| 释义 |
arena|əˈriːnə|
Pl. arenas.
[a. L. arēna, prop. harēna, sand, the sand-strewn place of combat in an amphitheatre, etc.]
1. The central part of an amphitheatre, in which the combats or spectacular displays take place, and which was originally strewn with sand to absorb the blood of the wounded and slain. Used also, by extension, of the whole amphitheatre.
1627Hakewill Apol. (1630) 396 The Arena, the place below in which their games were exhibited. 1776Gibbon Decl. & F. I. 352 The arena, or stage, was strewed with the finest sand. 1812Byron Ch. Har. i. lxviii, The thronged arena shakes with shouts for more. 1879Froude Cæsar vi. 55 Exhibiting a hundred lions in the arena matched against Numidian archers.
2. fig. A scene or sphere of conflict; a battle-field.
1814Byron Lara ii. ix, But dragg'd again upon the arena, stood A leader not unequal to the feud. 1817Chalmers Astron. Disc. ii. (1852) 50 The arena on which the modern philosophy has won all her victories. c1854Stanley Sinai & Pal. ix. 329 It would naturally become the arena of war. 1863H. Rogers J. Howe vii. 181 Howe seldom entered the arena of controversy.
3. Any sphere of public or energetic action.
1798Malthus Popul. (1878) 330 A large arena for the employment of an increasing capital. 1857H. Reed Lect. Brit. Poets iv. 127 Rushing into the arena of authorship.
4. Med. ‘Gravel bred in a Human Body.’ Phillips 1706. ‘Sand or gravel deposited from the urine.’ Syd. Soc. Lex. 1880.
5. Applied attrib. to a style of play production in which the stage is so positioned in the auditorium that it is surrounded by the audience, who thus, as in the Greek theatron, see the players ‘in the round’.
This style was introduced in November 1932 by Glenn Hughes, director of the Washington School of Drama. His first productions were known as ‘Penthouse’ from the place of their performance; the word arena came later as the technique was adopted elsewhere in America and abroad.
1944N. Felton in National Theatre Conference Bull. (U.S.) VI. 17 (title) Arena Theatre. Method for Producing a Play. 1948Theatre Arts June—July 58 Called variously central staging, theatre-in-the-round, or arena theatre, the new form has suddenly made any large unencumbered room a possible stage. 1949Here & Now (N.Z.) Oct. 14/2 From the point of view of a touring company the advantages of an arena production are fairly obvious. 1955Times 11 May 7/2 The auditorium..is in the shape of a semi-circle, but may be changed into a circle for what is called the ‘arena stage’, when the movable sides of the proscenium opening are taken away and the curve of the cyclorama is extended to make a wall behind three additional rows of seats on the stage itself. |