Download Chapter 1: The Nature of Theatre

Chapter 7: The Modernist Temperament
1885-1960

Characterized by a rejection of the belief that art
should seek to objectively represent human
behavior and the physical world
◦ Artists sought to create with imaginative
perception and innovation rather than accurate
depiction
Symbolism

First artistic movement to reject
representationalism

Launched in 1885

Truth is:
◦ beyond objective examination
◦ cannot be discovered through the 5 senses
◦ can only be intuited
◦ can only be hinted at through a network of
symbols
Symbolism
Theatrical Conventions:

Subjects taken from:
• the past
• the realm of fancy
• the mysterious present

Symbolist drama tended to be vague and mysterious

Most important aspect of production = mood or atmosphere

Minimal scenery that lacked detail

Gauze curtain hung between audience and stage = scrim;
represented the mist or a timeless void
Symbolism
Theatrical Conventions:

Color chosen for mood
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Text often chanted
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Actors incorporated unnatural gestures

Productions often baffled audiences

Symbolist Theatre Movement ceased by 1900
Significance of Symbolism
•
Disrupted practice of using the same conventions to stage all
plays during a particular period
•
Prior to the 20th century, artistic movements occurred
linearly
•
During the 20th century, several artistic movements occurred
simultaneously
•
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Each movement had its own premises about nature and
truth
•
Each movement had its own set of conventions
Shift from absolute values to relative values
Art for Art’s Sake
•
English Aestheticism: the only functions of art are to
intensify experience and to provide sensuous pleasure
•
Art has an independent life and its imaginative power
must remain free from the concerns of its time
•
“Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things is the
proper aim of art.” (Oscar Wilde)
Realism/Naturalism versus Art for Art’s Sake
Art imitates Life
Life imitates Art
The Importance of Being Earnest
•
Written by Wilde in 1895
•
Uses standard devices of a 3-act well-made play
• Carefully constructed exposition
• Cause-to-effect arrangement of events
• Skillful manipulation of withheld information
• Startling reversals accomplished by last minute
revelations
Modernist Influence on Theatrical
Visionaries

Adolphe Appia (1862-1928)
•
Viewed artistic unity in theatre as
fundamental, but difficult to achieve because
of conflicting elements:
•
The moving actor, the horizontal floor, vertical
scenery
Modernist Influence on Theatrical
Visionaries

Adolphe Appia (1862-1928)
•
•
•
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Replaced flat, painted scenery with 3-dimensional
scenic structures
Used steps, platforms, and ramps to bridge the
horizontal and vertical planes
Used lighting from various directions and angles
Viewed lighting as most flexible of the theatrical
elements
•
Could change moment to moment
•
Could reflect shifts in mood and emotion
•
Unified all other elements through intensity, color,
direction, movement
Modernist Influence on Theatrical
Visionaries

Edward Gordon Craig (1872-1966)
•
Denied that theatre was a fusion of the other arts
•
Theatre as a wholly autonomous art
•
Elements of theatre (action, language, line, color,
rhythm) fused by master artist
•
Once suggested that actors should be replaced by large
puppets
•
Simplicity in scenery, costumes, lighting
•
Director as supreme, unifying theatre artist
Modernist Influence on Theatrical
Visionaries

Max Reinhardt (1872-1943)
•
Treated each production as a new challenge demanding
its own unique stylistic solution
•
Enabled director to make the choice of what stylistic
approach to use
•
Believed that the production should serve the script
•
Established eclecticism and relativism as the dominant
directorial approach
New Artistic Movements

Futurism
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•
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Glorified the speed and energy of the machine age
Sought to replace old art forms with many new forms
• Collage
• Kinetic sculpture
• Bruitisme = “noise music”
Variety theatre as dynamic: involved audience, possessed
dynamic energy
Synthetic drama: compresses essence of full-length play into 1
or 2 moments
Simultaneity and multiple focus
Lost appeal during WWI since it praised war as the supreme
expression of the aggressive life it championed
New Artistic Movements

Dada
•
Grounded in rejection of values that had provoked WWI
•
Sought to replace logic, reason, and unity in art with chance
and illogic
•
Used simultaneity and multiple focus
•
“chance poems” = created by placing words in a hat and
drawing them out at random
•
“sound poems” = composed of nonverbal sounds
•
Short plays, dances, music
•
Essentially anarchistic
•
Dada continued after WWI, but lost most of its energy
New Artistic Movements

Expressionism
•
Contended that materialism and industrialism perverted the
human spirit by turning humans into machines
•
Sought to achieve “the regeneration of man”
•
Emphasis on text
•
Protagonist on a quest for identity, fulfillment, or means to
change the world
•
Scenery presented a distorted world: leaning walls, green sky
•
A nightmarish vision of the human situation
•
Popularity of form faded after the 1920s
The Hairy Ape
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Written by Eugene O’Neill
Demonstrates the outlook and the techniques of
Expressionism
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Structure is episodic
Visual elements are distorted
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Characters:
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•
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Only a few characters are given names
Most are identical types, such as the stokers
Humans in the modern world as distorted
Protagonist as symbolic of modern humanity in an
industrialized society
• Cut off from past and trapped in an existence where
humans are cogs in the industrial machine
American Theatre and Drama Between
the Wars (1917-1940)
•
By the 1920s, modernism was predominant in all
arts
•
•
Between 1929-1939, approximately 2/3 of all live
entertainment theatres in the USA closed
•
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Several theatrical styles existed simultaneously
Advent of sound films (1929)
Movie tickets cheaper than theatre tickets
Major economic depression
Majority of audiences still preferred Realism
Broadway audiences not very tolerant of
innovation
The Federal Theatre

The Federal Theatre Project (1935-1939)
• The American government’s first financial
support of theatre
• Due to deepening depression, Congress
created the Works Progress Administration to
provide jobs in various fields
• Task was to provide “ free, adult, uncensored
theatre”
• Created Living Newspaper = plays that
advocated social reform
The Group Theatre

The Group Theatre (1931-1941)
•
Modeled on the Moscow Art Theatre
•
Promoted the Stanislavsky system of acting in
the USA
•
Highly respected company that presented
many of the best productions on Broadway
during its existence
Development of the American Musical

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The musical was the most popular theatrical form in the USA
during the 20th century
Musical drama has a long and varied history
Musical comedy did not emerge as a distinct type until late 19th
century
Early musical comedies:
• Emphasized romantic appeal of exotic places or situations
• Used stories primarily as excuses for songs and ensemble numbers
• Emphasized spectacular settings, songs, dances, chorus girls

Late 1920s: story and psychological motivation gained in
importance
• Show Boat (1927) Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein II
Epic Theatre
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Developed in Germany during the 1920s
Chief practitioner = Bertolt Brecht
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Sought to make audiences evaluate the socioeconomic
implications of what they saw in the theatre
Wanted the audience to watch theatre actively
and critically
Concept of alienation = distancing spectators
from stage events so that they may view them
critically
Theatre as a place to recognize problems that are then to be
solved outside of the theatre.
Epic Theatre

Achieving Alienation
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Reminded audience that it was in the theatre by calling
attention to the theatre’s means:
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•
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Placed lighting instruments in full view
Used fragmented scenery
• Made support for suspended objects visible
Actors encouraged to present rather than to become their
characters
• Spoke of their characters in the third person
• Often commented on the action of the play
Story distanced through time or place
Epic Theatre

Achieving Alienation
•
Rejected notion of effective theatrical production as a
synthesis of all the arts
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Each element should make its own comment
•
Disparity among elements arouses alienation
Called attention to the “knots” that tie the scene together
•
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Used captions, songs, etc to emphasize breaks in the action
Alienation does not preclude engagement:
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Engage the audience empathetically
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Then use a device (such as a song) to create distance
•
This allows the audience to evaluate what has been experienced
during moments of empathy
The Good Person of Setzuan
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Brecht’s play suggests:
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Economic need is the root of all evil
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Solutions to human problems are not to be found in divine
injunctions
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Alternates short and long scenes
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Telescopes events and eliminates transitions
•
The social content of each scene, “gestus” can be expressed in one
sentence
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No attempt to create the everyday illusion of reality
•
Oversimplifies characters to express social relationships
Artaud and the Theatre of Cruelty
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Surrealism:
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Emphasized importance of unconscious
Significant truths as buried deep within the psyche
The conscious mind must be subverted in order to reach truths
Promoted: dreams, automatic writing, and stream of
consciousness
Antonin Artaud
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Believed that theatre could free people from destructive
impulses
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“The theatre has been created to drain abscesses collectively.”
Artaud and the Theatre of Cruelty
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Referred to as Theatre of Cruelty because it forced the
audience, against its wishes, to confront itself
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Ultimate purpose was a type of psychic shock therapy
Proposed “a new language of theatre”
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Avoided proscenium arch theatres in favor of large,
undifferentiated spaces such as factories and airplane hangers
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Placed audience in the middle of the action
•
Wanted to eliminate scenery entirely
•
Used human voice for text and for non-textual emotional and
atmospheric effects
Post-World War II American Drama &
Theatre
◦ Modified realism continued as major approach to theatrical
production
◦ Psychological realism, derived from Stanislavsky’s system of
acting, became even more predominate

Psychological Realism dominated playwriting

2 Major Dramatists:
 Arthur Miller
 Tennessee Williams

Dominant Production Style established by director Elia Kazan and
designer Jo Mielziner
 Used in both acting and directing styles
 Simplified, skeletal settings permitted fluid shifts in time & place
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
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Written by Tennessee Williams (1955)
Structured in 3 acts, but with continuous action; time
elapsed in play = time required to perform
Late point of attack; requires considerable exposition,
which is worked into the action
Focuses primarily on 3 characters
An alternative third act was written at the insistence of
Elia Kazan
From contemporary perspective, this play may be
faulted on 2 scores: gender and race; however, both
were treated in ways typical of their time
The American Musical (1941-1960)
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By 1940 the musical had become distinctly American
Oklahoma! (1943): Richard Rodgers & Oscar
Hammerstein II
 Often considered the first work to integrate music,
story, dance, and visual elements in order to forward
the dramatic action
 Set the standard for the “book musical”
Musical Theatre considered America’s most significant
contribution to world theatre
What do YOU Think?
1.
What makes Musical Theatre so popular?
2.
How do the various elements of Musical Theatre
(settings, costumes, lighting, music, dance, story)
contribute to its appeal?
3.
If you had a choice between seeing a production of
spoken drama or a Musical, which would you choose?
Why?
Post-World War II European Drama &
Theatre

Many in Europe questioned the very foundation of
truth and values

Existentialism
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Pursued questions of truth, values, and moral responsibility
Jean-Paul Sartre:
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Denied existence of God
Denied the validity of fixed standards of conduct
Denied the possibility of verifiable moral codes
Human beings as “condemned to be free” = individuals must
choose the values by which they will live
Post-World War II European Drama &
Theatre

Albert Camus:
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Human condition as absurd
• From this came the label absurdist
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Humans long for clarity and certainty, but the universe is
irrational
Only option: individuals must choose the standards by which
they will live
Both Sartre and Camus were convinced that we can examine
our situation and make decisions that permit us to act
meaningfully in accordance with those decisions.
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Absurdist Drama
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Emerged in France (1950)
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Absurdists accepted views of Sartre and Camus about the human
condition
•
But, saw no way out of condition because rational and meaningful
choices seemed impossible in such a universe
•
Truth = chaos; lack of order, logic, certainty
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Play structures abandon cause-and-effect relationships
•
Play structures reveal associational patterns reflecting illogic and
chance
•
Most influential playwright = Samuel Beckett
Waiting for Godot

One of the best known plays of the 20th century

Suggests the impossibility of certainty about anything
except the need to accept and endure

Loneliness and alienation is embodied visually in a
stark setting

Gesture, business, and language are all important

A state of being is explored, rather than an action

The play embodies the absurdist vision and methods