th
19
Century
Theatre
1800-1875
Historical Background
• Industrial Revolution
– Replacement of hand tools and human power by
machinery and the development of the factory and
factory system
• Middle Class continuing to rise in power
– Legislatures passing reforms to benefit the middle
class
• Influential people who disturbed traditional
beliefs:
– Karl Marx
– Charles Darwin
– Sigmund Freud
Neoclassic Ideals
•
All drama must teach a
moral lesson
Unities
•
–
Unity of Time
•
–
Unity of Place
•
–
One location only
Unity of Action
•
•
Dramatic action should
not exceed 24 hours
One central story – no
subplots
Decorum
–
All characters should
behave in ways based on
their gender, age,
profession, social status
Neoclassical
• Verisimilitude
– All drama must be “true to
life”
• NO ghosts, apparitions, or
supernatural, fantastical
events or things
• Genres
– Tragedy only about royalty
• Must end badly/tragically
– Comedy only about common
people
• Must end happily
– NEVER mix comic elements
and tragic elements
Ideals dictated how
plays were written and produced
Romanticism
• Stressed strong emotion as a source of aesthetic
experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as
trepidation, horror, and the awe experienced in confronting
the sublimity of nature
• Rejected the neoclassical rules
– Actually they rejected all artistic rules, suggesting that genius creates
its own rules
• More interested in creating mood and atmosphere than
developing believable plots or depth of character
• Did not believe in purity of genre
– Considered all subject matter appropriate for the stage
• Patriotism, nationalism, revolution and armed struggle for
independence became popular themes in the arts of this
period
• Romantic hero was frequently a social outcast who quested
for justice, knowledge, and truth
Romanticism in Art
• Music
– Ludwig van
Beethoven
– Frederic Chopin
• Literature
–
–
–
–
Edgar Allan Poe
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Emily Dickinson
Lord Byron
Third of May 1808 by Francisco Goya
Melodrama flourishes…
•
•
•
•
Melodrama means “song drama” or “music drama”
The first melodrama was performed in France in
1798
Plays were written putting emphasis on surface
effects that would evoke suspense, fear, nostalgia,
and other strong emotions
“If you believe, as the Greeks did, that man is at the
mercy of the gods, then you write tragedy. The end is
inevitable from the beginning. But if you believe that
man can solve his own problems and is at nobody's
mercy, then you will probably write melodrama.”
… and then dies
• Melodrama died in 1915, according to
theatre history textbooks
– The truth is that the entertainment industry
moved to film to distribute the melodramas for
WAY cheaper than doing plays
– A lot of the same people who created the
theatre industry moved it to Los Angeles
• Melodrama is the standard Hollywood
model
– “Melodramatic” suggests a style that is over
the top, extremely emotional, larger than life
Elements of Melodrama
1. Music
•
Underscore, not like a musical with singing and
dancing
2. Morally polarized characters
•
Good guys versus bad guys
3. Heroine
•
Damsel in distress who must be saved by the
hero
4. Happy Ending
•
Cosmic justice has to prevail – good has to win
over bad
Elements of Melodrama
5. Sidekicks
•
Usually a best friend – comic relief
•
•
6.
7.
Sidekicks are comic and the situation is serious
Scooby Doo – Fred is the hero, Daphne is the
heroine, Velma is Daphne’s sidekick, Shaggy is
Fred’s sidekick and Scooby Doo is Shaggy’s side kick
Mixture of suspense and comedy
Physical conflict
•
Always ends in a final physical conflict – a battle
of good and evil; like a showdown in a western
Elements of Melodrama
8.
Exotic Locations
–
–
9.
New places to escape
Set things in the past, the future or far
away places
Animal Acts
–
Liked including animals on stage
10. Technology, stage combat, stunts and
special effects
–
–
Trains on stage
The purpose is to keep an audience
interested from start to finish
Melodramas of the 19th
Century
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1853) by
George L. Aiken
– adapted from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel
• The String of Pearls (1847) by
George Dibdin Pitt
– Play on which Stephen Sondheim based his
musical Sweeney Todd (1979)
One of the best examples of a
Modern Day Melodrama:
Example of a Melodrama
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black
Pearl
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Stirring musical score by Klaus Badelt
Good and Evil: Will Turner vs. Capt. Barbosa
Damsel in need of rescue: Elizabeth
Happy ending: curse lifted, Jack Sparrow saved from the
noose, Will and Elizabeth together
Sidekick: What better comic relief than Captain Jack Sparrow?
Lots of action and witty dialogue… we all know we love to quote
it.
Physical conflict: Big battle with swords and cannons and the
British Navy fighting an undead army
Exotic Location: upon the beautiful blue waters of the
Caribbean
Animal Acts: Jack the Monkey and Mr. Cotton’s Parrot
Special Effects: Disney worked very hard on turning those men
into the Digital Undead.
More on Melodramas
•
Melodramas can be socially or politically
progressive, but it is always culturally
conservative
–
Melodrama follows the mainstream cultural
expectations of society
Women are portrayed, culturally, today as
successful in business, succeeding in a man's
job, multi-tasking
–
•
They can beat up the guys, but they haven't neglected
their feminine side, beautiful, tender and emotionally
vulnerable and still get rescued
–
Ex: Elizabeth Swann
Other Melodramas
Popular Entertainments
• Minstrel Shows
– Was the first truly American
entertainment consisting of
comic skits, variety acts,
dancing, and music, performed
by white people in blackface
– Portrayed and lampooned
blacks in stereotypical and often
disparaging ways: as ignorant,
lazy, buffoonish, superstitious,
joyous, and musical.
– Minstrel songs and sketches
featured several stock
characters, most popularly the
slave and the dandy.
• These were further divided into
sub-archetypes such as the
mammy, her counterpart the old
darky, the provocative mulatto
wench, and the black soldier.
Wild West Shows
•
•
For more info, go to YouTube
and look under “Buffalo Bill’s
Wild West Show”
•
In 1884, the outdoor Wild West Show had
authentic cowboys, Indians, buffaloes, horses,
sharpshooters and melodramas
The show itself consisted of a series of
"historical" scenes interspersed with feats of
showmanship, sharp shooting, racing, or rodeo
style events. Native Americans figured
prominently in many of the scenes, often shown
attacking whites in historical situations with
Buffalo Bill or one of his colleagues riding in and
saving the day
– Buffalo Bill and his performers would re-enact
the riding of the Pony Express, Indian attacks
on wagon trains, and stagecoach robberies.
The show typically ended with a melodramatic
re-enactment of Custer's Last Stand in which
Cody himself portrayed General Custer
Many authentic western personalities were part of
the show:
– Sitting Bull and a band of twenty braves
– Annie Oakley and her husband Frank Butler
put on shooting exhibitions
– 'Calamity Jane'
Burlesque
• In the 19th Century, the term "burlesque" was applied to
a wide range of comic plays, including non-musicals
– Beginning in the 1840s, these works entertained the lower and
middle classes in Great Britain and the United States by
making fun of (or "burlesquing") the operas, plays and social
habits of the upper classes
• Evolved out of the spontaneous/improvisational
tradition of commedia dell’arte
– Spoofed Greek tragedies and Shakespeare
– Eventually, performers turned to more general satirical comedy,
and burlesque became a platform for mocking the bourgeoisie
– Used comedy and music to challenge the established way of
looking at things
• It was not until the 20th century that this form became a
combination of comedians and strippers
Circuses
• P.T. Barnum (1810-1891)
developed exhibits in the
American Museum in New
York City
– Exhibited human curiosities
and presented variety acts
and plays in a theatre built for
family audiences
• Joyce Heth, who he said was
140 years old
• The “Fiji Mermaid”, which
was the head of a monkey
sewn onto the body of a fish
• Tom Thumb, the midget
– In 1850s, he became involved
with the circus, a touring
version of his museum and
advertised it as “the greatest
show on earth”
Acting Theory: Delsarte
• Much of the acting between 1800 and 1875
was based on stereotypical physical gestures
and vocal patterns taught by Francois Delsarte
• Believed actors could convey emotions and
inner thoughts through specific, pre-established
gestures and body movements
• Scientific approach to acting, consistent with
the scientific spirit of the age
– System was rejected by modern realists because it
assumed that all human beings reacted the same
way
Scene Design: The Box Set
• Consists of flats
hinged together to
represent a room
• Had practical
elements, such as
doors and windows