Download Realistic Drama

Modern Theatre History
Realistic Drama
Realist sought to convince their audiences that stage action
represented everyday life.
Unlike drama that featured larger-than-life characters, was
written in verse, and had supernatural figures such as witches
and ghosts, realistic drama mirrored life.
The action onstage resembled what people could observe
around them
o Characters behaved, spoke, and dressed like ordinary
people.
In the late 19th century many theatregoers and critics were
scandalized by realism in the theatre.
o One reason is that realism touched a raw nerve.
 In the attempt to portray daily life, realist argued, no
subject matter should be excluded from the stage.
 Among the taboo subjects dramatized by realists
were economic injustice, the sexual double
standard, unhappy marriages, and religious
hypocrisy.
 In fact, many realists believed that the purpose of
drama was to call the audience’s attention to social
problems in order to bring about change.
o Realist refused to make simple moral judgments or to
resolve dramatic action neatly.
Instead of stock characters, realists created complicated
personalities who would seem to have been molded – as real
people are – by heredity and environment.
o Today’s equivalent is the profanity, obscene language,
explicit sex, and extreme violence sometimes seen in
films, and in TV shows.
Hernrik Ibsen
The Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen is often said to be the
founder of modern realism.
As a playwright, he is known for his mastery of dramatic
technique, his psychological insights into human nature, and
his poetic symbolism.
Realistic Acting
Konstantin Stanislavski
o The most famous system for training performers to act
realistically – that is, to be believable – was developed by
Konstantin Stanislavski, who was the co-founder of the
Moscow Art Theatre.
The Stanislavskian Technique
o Before the realistic drama of the late 1800s, no one had
devised a method for achieving true-to-life believability
onstage. Through their own talent and genius, individual
actresses and actors had achieved it, but on one had
developed a system whereby it could be taught to others
and passed on to future generations.
o The person who eventually did this most successfully was
Stanislavski.
o We might assume that believable acting is simply a matter
of being natural; but Stanislavski discovered first of all
that acting realistically onstage is extremely artificial and
difficult. He wrote:
 All of our acts, even the simplest, which are so
familiar to us in everyday life, become strained when
we appear behind the footlights before a public of a
thousand people. That is why it is necessary to
correct ourselves and learn again how to walk, sit, or
lie down. It is essential to reeducate ourselves to
look and see, on the stage, to listen and to hear.
o To achieve this “reeducation,” Stanislavski said, “The
actor must first of all believe in everything that takes place
onstage, and most of all, he must believe what he himself
is doing. And one can believe only in the truth.”
 To give substance to his ideas, Stanislavski studied
how people acted in everyday life and how they
communicated feelings and emotions
 And then he found ways to accomplish the same
things onstage.
 He developed a series of exercises and techniques
for the actor which had the following broad aims:
 To make the outward behavior of the performer
o Gestures, voice, and rhythm of
movements – natural and convincing.
 To have the actor or actress convey the goals
and objectives – the inner needs – of a
character.
o Even if all the visible manifestations of a
character are mastered, a performance
will appear superficial and mechanical
without a deep sense of conviction and
belief.
 To make the life of the character onstage not
only dynamic but also continuous.
o Some performers tend to emphasize only
the high points of a part’ in between, the
life of the character stops.
o In real life, however, people do not stop
living.
 To develop a strong sense of ensemble playing
with other performers in a scene.
Stanislavski’s Techniques
o Relaxation
 When he observed the great actors and actresses of
his day, Stanislavski noticed how fluid and lifelike
their movements were.
 They seemed to be in a state of complete freedom
and relaxation, letting the behavior of the character
come through effortlessly.
 He concluded that unwanted tension has to be
eliminated and that the performer must at all times
attain a state of physical and vocal relaxation.
o Concentration and Observation
 Stanislavski also discovered that gifted performers
always appeared fully concentrated on some object,
person, or event while onstage.
 He referred to the extent or range of concentration
as a circle of attention.
 This circle of attention can be compared to a circle
of light on a darkened stage.
 The performer should begin with the idea that it is a
small, tight circle including only himself or herself
and perhaps one other person or one piece of
furniture.
o Importance of Specifics
 One of Stanislavski’s techniques was an emphasis
on concrete details.
 A performer should never try to act in general, he
said, and should never try to convey a feeling such
as fear or love in some vague, amorphous way.
 In life, Stanislavski said, we express emotions in
terms of specifics:
 An anxious woman twists a handkerchief
 An angry boy throws a rock at a trash can
 A nervous businessman jangles his keys.
 Performers must find similar concrete activities.
 The performer must also conceive of the situation in
which a character exists – what Stanislavski referred
to as the given circumstances – in terms of specifics.
 In what kind of space does an event take place:
formal, informal, public, domestic?
 How does it feel?
 What is the temperature?
 The lighting?
 What has gone on just before?
 What is expected in the moments ahead?
o Inner Truth
 An innovative aspect of Stanislavski’s work has to do
with inner truth, which deals with the internal or
subjective world of characters – that is, their
thoughts and emotions.
 Some plays have less to do with external action or
what the characters say than with what the
characters are feeling and thinking but often do not
verbalize.
 Stanislavski had several ideas about how to achieve
a sense of inner truth, one being the “magic if.”
 “If” is a word which can transform our
thoughts; through it we can imagine ourselves
in virtually any situation.
o “If I suddenly became wealthy…”
o “If that person who insulted me comes
near me again…”
 The word “if” becomes a lever for the mind
 It can lift us out of ourselves and give us a
sense of absolute certainty about imaginary
circumstances.
o What? Why? How?
 Another important principle of Stanislavski’s system
is that all action onstage must have a purpose.
 This means that the performer’s attention must
always be focused on a series of physical
actions (also call psychophysical actions)
linked together by the circumstances of the
play.
 Stanislavski determined these actions by
asking three essential questions
o What? Why? How?
o An action is performed, such as opening a
letter (the what). The letter is opened
because someone has said that it contains
extremely damaging information about the
character (the why). The letter is opened
anxiously, fearfully (the how), because of
the calamitous effect it might have on a
character.
o These physical actions, which occur from
moment to moment, are in turn governed
by the character’s overall objective in the
play.
o Through Line of a Role
 According to Stanislavski, in order to develop
continuity in a part, the actor or actress should find
the superobjective of a character.
 What is it, above all else, that the character
wants during the course of the play?
 What is the character’s driving force?
 If a goal can be established toward which the
character strives, it will give the performer an
overall objective.
 From this objective can be developed a through
line.
o Another term for through line is spine.
 To help develop the through line, Stanislavski
urged performers to divide scenes into units
(sometimes called beats).
 In each unit there is an objective, and the
intermediate objectives running through a play
lead ultimately to the overall objective.
o Ensemble Playing
 Except in one-person shows, performers do not act
alone; they interact with other people.
 Stanislavski was aware that many performers tend
to “stop acting,” or lose their concentration, when
they are not the main characters in a scene or when
someone else is talking.
 Such performers make a great effort when they are
speaking but not when they are listening.
 This tendency destroys the through line and causes
the performer to move into and out of a role.
 That, in turn, weakens the sense of ensemble –
playing together of all the performers.
Jump to the Great Depression
The Federal Theatre Project
o During the depression, President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration
(WPA), which organized government-subsidized agencies
to put the unemployed back to work.
o The Federal Theatre Project, headed by Hallie Flanagan
Davis, a college professor, was one of these agencies.
 For four years, the Federal Theatre Project
supported theatrical ventures throughout the United
States and helped to revitalize interest in theatre
outside New York City.
 One of the most popular forms developed by the
project was the living newspaper
 Dramatizations of current events, such as
bread lines and rising unemployment.
 For political reasons, the government discontinued
funding the Federal Theatre Project in 1939 –
 Many legislators had said that the project was
sympathetic to communism
 Today, federal, state, and local governments provide
some support to theatre companies, but the Federal
Theatre Project is the closest the United States has
come to establishing a national theatre.
College and University Theatres
o Another noteworthy development in the United States at
this time was the emergence of theatre departments in
colleges and universities across the country.
 George Pierce Baker at Harvard and Yale
 Thomas Wood Stevens at the Carnegie Institute of
Technology (now Carnegie Mellon) in Pittsburgh,
 And Frederick Koch at the University of North
Carolina started the study of theatre at academic
institutions.
o This unprecedented movement was to become important
in preparing playwrights, performers, directors,
designers, and technicians for both professional and
nonprofessional theatre.
Postwar Realistic Drama
Selective Realism
o The leading postwar American playwrights, Arthur Miller
and Tennessee Williams, wrote realistic works but were
also successful with selective realism,
 A type of realism that heightens certain details of
action, scenery, and dialogue while omitting others.
o Miller and Williams have had a strong impact on the
development of American drama
o They are considered perhaps the most important
playwrights in the history of American theatre.