Drama Nineteenth-Century through the Turn of the Twentieth Century
p. 689-701 Technological Innovations Gas lights Elaborate scenery "fourth wall" became more pronounced Romantic Drama Democracy and personal liberation Closet Drama: a play meant to be read but not produced Romantic dramas were not very successful in Britain Melodrama "melo" song Started as spoken dialogues with accompanying music background music was altered according to the mood of the scene Well-defined heroes, heroines, and villains Strong emotional appeal Clear-cut endings The Well-Made Play Eugene Scribe Elements: o Exposition (with secrets to be revealed later) o Surprises o Suspense o Climax (secrets revealed) o Denouement (Loose ends tied together) Emphasis on plot Superficial The Rise of Realism Limelight, electric lighting More elaborate, accurate to period clothing More lifelike scenery, lighting, and costumes More contemporary and believable circumstances Naturalism: a philosophy demanding that drama avoid the artificiality of a convoluted plot, and urging a drama of natural, lifelike action o Emile Zola o No twists, surprises, or suspense o Associated with the darker side of life
Realism: the literary philosophy holding that art should accurately reproduce an image of life. Avoids dramatic conventions such as asides and soliloquies. Depicts ordinary people in ordinary situations. o Ex: A Doll House (Ibsen) Stanislavski o "The Stanislavski Method" helped the actor become the part, rather than just play the part. o Emphasized "inner realism," explored improvisational experiences with actors
Drama in the Early and Mid-Twentieth Century
p. 885-892 The Heritage of Realism In the beginning (late 19th Century), realism was often perceives as too severe for an audience that has loved melodrama, such as the middle class. But, the technique of realism was reshaped and adapted by commercial playwrights who made them generally more pleasant (1920s and 1930s). Audiences began to expect plays to be realistic, and if they weren't it was seen as a flaw. Dadaism o A reaction to "comfortable" realism o Tristan Tzara o An art that was essentially enigmatic and incoherent to the average person o Purpose was to confound the normal expectations of theatergoers Realism and Myth The incorporation of myth in drama offered new opportunities to expand the limits of realism Freud: studied Greek myths for clues to the psychic state of his patients Carl Jung: all members of a culture share an inborn knowledge of the basic myths of the culture. o A collective unconscious Playwrights who used elements of myth in their plays produced a poetic form of realism that deals with a level of truth common to all humans. Myth and Culture Poetic Realism John Millington Synge o Interested in the twin forces of myth and peasant dialects o Creation of peasant dialogue W.B. Yeats
Sean O'Casey Lady Gregory o Wrote of passionate women from Irish legend and myth Eugene O'Neill o Desire Under the Elms (1924) Explores the myth of Phaedra (her incestuous love for her husband's son) An underpinning myth of Federico Lorca o House of Bernarda Alba (1936) Explores erotic forces repressed then set loose Social Realism Realism with a political conscience During Great Depression Aim at awakening governments to the consequences of unbridled capitalism and the depressions that freewheeling economies produced Clifford Odets's Waiting for Lefty (1935) o Openly leftist labor drama Realism and Expressionism Shed underpinnings of myth and developed a powerful realistic style Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh (1939) o Set in a dingy bar, characters gave their philosophy of life O'Neill's A Long Day's Journey into Night (1941) o Published/produced 1st in 1956 o An analysis of his own tortured family background, which included alcoholism and drug addiction. Expressionism o Often poetic in language and effect o Began in Germany, influenced by Strindberg o An alternative to realistic drama o No realistic settings on stage o Symbolic characters; sharp, abrupt, enigmatic dialogue o American playwrights modified it and melded it more with a realistic style o Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie (1944) Expressionist stage elements Ex: walls seem to "melt away," revealing the inside of the house and the lives and fantasies of the characters o Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1949) Jo Mielziner developed an expressionist set Cross-section of Loman's house Original image was the inside of Willy Loman's mind
o For Williams and Miller, expressionism offered a way to bring other worlds to bear on the staged action the world of dream and fantasy Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun (1959), however, uses basically realistic staging and dialogue Antirealism Surrealism o Based originally on an interpretation of experience not through the lucid mind of the waking person but through the mind of the dreamer, the unconscious mind that Freud described. o Distorted reality for emotional purposes. Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921) o Turns the world of expectation in drama upside down: what we assume to be real is always questionable: we cannot be sure of anything o Questioned the certainty of human knowledge Epic Theater Bertolt Brecht Epic Theater o The sense of dramatic illusion is constantly voided by reminders from the stage that one is watching a play. o Harsh lighting, blank stages, placards announcing changes of scene, etc. made it impossible for an audience to become totally immersed in a realistic illusion. Brecht wanted the audience to analyze the play's thematic content rather than sit back and be entertained. Challenged social problems thought realistic plays just portrayed them, and therefore reinforced them. Absurdist Drama Martin Esslin critic that coined the term, Theater of the Absurd Samuel Beckett o Plays contained nothing that made the well-made play well made. o Little or no plot, little or no actors on stage, little or no words Assumes the world is meaningless Grew out of Existentialism: individual creates meaning in a life that has no essential meaning within itself Beckett's Waiting for Godot (1952) Beckett's Happy Days (1961)