Realism

Modern Theatre: Realism

• “Realism is a style, not a standard!”

(Donna Fontana 2003)

To understand all the other styles of the theatre of today, we (you) need to go back to the origins of realism.

Realism: A Style, not a Standard.

This “style” was created in the late nineteenth century as a reaction to the other “movements” in the theatre and the art world at the time.

It has continued to be an important style…for last 120 years.


• Origins in Romanticism – late eighteenth-early nineteenth centuries

– revolt against the artificiality of Neo-classicism.

It was an attempt to reactivate passion!

Realism: Roots in Romanticism

• Inspired by…Shakespeare…– rapid change of location…

• many plots…many characters…

• Goethe, his Faust (1808, 1832) explores the depths of evil.

• Victor Hugo's…fervent exploration of events and characters.– Hernani

• Alexandre Dumas: presents a sympathetic prostitute character in Camille.

– Swashbuckling characters of an earlier time in » The Three Musketeers

• Edmond Rostand: the last “breath” of Romanticism (1897) – Cyrano de Bergerac

Romanticism

Its goal was to dazzle and enthrall the audience.

Modern Theatre: Directors

• New theories of the director’s role developed. – Georg, the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen

emphasized ensemble acting • abolished the star system. • staged huge productions with an attention to detail

– emphasized historical accuracy.

• His troupe toured throughout Europe and influenced others, such as Constantin Stanislavski.

Romanticism

Emphasis on

theatricality

and spectacle

Introduced “historically accurate” settings.

Created a “stage picture.”

Georg, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen

Director of the Meiningen players

Romanticism• Proscenium staging becomes popular to

accommodate…– Rapid changes of location– Exotic locales– Splendid effects

Emphasized theatricality and spectacle

Romanticism

• Scenic innovations would become an important aspect of realism and naturalism

Romanticism

• The “box set”

Introduced to theatre the technology:

The “invisible fourth wall”


• Electric lighting was introduced in the 1880s in England– At a performance of a Gilbert and Sullivan

operetta


• Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859)

Ideas of the Nineteenth Century

Scientific methodology applied to human problem solvingLower and middle class characters viewed as heroes

•Sigmund Freud’s examination of human behavior—Psychology of characters gains importance


– Examined “real” people and problems. • Characters would move and talk in a manner

similar to that of everyday behavior.

– It thought of itself as a laboratory to study the ills of society.

The stage would be an environment, rather than as an

acting platform.

“Likeness to life” was its motto.

Modern Theatre

• Text Elements: – Well-Made Play was formulated to “crank out”

the very popular “melodramas” of the nineteenth century.

• Scribe and Sardou (1820s-30s) devised this technique of playwriting.

• It was later embraced by Ibsen and other realists.

Modern Theatre: RealismNorwegian Henrik Ibsen was probably the most influential figure in modernTheatre.

•Saw drama as a means for social change.

•A Doll’s House (1879) was banned in Norway.

Henrik Ibsen’s plays were the first to examine “real people” as tragic characters.

Ghosts 1881


• Shocking subjects– Frank Wedekind’s Spring Awakening


• Shocking subjects:

George Buechner’s Woyzeck


• Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)The individual in conflict with society

The first to show that tragedy could be written about ordinary people speakingordinary language.

Ibsen’s plays had critics, even some who accused him of using the “well-made play” formula to merely shock the audience. He now holds the title of “father of modern realism.

• In 1891, the London Daily Telegraph called Ghosts “positively abominable.” Ghosts (1881), without a single vulgar word, exposed the horrible implications of a hypocritical Victorian marriage whose result is venereal disease resulting in “mercy killing.”



• Other playwrights:– Gerhart Hauptmann (1862-1946)

• Explored the plight of the lower classes

– George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)•A socialist, wrote to criticize society and inspire change.

Shaw often employed comedic devices to expose such subjects as urban poverty and greed in the arms manufacturing industry in Major Barbara (1905).

Mrs. Warren’s Profession (1902) addresses prostitution.

Naturalism

• “Slice of life”

• Emile Zola (1840-1902)– Sought to eliminate dramatic convention – The character of the play is the subject.

• Humans are mere figures in the natural environment

Modern Theatre: Naturalism

• André Antoine

The Butchers featuredmeat carcasses on the set.

Naturalism

• August Strindberg

Struggle of the individual isMore brutal and violent

The Father (1887) examines theInherent human capacity for evil.

Miss Julie (1888) pits man againstwoman; servant against master.

“I have depicted my characters as modern characters, living in an age oftransition…I have made them more vacillating…I have had my characters use their brains only intermittently as people do in real life…”

Naturalism

• August Strindberg’s Miss Julie

1916 performance inSweden.

Anton Chekhov(1860-1904)

• The most important dramatist of the period.– Late nineteenth century early twentieth

centuries

• Did not consider himself a member of any movement.

Anton Chekhov

• The most modern

of playwrights

Created deeply complex relationships among this characters Plots and themes are developed “between the lines”

(Subtext)

Anton Chekhov

• The Seagull (1896)

• Uncle Vanya (1899)

• The Three Sisters (1901)

• The Cherry Orchard (1904)

Anton Chekhov

• What is “Chekhovian”?

• The dog wandering around

on the set barking…

Anton Chekhov

Chekhov himself had complained that the “actors act too much” when his play The Seagull was first performed by star actors in the St. Petersburg premiere. Stanislavsky developed an actor training method which would be adopted and embraced, particularly by American actors in the twentieth century.

Modern Theatre: Acting

• Constantin Stanislavski

The Moscow Art Theatre

• “the actors act too much.” Chekhov

The Seagull

Anton Chekhov

• Chekhov and company at the Moscow Art Theatre

“Play the subtext”The interrelationships between the characters.

Realism

• Both Ibsen and Chekhov present a world

of un-heroic individualists trapped in a society that thwarted individualism and starved creativity.

Stanislavski and the Moscow Art Theatre

• Founded (with Nemirovich-Danchenko)

• Championed Chekhov’s plays

• Developed actor training theories to accommodate the demands of Chekhov’s plays.


• Visit to America…changed acting forever


• Still active today

Irish Theatre

• The Abbey Theatre 1904

Yeats

Lady Gregory

Martyn

Irish Theatre

– Synge’s Playboy of the Western World

Irish Theatre

– O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars• Wrote about “lower class” Irish not portrayed as

stereotypes.

– Influenced Eugene O’Neill

Eugene O’Neill

• America’s first great playwright

(1888-1953)

Born in a trunk…

Eugene O’Neill

• Bound East for Cardiff (1916)

American Realism

• Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953)– America’s first master dramatist

• Expressionism: The Hairy Ape, The Emperor Jones

• Naturalism: Anna Christie

• Greek Tragedy re-told: Mourning Becomes Electra

• Autobiographical Naturalism: A Long Day’s Journey Into Night

Eugene O’Neill

• The Emperor Jones

Explored expressionism

Eugene O’Neill

• A Long Day’s Journey into Night– Autobiographical masterpiece

(1954)

Only published after his death in 1953.

Selective Realism

• Arthur Miller

– Elia Kazan– Jo Mielziner

Selective Realism

Built on the wide social relevance andstylistic innovation of American theatre

in the 1930s.

American Realism

• Elia Kazan– Group Theatre

– Fusion of external realism and psychological symbols

– A sense of subjective emotional vision interpreting the realistic outlines of material existence

– Reinforced by the acting style developed through the Actor’s Studio

Selective Realism

• Selective Realism is a truly American sub-style developed by Elia Kazan and Jo Mielziner in order to stage the plays of Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams in the mid-twentieth century.

American Realism

• Mielziner, Miller, Kazan

Selective Realism

• Arthur Miller (1915-2005)

Expressed political passion based on the individual’s imperativeto preserve his personal truthagainst the demands of a materialistic or repressivesociety.

Arthur Miller

• Arthur Miller (1915-2005) is known for tackling serious social issues such as wartime profiteering in All My Sons and the broken “American dream” in Death of a Salesman. In The Crucible, he reacts to the “red scare” witch hunts of the mid-twentieth century.

Arthur Miller

• Death of a Salesman (1945)

Willie “low man”and the loss ofthe “AmericanDream”

Selective Realism

• Tennessee

Williams

(1911-1983)

Naturalistic on the surface

Tennessee Williams• Paralleling Miller during the post- World War II period was

the more poetic Tennessee Williams (1911-1983). • His autobiographical “memory play” The Glass Menagerie was

followed by four steamier dramatic classics: – A Streetcar Named Desire – Cat on a Hot Tin Roof – Suddenly, Last Summer– The Night of the Iguana. • These plays are all idealized, sensually evocative character studies,

often dealing with characters’ psychological weaknesses and inability to cope with the “brutalities” of every day life.

• William’s characters—Stanley Kowalski, Blanche Dubois in particular-- have remained an indelible part of our national “myth.”

Tennessee Williams

• A Streetcar Named Desire

Expresses the interior psychologicalturmoil of the protagonist.

Blanche Dubois

American Realism

• August Wilson (1947-2006)

Ten play dramatic cycleexplores African American life.

August Wilson

• In Wilson’s plays, poetry and mysticism blend with jazz-like “riffs.” – Music plays an indelible part in his plays,

which all deal with social and racial subjects. – During his life-time he earned two Pulitzer

Prizes, seven Tony nominations, and dozens of other awards.

August Wilson

• Fences

August Wilson

• The Piano Lesson

August Wilson

American Realism

• There are many other playwrights who have emerged in the latter part of the twentieth century.

• We will examine them further when we discuss playwriting.

Modern Theatre: Realism and Romanticism

Romanticism•This style, which emphasizes theatricality and spectacle, continues today in the form of nineteenth-century based musicals such as The Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables, and The Scarlett Pimpernel.

Realism and NaturalismThese styles are more prevalent in film and television.

It is more accurate to refer to them as “heightened” realism.

Realism

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