different translators in different periods in history, so you could
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have a modern translation of Chekhov, or you could have a much older translation of Chekhov,
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so all sorts of things like that to talk about.
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Okay.
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And maybe you can also read in the program about the person who wrote the play, find
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out a bit more about them from there, okay.
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And then there's the visual aspect of the set, what you can see on the stage, the scenery,
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furniture, things like that.
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What does it look like?
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Is it a room in somebody's house, or is it in the open air in a field in the countryside,
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near a farm?
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It could be anything.
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So, you talk about that and whether you think it's been well designed or not.
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Okay.
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Costumes and hairstyles, there's somebody in the production team responsible for these
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things, so you can talk about the - what people are wearing, the actors are wearing, their
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hairstyle, whether they're modern or historical, is it present day or is it a long time back
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in history when people wore different styles of clothes?
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Then there are things like the music, the sound effects, which add to the atmosphere
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of the play.
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And the lighting, just lighting, you know, the different colors, different effects, if
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it's a scene, for example, in the countryside on a summer's day, the lighting has to try
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to suggest sunshine, so that's something that has to be achieved inside an enclosed building
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to create a sense of sunshine in the open air.
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So, there is a skill to the lighting.
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So, those are some specific things you can talk about with your friend either during
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the interval or after the play.
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And then, okay, so say you've watched the whole play and it's come to an end and then
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it's time to go home, so you might want to say just a few general things afterwards to
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your friend.
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Maybe "Thanks for coming.", "It was interesting.", or if you really liked it, "Oh, it was amazing.",
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or "It was fascinating.", there are quite strong positive things to say.
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If you think it was a bit strange, you could say "Oh, it was unusual.
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It was an unusual play, but interesting."
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You don't want to sound too negative about it, even if you really didn't like it, you
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don't want your friend to think that, you know, you've both wasted your time bothering
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to go, so you could say "Oh, it was unusual, wasn't it?
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I haven't seen a play like that before."
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"It was strange.", or if it was a comedy, "It was funny.", or "It was sad.", it could
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be both funny and sad in different places, "It was dramatic.", of course, you expect
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any play to be dramatic, the word "drama" means a play, but "dramatic", it might be
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more than just normally dramatic.
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Very exciting, for example.
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And you can just use a word like "Oh, it was enjoyable.
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It was really enjoyable, I'm glad we came, and see you again soon.", that sort of thing.
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So, I hope that's given you some ideas of how you would talk to your friend about a
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play and anyone you see afterwards, if you're having a conversation a few days later and
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you're telling them about the play that you went to see, you can tell them a little bit
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about it, too, using the similar sorts of ideas here.
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Okay, so, if you'd like to go the website www.engvid.com , there is quiz there to test
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you on this lesson, and thanks for watching and hope to see you again soon.
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Bye for now.
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