1. Discuss the French Royal Theatre.
3. Discuss the history of threatre in America.
4. Discuss the history of the American Musical Theatre.
5. Discuss the Current Theatre.
2. Discuss the rise of Realism and Naturalism.
As noted earlier, as we move forward in time, society become more complex, more complicated, more controversial, more rich in experimentation, and more socially influential - and threatre closely follows society, if not leading it at times. It is then no wonder that the origins of modern theatre, usually dated from about 1875, "lie deep in the social and political upheavals that developed out of the Enlightenment and the dominated European and American culture in the nineteenth century" (Cohen 203). Much like the Industrial Revolution, the influence and growth of theatre was in motion and would be gaining speed upon new grounds in the years to come.
Theatre was in such a position: man was no longer at the center of the universe; science would place us in a continually changing universe; theorists would dissolution our origins, morals and struggles in life; and theatre would have its roots in these revolutions. It would not be a theatre of the old gods, heroes and villains, but it would reflect the confused society that it existed in and it would struggle to clarify, illuminate, and explore human destiny - and at times, it may even run someone down.
Often, the development of something new comes from the revolt of something old or standard. Such is the development of realistic theatre, Realism and Naturalism, which both began as a revolt against the intentional artifice of the neoclassic form, contrived manners, and elitist snobbery. It was a time when magnificence was hampered, noble characters were dragged down, and imagination was cramped in order to present plays that were colorful and yet believable as real. Playwrights such as Hugo and Dumas choose criminals, bastards, and outcasts as protagonists and pitted innocence against vice or purity against passion in an effort to capture characters that were both plausible and picturesque. The dramatic verse was heightened in a magnitude of gorgeous lyrics to common speech. Realism can be most noted for its shattering of the classic rules and wrenching itself free from the academic limitations. The first efforts of Realism were sentimental comedies and pathetic tragedies in England such as Joseph Addison's Cato (1713) and Richard Steele's The Conscious Lovers (1722). Similar landmarks were set in France by François Marie Arouet and Denis Diderot.
From under Realism came the style that came to be known as Romanticism - which oddly enough, produced works that seemed far from life instead of a deepening of life, an escape instead of an intensified adventurous experience. However it was the first significant result of this rebellion which spread through Europe in the very late eighteenth century with wide acceptance by the first half of the nineteenth century. This was a theatrical reactivation of passion, which had been dead since the time of Shakespeare. "Hugo defined Romanticism as 'nothing else than liberalism in literature'" (Cheney 415). Romanticism strove to free dramaturgy from the strictures of the neoclassic formulas with an emphasis on freeform, picaresque stories, exotic locales, grotesque heroes, flamboyant verse, boisterous action, epic adventure, passionate feeling, and majestic style. It was a style that sought to move and dazzle the audience, but the aims of Romanticism proved more influential than lasting. It succeeded in laying bare the possibilities of theatre in an age of rapid change, it increased the audience diversity, and it removed the academic pretension that inhibited liveliness. In its contribution to the growth of society, it stimulated rebelliousness in both politics and art. Such works of this time include: Friedrich Schiller's The Robbers (1782), Johann Wolfgang von Goether's Faust (Part I, 1808; Part II, 1832), Victor Hugo's Hernani (1830), Les Miserables (1862), and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeer, and Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac (1898).
The true goals of Realism was its "likeness to life," and in pursuit of that goal, it continually renounced artificial settings, costumes, and contrived endings. In this philosophy of Realism, the actors were the characters, the dialogue was the conversation, the scenery was genuinely inhabitable, and the costumes were real clothes. It could be that in viewing a Realism play, we could be seeing the dramatic lives of real people through our private peep-hole. But in spite of all the energy put into the philosophy of Realism, it was simply another dramatic style safe behind the new fourth-wall. It did however, accomplish a review of the aspect of stage production towards the detail in the complexities of human life. The situations, conversation, and characters were like those of the real world - even heroes were everyday people with normal human frailties. "Realists tend to write of man's ignorance and failure, and of human confusion in a complicated world and human isolation in an uncaring cosmos" (Cohen 227). It is a style of production in which the audience is presented with an abundance of seemingly real-life evidence and permitted to arrive at their own conclusions, though the purest form of Realism allows no firm conclusions - just as in life, there may be large boarders between what is better and what is worse. The characters are real and relatable to our own life and world, they may touch our own spirit to leave us personally moved and shaken. The success of Realism was and still is a powerful force, both politically and aesthetically.
Another element was added to the realm of Realism which brought about the intellectual-realistic play, or the drama of thought, where controversial issues were the food of thought for the pioneers of this realistic theatre. Starting in 1879, the stage belonged to the author as never before and implied the "transfer of the stage from the hands of artists to men of intellectual rather than emotional-æsthetic attainments" (Cheney 451). This began in 1879, with Henrik Ibsen's production of A Doll's House, dealing with the role of women in society; followed in 1881, by Ghosts, dealing with hereditary disease and mercy killing; and in 1882, by An Enemy of the People, dealing with political hypocrisy. These plays were controversial beyond measure in their own time, and caused many a theater to be closed down in response, but the surrounding controversy of his plays stimulated other writers to follow suit in a proliferation of "problems plays" which focused on genuine social concerns. In 1892, Germany's Gerhart Hauptmann explored the plight of the middle and proletarian classes in his production The Weavers. England's George Bernard Shaw addressed slum landlordism in Widowers' Houses in 1892, and prostitution in Mrs. Warren's Profession in 1902, and urban poverty in Major Barbara in 1905. France's Eugène Brieux addressed problems in such plays as Damaged Goods dealing with syphilis in 1902, and Maternity dealing with birth control in 1903. Russia's Anton Chekhov portrayed the end of czarist Russia in The Sea Gull in 1896, Uncle Vanya in 1899, The Three Sisters in 1901, and The Cherry Orchard in 1904.
Although America has dramatic history that extends back to the 1500s, it was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that the first truly important American plays start - and they have been dominantly in the style of Realism. America outgrew its dependency on European theatre for material and developed its own, though it had known triumphs in minor fields of Indian dramas, Negro minstrelsy, the Harrigan and Hart farces, and local melodramas. This was a time when the stage became commercial, a time of syndicate control with the pumping out of plays to meet the market demand. The innovations in acting resulted from revolts against the commercialism and spiritual emptiness of show business where the revolutionists believed acting to be a means of promoting social change. The beginning of little non-commercial theatres was not due mainly to a desire for a superior Realism, besides, the playwrights here seem to confuse their aims more than in other countries.
The first American master dramatist was Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953) who was a product of a minor insurgent stage, the Provincetown Playhouse. During the 1920s and 1930s he produced a series of realistic dramatic studies: Anna Christie, about a prostitute; All God's Chillun got Wings, about interracial marriage and starring Paul Robeson; Desire Under the Elms, about rural passion and incest; and Mourning Becomes Electra, a Freudian rewriting of the Oresteian trilogy, but his masterpiece is Long Day's Journey into Night. America's most "serious" playwright is Arthur Miller (1915-) who concentrated on serious subjects such as wartime profiteering in All My sons, the broken American dream in Death of a Salesman, witch hunts and McCarthyism in The Crucible, illegal immigration in A View from the Bridge, and his autobiography in After the Fall.
Remarks on Death of a Salesman
The pursuit of dreams can be a healthy and beneficial aid in life, but when the pursuit for a utopia is unrealistic, the denial of reality can quickly tax emotions and burden the day with confusion and regrets. In Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, we are introduced to Willy Loman, an aged, exhausted, confused father, who after thirty-four years as an ordinary salesman with his company, is unable to accept the reality of dead dreams and expectation; thus, as a lonely, rejected, confused old man, he sees suicide as a means of salvation and a last great contribution to his family. Willy Loman is a Peter Pan: the boy who didn't grow up, unable to cope with the reality of a mediocre life, just another person, a dime a dozen. He unceasingly pursues his rainbows while denying the realities around him by shifting blame, lying, and exaggerating.....Dreams and expectation are a common thing in people's lives,....But dreams seldom come through without hard work and a good responsible grip on reality. (Holding 1994)
Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) was more poetic in his realism. He produced such brilliantly evocative character studies as The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Suddenly Last Summer, and The Night of the Iguana. These often delt with characters who were psychologically unable to cope with the brutalities of daily American life. Another notable playwright is Lorranine Hansberry (1930-1965) who addressed such issues as black integration in the play A Raisin in the Sun, drawn upon from her family's own experience in the Illinois Supreme Court and US Supreme Court case of Hansberry vs. Lee. The 1959 production of A Raisin in the Sun was the first Broadway play by a black woman, its 1974, musical adaptation, Raisin, won a Tony for best musical.
Another movement that independently paralleled Realism was Naturalism; this too, was an attempt to bring reality to theatre. The parallel similarities of Naturalism and Realism are few, except that they both tried to bring reality to the stage. In contrast, Naturalism was more extreme in its attempt and it did not deal with well-defined social issues, but instead used a "slice of life" to highlight the main subjects: the characters in their situations, frustrations, and hopes. The first notable figure of Naturalism is Henri Becque, but this style of theatre was chiefly based on the theories of Emile Zola: that man "was merely a biological phenomenon whose behavior was determined entirely by genetic and social circumstances" (Cohen 211). This is not just a mater of style, but a philosophical concept about the nature of man, and Naturalism used this concept to explore man and the reality around him. In Naturalism, plays are not restrecited to concerned with any story line, but merely a subject or issue - the "slice of life." Plays can and often are hard to follow, as the tense may jump about in time, space, and place.
1. Discuss the French Royal Theatre.
2. Discuss the rise of Realism and Naturalism.
3. Discuss the history of threatre in America.
4. Discuss the history of the American Musical Theatre.
5. Discuss the Current Theatre.