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Worksheets

19th and 20th Century Playwrights & Theater

Total questions: 20

Worksheet time: 10mins

Name
Class
Date
1.

Which concept asks actors to imagine themselves in a character’s circumstances to enhance realistic performance?

a)

Brechtian Alienation distancing performers and audience

b)

Stanislavsky’s Magic If imagining character circumstances

c)

Absurdist paradox rejecting coherent motivation

d)

Boal’s Forum method inviting audience interventions

2.

Brechtian Alienation primarily aims to achieve which audience effect?

a)

Deep empathy with fictional characters

b)

Critical detachment and social reflection

c)

Immersive realism through sensory detail

d)

Cathartic release through tragic unity

3.

Which movement grew after World War II from struggles with meaning and existence?

a)

Naturalism focusing environmental determinism

b)

Existentialism questioning life’s meaning

c)

Neoclassicism emphasizing rational order

d)

Romanticism celebrating individual passion

4.

Absurdist playwrights such as Ionesco and Beckett are best known for works that

a)

follow linear plots with clear resolutions

b)

apply Stanislavsky realism without symbolism

c)

use nonsense to expose human futility

d)

prioritize spectacle over political critique

5.

Which practitioners developed influential acting schools linked to realistic methods?

a)

Stella Adler Lee Strasberg Sanford Meisner

b)

Aristotle Sophocles Euripides Aeschylus

c)

Eugene Ionesco Samuel Beckett Edward Albee

d)

Bertolt Brecht Robert Wilson Augusto Boal

6.

In Rhinoceros by Ionesco the town’s citizens turning into rhinoceroses metaphorically represent

a)

religious salvation guiding moral renewal

b)

collective conformity crushing social order

c)

natural evolution toward animal instincts

d)

scientific progress improving human society

7.

Which pairing correctly matches figure to concept?

a)

Brecht to Magic If technique

b)

Beckett to Method acting studios

c)

Boal to Theatre of the Oppressed

d)

Stanislavsky to Alienation effect

8.

Which modern theatre style features a single performer presenting multiple characters or perspectives onstage?

a)

Broadway musical with chorus lines

b)

Solo Performance Works with one performer

c)

Documentary theatre with large casts

d)

Ethnodrama using community ensembles

9.

Anna Deavere Smith’s hallmark method involves which primary technique for building scripts?

a)

Verbatim interviews crafted into monologues

b)

Original fictional narratives devised alone

c)

Adaptations of classic Greek tragedies

d)

Improvised scenes from workshop groups

10.

Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 centers on the aftermath of what catalyst?

a)

Assassination of a public figure

b)

Broadway strike shutting theatres

c)

Acquittal of Rodney King case officers

d)

Banking crisis and foreclosures

11.

Which play contains the line, “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers”?

a)

A Streetcar Named Desire by Williams

b)

A Doll’s House by Ibsen

c)

The Importance of Being Earnest by Wilde

d)

Fences by August Wilson

12.

Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House primarily tells the story of which theme?

a)

Feminist awakening of Nora’s character

b)

Comic identities and mistaken personas

c)

Apartheid’s impacts on daily life

d)

Black American family and fences

13.

Molière is best known for satirical comedies critiquing which target?

a)

Ancient Roman politics

b)

French society’s hypocrisies

c)

British aristocratic manners

d)

American frontier myths

14.

Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest chiefly warns about what?

a)

Risks of censorship in Victorian art

b)

Perils of industrialization on workers

c)

Dangers of assuming multiple identities

d)

Hazards of gambling and debts

15.

Athol Fugard’s plays primarily address which sociopolitical system?

a)

Colonial rule in India

b)

Feudal class hierarchies

c)

Apartheid and racial segregation

d)

Soviet communist oversight

16.

Lorraine Hansberry is best known for which play linked to a Langston Hughes poem?

a)

The Piano Lesson

b)

A Raisin in the Sun

c)

Seven Guitars

d)

Gem of the Ocean

17.

August Wilson’s cycle focuses on which central subject across his works?

a)

Black American experience and history

b)

Satire of royal courts in Europe

c)

Immigrant struggles in New York

d)

Women’s suffrage and rights

18.

Which August Wilson play tells the story of Troy Maxson and his family?

a)

Fences about Troy and family

b)

Jitney set at a car service

c)

King Hedley II in the 1980s

d)

Radio Golf with real estate

19.

Which title is NOT written by August Wilson?

a)

The Misanthrope by Molière

b)

Seven Guitars by Wilson

c)

Joe Turner’s Come and Gone by Wilson

d)

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom by Wilson

20.

Which pairing correctly matches playwright to thematic focus?

a)

Wilde—Harlem Renaissance portraits

b)

Molière—Soviet political satire

c)

Ibsen—American frontier expansion

d)

Fugard—Apartheid segregation focus