Early Theatre

Whether you believe it or not, Theatre has been around since the start of the human race and was originally used for communication in order to survive. 

Early humans communicated by means of speech (mainly grunts) or by signs and gestures. They could also signal with fire and smoke, drums, whistles. They would often have to act out information due to their limited speech. This is an example of how theatre was and still is used not only as entertainment. 

They evolved to be able to communicate through drawings on the side of cave walls. Many of these cave paintings have been preserved and there are photos of paintings which depict animals such as deer and lions:

 For our first exercise, in our groups, we were given a prompt which was to act out a scene of a hunter gatherer returning from scouting. He had found a herd of dear nearby and had to inform his hungry tribe. He used gestures and grunts to show us what he had found. We moved around whilst crouched occasionally resting our fists on the ground to imitate a monkey. 

 The exercise was very useful as it showed us that theatre isn't just going to a comedy play on a Saturday night to escape and have a few laughs but actually a vital tool which has helped us to survive for so long. 

EXTRA:

This prompted us to look into other uses of theatre in the modern world which aren't just plays. The main examples we came up with were: Court rooms, going to church and even houses of parliament. These all include some form of dressing up/ costumes and then telling a story to an audience to convince/ sway them.

Theatre is heavily misconceived as a just a luxury and a useless skill even though millions and maybe even billions of peoples lives are effected by theatre in one way or another. Lastly, we thought of the skills one could potentially gain from drama. We realised that being able to act well is infinitely helpful no matter what career you choose.