From Romanticism to Realism
• The late 18th and early 19th century brought a
reaction against the neoclassical rules
Romanticism
• Was a revolt against the Enlightenment,
whose focus was on reason, science and logic
• Validated strong emotion as an authentic
source of the aesthetic experience
• Was an escape from modern realities (brought
about by the Industrial Revolution)
• Elevated the achievements of heroic
individualists and artists
Neoclassicism vs.Romanticism
• Favors socially accepted
norms
• Favors the variety of
nature and its particular
manifestations
• Supernatural elements in
drama frowned upon as
improbable products of
fantasy rather than reason
• Mystical and supernatural
elements embraced as
aspects of existence beyond
the confines of rationality
• Unities of time, place,
and action
• Unities of time, place,
and action not
followed
• Particular scenery and costumes,
• Generic scenery and
costumes emphasizing the
essential rather than the
particular
often details from real-life
locations and costumes beginning
to individualize characters
Emotion = Melodrama!
• Melodrama: the popular culture manifestation
of Romanticism
• Most popular dramatic form of the 19th century
• Clear and suspenseful plots
• Villain hounded a virtuous protagonist
• Protagonist overcomes many difficulties after
undergoing a series of threats to life, reputation or
happiness
• At least one elaborate spectacular happening
(earthquake, burning building, explosion, festival, etc)
• Concealed or mistaken identity, abductions,
strange coincidences, hidden documents
Melodrama
• Comic relief was provided by servants, allies,
or companions of the main characters
• Strict poetic justice! Evil people were punished
and the good were rewarded
• Had a large musical element
• Melodrama = “music drama”
• Action was accompanied by a musical score
• Industrial Revolution –urbanization created much
larger cities than ever before which meant more and
more theatres. Melodrama reached the masses
Melodrama
• Because the pattern is always the same (good
threatened by evil, with the eventual triumph of
good) variety was gained by:
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•
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Exotic locales
Evermore-spectacular effects
Increased realism
Incorporation into the action of the
latest inventions
• Dramatization of popular novels or
notorious crimes
Spectacle of Melodrama
• Water tanks for aquatic scenes
• Horseback riding
• Villain being killed by an inundation of lava
• Character tied to railroad track (Under the
Gaslight in 1867 was the first to do this
• After electricity, electric motors and and treadmills
created chariot races (with moving backdrop)
Increased Reality
• The trend was towards more and more reality
• Which brought about the next major movement
• Realism!
• Major contributors to changing thought during the late
19th century: Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud
Charles Darwin
• Wrote The Origin of Species (1859)
• Contradicts a literal interpretation of the bible
• States that life has developed gradually from a
common ancestry
• This evolution of
species involves the
natural selection of
those best adapted
to specific
ENVIRONMENTAL
conditions
Charles Darwin
• Darwin’s theorie’s influenced other late 19th
century beliefs that:
• Heredity and environment have enormous
influence on human behavior
• Society must accept some responsibility for
learned behavior
• Progress or change is a natural process involving
trial and error toward improvement or
refinement
• The bible, at least in terms of dating is fallible if
interpreted literally
• Humanity is as fit for scientific study as any other
species
Sigmund Freud
• Late 19th Century thought began increasingly to
support the belief that moral standards are
relative to each culture and that concepts of
right and wrong may vary widely from one
society to another
• Belief that Change is the
norm instead of stasis
• New ideas about human
consciousness –
Sigmund Freud
• The most influential
psychologist of the 20th
century
Sigmund Freud
• Argued that the basic human instincts are aggression
and sexuality-self-preservation and procreation
• Left alone, human beings would
seek to satisfy their instincts
without regard for others
• If they are to be integrated into a
community, they must undergo
socialization
• Humans learn what is acceptable
from an early age (not innate) and
is relative to the individual, family
and societal environment
• Therefore humans suppress many
desires and urges in the unconscious
mind and find socially acceptable
substitutes
Sigmund Freud
• We can never really know another person, or even
our own motives
• Subtext-it’s more than just what is said and done
Realism and Naturalism
• Since around 1800 emphasis on visual accuracy in
scenery and costumes had steadily increased but
had not committed fully to “realism”
• Realism was first recognized during the 1850’s,
Naturalism during the 1870’s
• Unlike all previous movement, realism and naturalism
believed that character is determined in large part by
environment, and they demanded that settings play an
enlarged role
• Setting as representations of the environmental forces
that have shaped the character and the dramatic action
Realism and Naturalism
• New belief that each play’s scenic needs are unique
because each play’s environment is unlike that of
any other
• The views of realists and naturalists were grounded in
scientific outlook: the need to understand human
behavior in terms of natural cause and effect.
• Truth was restricted to what can be verified through
the five senses
• So they naturally wrote about contemporary subjects
and introduced behavior not previously seen on the
stage
Realism and Naturalism
• The Industrial Revolution placed greater focus on
the working class-many of the plays dealt with bad
social conditions such as poverty, disease,
prostitution and the plight of illegitimate children
• Critics were furious and condemned the theatre as
garbage, a sewer, etc.
• Realists answered that because their search was for truth
that they were acting morally, truth being the hightest
form of morality
Realism and Naturalism
• The Industrial Revolution placed greater focus on
the working class-many of the plays dealt with bad
social conditions such as poverty, disease,
prostitution and the plight of illegitimate children
• Critics were furious and condemned the theatre as
garbage, a sewer, etc.
• Realists answered that because their search was for
truth that they were acting morally, truth being the
highest form of morality
Realism and Naturalism
• The realists would say that if the people didn’t like
the life portrayed on stage, they should change the
society that furnished the models rather than
denounce the playwrights who had the courage to
portray life truthfully
• The real issue was the role of art in society
• Should art show good triumphant? Should it
reaffirm traditional values?
• Or should art follow truth wherever it leads without
concern for conformity to social codes and moral
values?
Henrik Ibsen
• “founder of modern drama”
• Brought all these issues into focus
• His plays stirred worldwide controversy because the
endings of his plays did not reaffirm accepted
• values
These plays were denied production in many places
because they were thought to be immoral and
corrupting
• Ghosts: husband and son of main character (woman)
have syphilis, which could have been avoided if she
could have left her husband years ago
A Doll’s House
• Nora forged her father’s name to borrow money she
needed to restore her husband’s health
• Her husband does not know of this loan (and by law
she could not borrow money without her husband’s
permission)
• Her husband
has just been
named
director of a
bank
A Doll’s House
• Krogstad who loaned her the money is now threatening
to expose her if she doesn’t help him keep his job at
the bank
• The rest of the play
is Nora’s attempt to
conceal the truth
from her husband
because she
assumes that
because he loves
her so much he will
take responsibility
for the crime and
then be ruined
A Doll’s House
• When Torvald learns the truth he acts very different
• Concerned only for his own
reputation, he declares her so
morally corrupt that she will no
longer be allowed to raise their
children
• Krogstad decides he will not reveal the secret
• Torvald is ecstatic and now wants to restore his
previous relationship with Nora
• She disagrees with both law and public opinion and is unsure
of her own convictions. She feels alienated not only from her
husband but also her society. She doesn’t feel capable of
meeting her responsibilities as wife and mother.
A Doll’s House
• So she leaves!
• The Door slam heard around the world!!
• Ending forced audience to consider the status of
women, who by law, were defined as inferior
• Why do you think the title of the play is A Doll’s House?
• She has spent her entire life being treated like a
doll, protected from harsh realities but having
learned to manipulate men by feeding their
fantasies about female helplessness
Realistic Settings
• A Doll’s House has only one setting
• Box Set-fully enclosed the acting space on three
sides like the walls of a room
• These sets permit far more realistic representations
of indoor spaces, perfect for realism
Zola and Naturalism
• Naturalism had little success because of it’s extreme
demands
• Emile Zola thought realists were more concerned
with theatrical effectiveness than truth to life
• Emphasized poverty and deprivations on the lives of
the lower classes
• Believed drama should expose social ills so their
causes can be corrected
• Realism and Naturalism struck a major blow against
rigid social codes and absolute values
• Laid the foundation on which modernists built
The emergence of the Director
• The director didn’t emerge until the late 19th
century
• Because staging and production values were so limited
in the past, the playwright or company heads would
handle the directing which was much simpler than it is
today
• Actors stood near the front of the stage, directed their
lines to the audience in a very traditional, learned way
• As theatre became more complex, the sets and
costumes increased, spectacle was more and more
elaborate, actors were more and more realistic
• Plays needed more and more unity
Richard Wagner
• Composer of operas
• Sought to create “master artwork”-a fusion of all
the arts
• Wished to create a theatrical experience so
overpoweringly empathetic that the audience would be
drawn out of its everyday existence into an idealized
communal near-religious experience
• To do this, he created a new type of theatre structure
(first to break the box, pit, gallery). Also audiences
were dark for the first time
• His strong demand for “unity of production” –a unified artistic
effect. This theory changed the way staging was handled
Wagner’s Operas
George II, duke of Saxe-Meiningen
• First director in the modern sense
• He exerted complete control over every aspect of
production
• Total stage picture was worked out carefully
moment by moment
• The superior results were seen as convincing
arguments for a strong director who can impose his
authority and implement his vision
• Validated Wagner’s view of the need for strong
unity of production
The Independent Theatre Movement
• New Drama and New Staging were isolated from
each other
• Finally met in “independent” theatres
• Throughout most of Europe plays could not be
performed until they were approved by a censor
• “private” performances (those done by a group for
its members only) did not need approval
• This began to be exploited by a number of small
“independent” theatres which were open only to
subscribing members
The Independent Theatre Movement
• These independent theatres need. Since that time
whenever established theatres have become
insufficiently responsive to innovation, small companies
have been formed to meet the need
• One of the most important theatres to come out of
this movement was the Moscow Art Theatre
Moscow Art Theatre
• Founded by KONSTANTIN STANISLAVSKY
• Achieved major success with the plays of Anton
Chekhov-The Sea Gull, Uncle Vanya, The Three
Sisters, The Cherry Orchard-all set in rural Russia
• In these plays subtext is just as important as text
• Chekhov’s plays continue to be played all over the
world (a lot!)
• Stanislavsky created an acting technique which is the
most widely used today-he had the greatest impact on
acting in the 20th century than any other person
Stanislavsky System
• Believed shortcomings as actor were due to the lack
of a systematic approach to acting
• His goal was to
formulate a system
that would achieve
the highest level of
ensemble playing,
clarify the dramatic
action and
emphasize the inner
truth and life of a
character rather
than call attention
to the virtuosity of
the performer
Stanislavsky System
• The Stanislavsky system:
• The actor’s body and voice must be trained and
flexible so they can respond to all demands
Stanislavsky System
• The Stanislavsky system:
• Truthful acting requires that the actor be a skilled observer of
human behavior and understand the relationship between a
character’s inner life and its external manifestations
• Actors must project themselves into the world of the play and
may learn to do so through the magic if (how would you feel
if you were the one in these circumstances?)
• If actors are not merely to play themselves, they must
understand a character’s motivation and goals in each scene
and in the play as a whole, as well as each character’s
relationship to all the other roles and the dramatic action
• Onstage, the actor should concentrate moment by
moment, as if the events were happening
spontaneously and for the first time
Stanislavsky System
• He never viewed his system as complete
• System fails at unrealistic acting
• Fails when used as a COMPLETE system that needs
no supplemental work
Opening the door for Modernism
• By challenging everything that came before it, Realism
and Modernism paved the way for modernist theatre
• Realism is still very common in the theatre
• What are the negatives/drawbacks of Realism in our
current society/reality?