Nineteenth-Century
Theatre
Influences
 17th c. French Neo-Classical and English
Restoration drama of wit and manners
became 18th theatre of sensibility
 18th –19th c. German Romantic Theatre
 Revival of Shakespeare
 Rise of “star system”: actor-managers
 Technical advances in staging and lighting
18th –19th c. German
Romantic Theater
 “Stürm und Drang”
 Looked to Shakespeare for
models
 Sweeping historical and
tragic dramas
 Began to emphasize historical
accuracy in costumes and
settings
 Improved theatrical effects -footlights, revolving stages,
theatrical machinery
 Goethe and Schiller
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1749-1832
1771: Götz von Berlichen
1775-86: Manager of Court
Theatre at Weimar
1787: Iphigenie
1790: Torquato Tasso
1788: Egmont
1790: Fragment of Faust
1792: Wilhelm Meister
1808-32: Faust I and II
Friedrich Schiller
1759-1805
1782: The Robbers
1787: Don Carlos
1790s: Wallenstein trilogy
1800: Maria Stuart
1801: Maid of Orleans
1804: Wilhelm Tell
 Revolt against Neo-Classicism
fueled by French Revolution
 Action – Passion– Human Nature
French Romantic
Drama
 Alexander Dumas, pere, 1802-1870
Henri III et sa cour (Henry III
and His Court, 1829)
For Antony (1831)
La Tour de Nesle (1832)
 Novelist: Three Musketeers,
Count of Monte Cristo
 Alfred de Vigny, 1797-1863
 1820s: Alexandrine verse
adaptations of Romeo and Juliet,
The Merchant of Venice and
Othello
La Marechale d’Ancre (1831)
 Quitte pour la Peur (1833
Chatterton (1835)
 Victor Hugo, 1802-85
 1827: Cromwell
 1829: Marion de Lorme –
banned by the censors
 1830: Hernani –caused a
riot at Theatre Francais
 1832: The King Takes his
Amusement – banned by
the censors -- Verdi’s
Rigoletto
 1833: Lucrece Borgia and
Maria Tudor
 1835: Angelo
 1838: Ruy Blas
 1843: Les Burgraves
English
Romantic Theatre
 Closet drama: drama meant more to be read
than performed
 Popular in the early 19th c. when
melodrama and burlesque dominated
the theater, and poets attempted to
raise dramatic standards:
 George Gordon Lord Byron: Manfred, 1817
 Percy Bysshe Shelley’s The Cenci and
Prometheus Unbound, 1819
 Robert Browning’s Strafford (1837) and Pippa
Passes (1841)
Melodrama
Comes from "music drama" – music was used to
increase emotions or to signify characters
(signature music).
Theatre of sentimentality -- emotional appeal
 Simplified moral universe: good and evil
embodied in stock characters: heroes and
villains -- and lily-pure heroines
Sensationalistic: fires, explosions, drownings, etc.
Episodic form: the villain poses a threat, the hero
or heroine escapes, etc.—with a happy ending
Wide popular appeal
Authors of Melodrama
 German: August von Kotzebue (1761-1819)



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 domestic melodramas
 “father of sensationalism”
French: René de Pixérécourt (1773-1844)
 specialized in canine and disaster melodramas
 theatrical effects more important than dialogue
English: Gothic Melodrama
 Holcroft’s Tale of Mystery (1824) Matthew Lewis’ The Castle Spectre
(1797), and Isaac Pocock’s The Miller and His Men (1813).
English: Douglas Jerrold
 Nautical melodramas – success of British navy
 Black ey’d Susan
American: Dion Boucicault (1822-90)
Combined sentiment, wit and local color with sensational and
spectacular endings
 Corsican Brothers and The Octoroon
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
dramatizations based on
novel by
Harriet Beecher Stowe
 George L. Aiken’s was the most popular--1853. Six acts,
done without an afterpiece – established the singleplay format. 325 performances in New York.
 In the 1870’s, at least 50 companies doing it in the U.S.
 In 1899: 500 companies.
 In 1927: 12 still doing it.
 12 movie versions since 1900.
 The most popular melodrama in the world until the
First World War.
Comic or Light Opera
Predecessors
Italian Opera Buffa
French Opera Comique
English Ballad Opera:
Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera
German Singspiele
English Pantomime
Viennese Operetta
Conventions
Combination of spoken dialogue and songs
A frivolous, sentimental story, often employing parody
and satire
 Light, pleasant music sometimes including popular music
of the day
Richard D’oyly Carte and
the Savoy Theatre
 1875: D’oyly Carte brought Gilbert and Sullivan
together to write an opera afterpiece: Trial by Jury
 1876: Formed the Comic Opera Company and
leased the Opera Comique Theatre
 1877-1881: Great successes with The Sorcerer, H.M.S.
Pinafore, Patience and The Pirates of Penzance
1878 on: touring companies (A,B,C, D) throughout
the UK, Ireland, North America, Europe, and South
Africa
1881: Built the Savoy Theatre – the first London
theatre to be lit with electric lights
Gilbert and Sullivan
 First collaborated in 1871 on


Author
Sir William
Schwenk
Gilbert
1836-1911


Thespis, an ‘Original Grotesque
Opera’
After success of The Sorcerer and
H.M.S. Pinafore partnered with
Richard D’oyly Carte to form Mr.
D’Oyly Carte’s Opera Company.
Success of company attributed to
D’Oyly Carte’s business acumen
and diplomacy as well as artistic
control exercised by Gilbert and
Sullivan.
Sullivan knighted in 1883 by
Queen Victoria.
Gilbert knighted in 1907 by King
Edward VII.
Composer
Sir Arthur
Seymour
Sullivan
1842-1900
The Savoy Operas
Written by William Gilbert, scored by Sir Arthur Sullivan,
produced by Richard D'Oyly Carte
Trial By Jury (1875)
The Sorcerer (1877)
H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved A Sailor (1878)
The Pirates of Penzance (1879)
Patience (1881)
Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri (1882)
Princess Ida (1884)
The Mikado (1885)
Ruddigore; or, The Witch's Curse (1887)
The Yeomen of the Guard (1888)
The Gondoliers (1889)
Utopia Limited; or, The Flowers of Progress (1893)
The Grand Duke; or, The Statutory Duel (1896)
Light
1817: first gas lit theatre
 Smelled bad
 Very hazardous – many theatres burnt down as the
gas lighting set the wood and canvas scenery on fire
1826: limelight was invented
A block of quicklime heated by oxygen and
hydrogen produced a bright sharp light.
 Used in a hand-operated spotlights
1881: London’s Savoy Theatre opened with electric
lights
The auditorium was still lit for most of this period,
which also had an effect on the lighting effects onstage.
Magic Lantern Shows
 Combination of
projected images,
live drama, and
live music that
led to the
movies.
 Dramatic rescues
of damsels in
distress,
dastardly
villains,
endangered
children, hissing
and booing.
Eugene Scribe (1791-1861)
Father of the Well-Made Play
 Produced 450-500 plays during a 40 year career from
comedies vaudevilles to tragedies
 Most famous and lasting play was Adrienne Lecouvreur
(1849)
 “You go to the theatre not for instruction or correction, but
for relaxation and amusement. Now, what amuses you most is
not truth but fiction. To represent what is before your very
eyes every day is not the way to please you; but what does not
come to you in your usual life, the extraordinary, the
romantic, that is what charms you. That is what one is eager
to offer you”
 Changed the position of playwright in business world:
royalties
Scribe’s formal 5-Act structure
 Act I: Mainly expository and lighthearted. Toward the end
of the act, the antagonists are engaged and the conflict is
initiated.
 Act II, III: The action oscillates in an atmosphere of
mounting tension from good fortune to bad, etc.
 Act IV: The Act of the Ball. The stage is generally filled with
people and there is an outburst of some kind--a scandal, a
quarrel, a challenge. At this point, things usually look pretty
bad for the hero. The climax is in this act.
 Act V: Everything is worked out logically so that in the final
scene, the cast assembles and reconciliations take place, and
there is an equitable distribution of prizes in accordance
with poetic justice and reinforcing the morals of the day.
Everyone leaves the theatre bien content
The Well-Made Play
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
A plot based upon a withheld secret
Slowly accelerating action and suspense sustained by such
contrivances as precisely timed entrances and exits, letters
which miscarry, and mistakes in identity,
A battle of wits between two adversaries
A reversal in the action followed by a climactic, "obligatory"
scene representing the nadir and then the zenith of the hero's
fortunes as a result of the disclosure of the withheld secret
A logical, credible denouement
Tendency to have the action center upon a stage prop, e.g. a
letter, a fan or a glass of water
A nugget of morality which would appease the ordinary man's
sense of guilt at enjoying himself, e.g. the lesson that
momentous consequences may follow from quite trivial events.
Alexandre Dumas fils
1824-95
Dramas of Illicit Love
1852: Lady of the Camellias –
dramatization of 1848 novel –
Verdi’s La Traviata
1853: Diana de Lys
1855: Le Demi-Monde
1857: The Money Question
1858: The Natural Son
1859: A Prodigal Father
Oscar Wilde
1854-1900
Middle Class Satire
1892: Lady Windermere's Fan
1893: A Woman Of No Importance
1894: Salome
1895: An Ideal Husband
1895: The Importance Of Being Earnest
Actor-Managers
 Star performers who held the license to the theatres,
arranged the performances and hired the other actors.
 Introduced reforms and innovations:
 full rehearsals for the company
 raised status of actors
 revived Shakespearean plays
 toured extensively
 offered powerful management role to women
 Demands of complicated technical effects (storms, fires,
elaborate lighting) led actors to give artistic control to stage
managers who could coordinate all production aspects
 Stage manager's function became increasingly important
until he was eventually elevated to the status of régisseur, or
director.
Some Famous Actor-Managers
 Edmund Kean, English, 1787-1833
 William Macready, English, 1793-1873
 Edwin Forrest, American, 1806-72
 Edwin Booth, American, 1833-93
 Henry Irving, English, 1838-1905
 Sarah Bernhardt, French, 1844-1923
 James O’Neill, American, 1849-1920
 Eleanora Duse, Italian, 1859-1924
November 25, 1864, Julius Caesar: The first and last appearance together of Junius
Brutus Booth, Jr. (right) and two of his sons, John Wilkes (left) and Edwin (middle).
Realism and Naturalism
Intellectual reaction against popular
theatre
 Theatre of social problems
 Influenced by emerging disciplines
of psychology and sociology
 Emerging importance of director

Realistic stage conventions
 Proscenium stage
 Audience as “fourth
wall”
 Change in acting
conventions
 Continued
improvement in
stagecraft: electric
lighting, set design,
costumes, etc.
Realism
vs. Naturalism
 Middle class
 Pragmatic
 Psychological
 Mimetic art
 Objective, but ethical
 Sometimes comic or
satiric
 How can the individual
live within and influence
society?
 “Well-made play”
 Henrik Ibsen, George
Bernard Shaw
 Middle/Lower class
 Scientific
 Sociological
 Investigative art
 Objective and amoral
 Often pessimistic,
sometimes comic
 How does society/the
environment impact
individuals?
 “Slice of life”
 August Strindberg, Anton
Chekhov, John Synge
 Realistic Social Dramas
Henrik Ibsen
Norwegian,
1828-1906
 Romantic Dramas
Brand
Peer Gynt
The Pillars of Society
A Doll's House
Ghosts
An Enemy of the People
The Wild Duck
Rosmersholm
The Lady from the Sea
Hedda Gabler
Symbolic Dramas
The Master Builder
Little Eyolf
John Gabriel Borkman
 When We Dead Awaken
 Naturalistic Plays : 1880s
August Strindberg
The Father
Miss Julie
Creditors
 Dreamplays : turn of the century
To Damascus
 A Dream Play
The Ghost Sonata
 Historical Dramas: turn of the
century
Gustavus Vasa
Erik XIV
Charles XII
Swedish
1849-1912
 Physician, storyteller, dramatist
Anton Chekhov
Russian
1860-1904
 Plays:
That Worthless Fellow
Platonov
On the Harmful Effects of Tobacco
Ivanov
The Bear
A Marriage Proposal
 The Wood Demon
 For the Moscow Art Theatre:
The Seagull
Uncle Vanya
The Three Sisters
The Cherry Orchard
 Fabian, Drama critic, Nobel Prize Winner
The Quintessence of Ibsenism,
 Playwright: Over 50 plays
 1890s: Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant:
George
Widower’s Houses, The Philanderer, Mrs.
Warren’s Profession ,Arms and the Man
Bernard Shaw
,Candida, You Never Can Tell
Anglo-Irish,
 1890s: Three Plays for Puritans: The
1856-1950
Devil’s Disciple, Caesar and Cleopatra and
Captain Brassbound’s Conversion (1900).
 Early 20th C: Man and Superman , Major
Barbara Androcles and the Lion and
Pygmalion (My Fair Lady)
 Later Plays: St. Joan, Heartbreak House,
The Millionairess
John Millington Synge
1871-1909
 Irish poet and playwright discovered by
W.B. Yeats.
 Plays of Irish peasant life:
 In the Shadow of the Glen, (1903), a comedy
 Riders to the Sea (1904), a tragedy
 The Well of the Saints (1905), a comedy
 The Playboy of the Western World (1907), a comedy,
caused riots
 The Tinker's Wedding, published in 1908 but not
produced for fear of further riots
 Deirdre of the Sorrows, a mythic tragedy unfinished at
the time of his death
Independent Theatre Movement
 Led by young intellectuals, disillusioned
with the literary stagnation of the stage, the
actor-manager system and indulgence with
scenic spectacle
 Wanted to promote new Realistic and
Naturalistic playwrights
 Often ran into trouble with censors
 Dedicated to bringing serious drama to the
working and middle class
Independent Theatres
 Théâtre-Libre founded by André Antoine in 1887
in Paris
 Freie Bühne founded by Otto Brahm in 1894 in
Berlin
 Independent Theatre Club founded by Jacob
Grein in 1891 in London
 The Stage Society founded in 1899 in London
 Moscow Art Theatre founded by Konstantin
Stanislavsky and Vladimir NemirovichDanchenko in 1898 in Moscow
 The Abbey Theatre founded by William Butler
Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory in 1903 in
Dublin
20th Century Theatre:
a hundred years of isms
 Symbolism
 Expressionism
 Futurism
 Dadism
 Surrealism
 Social Realism
 Epic Theatre
 Existentialism
 Magic Realism
 Hyper-Realism
 Not to mention musicals, films, street theatre, etc., etc.