Download Modern Dramatists: Europe

Modern Drama - Major Playwrights
Part I: Europe
Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Wilde, Shaw, Synge, Pirandello
• Course: Modern British and American Plays | 근대영미희곡
• Date: March 2010
Extracts from each play text
•
Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (1879)
•
Strindberg’s Miss Julie (1888)
•
Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard (1904)
•
Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
•
Shaw’s Pygmalion (1912)
•
Synge’s Riders to the Sea (1904)
•
Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921)
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Henrik Ibsen(헨릭 입센, 1828-1906)
• Norwegian playwright, poet
• the father of modern drama
• the prose ‘social dramas’ – dramas of
protest against social conditions,
inquiry into the conditions of life and
issues of morality
• domestic dramas
• realistic plays → naturalistic plays →
symbolic plays
Henrik Ibsen: Notable Works
• A Doll’s House (1879) [1889 UK perf.] – a realistic play,
a criticism of the acceptance of traditional roles of men
and women in Victorian marriage
• Ghosts (1881) – a naturalistic play, commentary on
Victorian morality
• The Wild Duck (1884) - Ibsen’s finest and the most
complex work
• Hedda Gabler (1890) – psychological conflicts
• The Master Builder (1892) – symbolic plays,
psychological conflicts
Ibsen’s contributions to the modern theater
•
Ibsen was a very important influence in opening up
the discussion of the position of women in society
. . . Nora in A Doll’s House started a discussion about
the position of women in Victorian marriage; Mrs
Alving in Ghosts drew attention to the double
standards of morality for men and women; and Hedda
Gabler ultimately constitutes a plea to allow women to
develop their creativeness. (Martin Esslin, 1976: 98)
• ‘endowing his work with a double-leveled perspective’
(Robert Brustein, 1991: 49)
5
Ibsen’s contribution to modern British drama
•
Ibsen has been called ‘the father of modern drama’
because he was the first to use the stage to debate
contemporary social dilemmas, as in his best known
play, about a claustrophobic marriage, A Doll’s House.
•
Ibsen’s plays offers ‘Lessons’ on the hypocrisy and
dual standards of society
•
He took for his subjects, for example, the role of
women in society (A Doll’s House and Hedda Gabler)
and the consequences of inherited syphilis (Ghosts).
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Ibsen’s contribution to modern British drama
•
When A Doll’s House was first performed in London in
1889 it triggered a major debate on the inadequacies
of the commercial theatre.
•
The Theatre of Ideas: ‘Ibsenites’ – young
enthusiastic intellectuals for the new plays inspired by
Ibsen – seized on the idea of theatre as a political
force.
•
Social comment, drawing audiences with realistic
controversial drama concerning ordinary people
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August Strindberg
오거스트 스트린드베리 (1849-1912)
• Swedish playwright
• naturalistic drama
expressionistic drama
자연주의극, 표현주의극
• Miss Julie (1888):
a [one-act] naturalistic tragedy
자연주의 단막극
• A Dream Play (1901):
a symbolist and mystic style
Naturalism
•
. . . was a movement, initiated by Emile Zola; the
application of the new positivist, scientific spirit of the
age to literature.
•
Zola not only wanted a realistic representation of
everyday life, he rejected the idea which had infused
the classical, the romantic and even the realistic
theatre of his period, that art should strive to show the
beautiful, heroic, uplifting and inspiring. (Martin Esslin,
1976: 60)
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Naturalism (continued)
•
Zola wanted the artist to uncover the truth about
society in the same spirit of objective inquiry as that of
a natural scientist’s approach to nature.
•
It was in this spirit that Ibsen in Ghosts brought a
hitherto taboo subject like venereal disease into the
theatre and caused an enormous scandal. (Martin
Esslin, 1976: 60-61)
10
Naturalism (continued)
•
The basic impulse behind the naturalistic movement
was a determination to capture the whole of human
experience, however sordid and ugly, to leave nothing
unsaid. It did this by an accumulation of significant
detail. In romantic drama, the heroes talked in lofty
poetic terms about love or glory . . . By concentrating
on the concrete detail rather than on abstract
sentiments, naturalism tended to transform itself into a
style in which objects increasingly became symbols,
embodiment of ideas. So naturalism merged into
symbolism. (Martin Esslin, 1976: 61-62)
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Naturalism (continued)
•
Strindberg . . . who had started out as naturalist, took
a slightly different path.
•
In [his] determination to represent experience exactly
as it really was, [he] soon discovered that depicting
the external world tells only half the story; you also
had to include the way that world was experienced by
an individual, and that meant his internal world.
(Martin Esslin, 1976: 62)
12
Expressionist drama
•
Hence Strindberg wrote a number such plays – The
Ghost Sonata, To Damascus and the Dream Play
itself which, quite in the spirit of naturalism, tried to
depict a dream. (Martin Esslin, 1976: 62)
•
In expressionist drama the characters frequently do
not even have names (in Ghost Sonata: the Old man,
the Student, the Mummy, the Colonel, etc.).
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Bertolt Brecht’s ‘epic theatre’ (브레히트의 서사극)
•
[Bertolt Brecht] rejected naturalism as well as the
classical and romantic theatre . . . although he took
many ideas from them. His favourite term . . . was
‘epic theatre’.
•
Brecht wanted an ‘undramatic’- an epic-theatre . . . [in]
which [the audience] watch the play in a detached,
critical frame of mind. This is the famous
Verfremdungseffekt . . . translated as alienation
effect. It really means strange-making effect. (Martin
Esslin, 1976: 64-65)
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Bertolt Brecht’s ‘epic theatre’ (브레히트의 서사극)
•
Brecht’s theatre therefore is anti-illusionist: that is, no
effort is made to create an illusion of reality. Instead
the stage becomes something of a lecture platform, a
laboratory in which models of human behaviour are
examined, tested and evaluated.
•
Whereas the naturalists and Brecht concentrate on
social reality, the external world, other playwrights,
following Strindberg and also novelists of dream
states like Kafka and Joyce, turned towards the
representation of the world of fantasy and dream.
(Martin Esslin, 1976: 65)
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Theatre of the Absurd (부조리 극)
•
Theatre of the Absurd or Absurdist theatre
•
. . . an absurdist play uses concretised poetic images
which gradually unfold and disclose their deeper
meaning.
•
In the conventional realistic play, the main emphasis
is on plot and character; in the Brechtian epic play it
is on the demonstration of human behaviour patterns;
in the absurdist play the main means of conveying
significance and effect are image and metaphor.
(Martin Esslin, 1976: 66)
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Anton Chekhov(안톤 체홉, 1860-1904)
• Russian playwright
• Four-act realistic plays
• The Cherry Orchard (1904)
『벚꽃 동산』
•
Three Sisters 『세자매』
•
Uncle Vanya 『반야삼촌』
•
The Seagull 『갈매기』
Chekhovian drama
•
Chekhov uses the drama neither as a vehicle for
individualistic self-realization (Ibsen) nor as a means of
exorcistic self-expression (Strindberg) but rather as a
form for depicting that fluid world beyond the self, with
the author functioning only as an impartial witness.
•
His plays reflect both his sympathy for human suffering
and his outrage at human absurdity, alternating
between moods of wistful pathos and flashes of ironic
humor which disqualify them from being mere slices of
life.
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Chekhovian drama (continued)
•
For if Chekhov is a detached realist, permitting life to
proceed according to its own rules, he is also an
engaged moralist, arranging reality in a particular way
in order to evoke some comment on it.
•
. . . his conviction that ‘life as it is’ is life as it should
not be. (Brustein, 1991: 138, 139)
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Chekhovian drama (continued)
•
Chekhov will introduce political, social, and
philosophical discussions into his work, because
these are threads in the fabric of reality. But he is
careful neither to take sides nor to hint at solutions.
•
“It is the duty of the judge to put the questions to the
jury correctly,” he observes, employing his favorite
courtroom metaphor, “and it is for members of the jury
to make up their minds, each according to his taste.”
(Brustein, 1991: 145)
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Chekhovian drama (continued)
•
Chekhov’s impersonality is a surface characteristic;
and beneath this surface is a satiric, admonitory
moralist . . .
•
Chekhov the realist pretends to have no other aim
than the faithful representation of reality; but Chekhov
the moralist is always conscious of a higher purpose
than mere imitation. (Brustein, 1991: 147)
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Chekhovian drama (continued)
•
Chekhov’s revolt is directed against the quality of
contemporary Russian life. (Brustein, 1991: 148)
•
The conflict between the cultured upper classes and
their stupefying environment – between the forces of
light and the forces of darkness – provides the basic
structure of most of Chekhov’s plays (Brustein, 1991:
149-150)
22
The Cherry Orchard (1904)
•
•
•
•
premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre, directed by
Constantin Stanislavski
Chekhov intended this play as a comedy; however,
Stanislavski directed it as a tragedy → the dual nature
of the play
has become a classic work of dramatic literature
the play’s influence on many dramatists including
Eugene O’Neill, Bernard Shaw, and Arthur Miller
23
The Cherry Orchard (1904) – synopsis
•
•
The play concerns an aristocratic Russian woman
(Madame Ranevskaya) and her family (including her 17year old daughter Anya) as they return to the family’s
estate (which includes a large and well-known cherry
orchard) just before it is auctioned to pay the mortgage.
While presented with options to save the estate, the
family essentially does nothing and the play ends with
the estate being sold to the son of a former serf
(Yermolai Lopakhin), and the family leaving to the
sound of the cherry orchard being cut down.
24
The Cherry Orchard (1904)
•
•
Act One opens in May
when the cherry trees in
the Ranevskaya orchard
are blooming.
Trofimov – a young
student who acted as tutor
to Ranevskaya’s son,
Grisha, who drowned five
years prior to the
beginning of the play
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The Cherry Orchard (1904) – themes
•
•
the effect social change has on people, the theme of
identity, the themes of cultural futility – both the futility of
the aristocracy to maintain its status and the futility of
the bourgeoisie to find meaning in its newfound
materialism.
In reflecting the socio-economic forces at work in
Russia at the turn of the 20th century, including the rise
of the middle class after the abolition of serfdom in the
mid-19th century (1861) and the sinking of the
aristocracy, the play reflects forces at work around the
globe in that period.
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Oscar Wilde(오스카 와일드, 1854-1900)
•
•
•
•
Irish-born English playwright, poet
comedy of manners (drawing-room comedy)
a spokesman for the late 19th-century Aesthetic
movement (Aestheticism) in England, which
advocated art for art’s sake
the object of celebrated civil and criminal suits
involving homosexuality and ending in his
imprisonment (1895–97).
Oscar Wilde’s Works
his only novel:
• The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
『도리언그레이 초상화』
comic masterpieces:
• Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892) 『윈더미어부인의 부채』
• An Ideal Husband (1895) 『이상적인 남편』
• The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
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Aestheticism (art movement)
•
•
late 19th-century European arts movement which
centered on the doctrine that art exists for the sake of
its beauty alone, and that it need serve no political,
didactic, or other purpose.
The movement began in reaction to prevailing
utilitarian social philosophies and to what was
perceived as the ugliness and philistinism of the
industrial age.
Aestheticism (art movement)
•
•
Its philosophical foundations were laid in the 18th
century by Immanuel Kant, who postulated the
autonomy of aesthetic standards, setting them apart
from considerations of morality, utility, or pleasure.
It was popularized in France, and the philosopher
Victor Cousin, who coined the phrase l’art pour l’art
(“art for art’s sake”) in 1818.
Aestheticism (art movement)
•
•
•
the movement’s ideal: the cultivation of refined
sensibility
In England, the artists of the Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood (Dante Gabriel Rossetti, etc), from 1848,
had sown the seeds of Aestheticism, and their work
exemplified it in expressing a yearning for ideal beauty
through conscious medievalism.
The attitudes of the movement were also represented
in the writings of Oscar Wilde and Walter Pater
Aestheticism (art movement)
•
•
Contemporary critics of Aestheticism included William
Morris and John Ruskin, who questioned the value of
art divorced from morality.
Aestheticism shared certain affinities with the French
Symbolist movement, fostered the Arts and Crafts
Movement, and sponsored Art Nouveau.
art-for-art’s-sake
•
a slogan translated from the French l’art pour l’art,
which was coined in the early 19th century by the
French philosopher Victor Cousin. The phrase
expresses the belief held by many writers and artists,
especially those associated with Aestheticism, that
art needs no justification, that it need serve no
political, didactic, or other end.
(Britannica Online Encyclopedia)
The Dandy
• The original meaning of the word was a fop,
someone ostentatiously well-dressed, and it
tended to extend to smart ways of behaving and
talking. A dandy looked elegant, was socially
sophisticated, and knew it. On the other hand he
showed no interest in matters of conscience or
morality. (Jim Hunter, 2000: 18)
• ‘In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity,
is the vital thing’ (Gwendolen in Earnest, p. 345[69])
George Bernard Shaw (GBS)
(조지 버나드 쇼, 1856-1950)
•
•
Irish-born English playwright
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925
George Bernard Shaw(1856-1950)
• Shavian ‘play of ideas’ or thesis drama (사상극)
– 영국의 지적인 희극
• The Quintessence of Ibsenism (1890)
• plays unpleasant: Mrs Warren’s Profession (1902), etc.
• plays pleasant: Arms and the Man (1894) – farcical
comedy, Candida (1897), etc.
• three plays for puritans: The Devil’s Disciple (1897), etc.
• Other major works: Man and Superman (1903), Major
Barbara (1905), Pygmalion (1912) – an antitype of the
popular Cinderella story, etc.
Shaw’s contribution
•
•
•
Shaw, an Ibsenite, or a fervent apostle of Ibsen’s,
grew to be the true colossus of the new theatre.
He began his literary career as a novelist, working
also as a critic of music and drama.
The beginning of modern drama in England can
be dated in 1890 when Shaw gave his lecture on
‘The Quintessence of Ibsenism’, which marks a
watershed between traditionalism and new
politicized forms of drama. (Innes, 2002: 3)
Shaw’s contribution
•
•
Playwrights like Ibsen or Shaw attacked the social
codes of their society; conventional drawing-room
comedy probably reaffirmed the social code of the
upper classes that formed its audience. (Martin
Esslin, 1976: 29)
Shaw’s brilliant and amusing demonstration of his
socialist point of view contributed much to the rise
of left-wing thinking in Britain and elsewhere.
(Martin Esslin, 1976: 98)
Shaw’s contribution
•
Shaw’s campaign to promote the ‘new’ drama
•
•
Transforming drama into a vehicle for ideas
His preface and sense of ethical purpose provide
a model for Edward Bond
His intellectual comedy, and the verbal brilliance
he shares with Wilde, look forward to Tom
Stoppard (Innes, 2002: 51)
•
Pygmalion (1912) – My Fair Lady (1964)
•
an antitype of the popular Cinderella story
40
Pygmalion in Ovid’s Metamorphoses
•
오비디우스(Ovid)의『변형담』(Metamorphoses):
조각가 피그말리온이 자신이 이상으로 여기는 여인을
상아로 조각하여 그 상을 사랑하게 됨. 베누스 여신이
그의 기도에 응답, 이 상에 생명을 불어넣어 주었다 함.
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G. B. Shaw’s Pygmalion (1912) - synopsis
•
Based on Ovid’s tale of Pygmalion in Metamorphoses.
•
It tells the story of Henry Higgins, a professor of
phonetics, who makes a bet with his friend Colonel
Pickering that he can successfully pass off a Cockney
flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, as a refined society lady by
teaching her how to speak with an upper class accent and
training her in etiquette.
•
In the process, Higgins and Doolittle grow close, but she
ultimately rejects his domineering ways and declares she
will marry Freddy – a young, poor, gentleman.
42
Pygmalion (1912) – the first production
•
His Majesty’s Theatre, London on April 11, 1914
•
Starring Mrs Patrick Campbell as Eliza and
Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Henry Higgins
•
It was directed by Shaw himself.
43
J. M. Synge (존 밀링턴 싱, 1871-1909)
• Irish playwright
• Folklore collector, Irish Literary
Revival, Co-founder of the
Abbey Theatre
• Riders to the Sea (1904)
『바다로간 기수들』
• The Playboy of the Western
World (1907)
『서쪽나라의 바람둥이』
Riders to the Sea (1904)
•
A one-act tragedy, the play is set in the Aran Islands,
and like all of Synge's plays it is noted for capturing
the poetic dialogue of rural Ireland.
•
Synge's plays helped set the Abbey house style for
the following four decades.
The stylised realism of his writing and plays of
peasant life were the main staple of the repertoire until
the end of the 1950s.
•
45
Synge’s Legacy and Influence
•
•
•
Sean O'Casey, the next major dramatist to write for
the Abbey Theatre, knew Synge's work well and
attempted to do for the Dublin working classes what
his predecessor had done for the rural poor.
Brendan Behan indebted to Synge.
Samuel Beckett was a regular audience member at
the Abbey in his youth and particularly admired the
plays of Yeats, Synge and O'Casey.
46
Riders to the Sea (1904) – plot synopsis
•
•
Maurya has lost her husband, father-in-law, and five
sons to the sea. As the play begins Nora and
Cathleen receive word that a body that may be their
brother Michael has washed up on shore in Donegal,
far to the north.
Bartley is planning to sail to Connemara to sell a
horse, and ignores Maurya's pleas to stay. As he
leaves, he leaves gracefully. Maurya predicts that by
nightfall she will have no living sons, and her
daughters chide her for sending Bartley off with an ill
word.
47
Riders to the Sea (1904) – plot synopsis
•
•
Maurya goes after Bartley to bless his voyage, and
Nora and Cathleen receive clothing from the drowned
corpse that confirms it as their brother.
Maurya returns home claiming to have seen the ghost
of Michael riding behind Bartley and begins lamenting
the loss of the men in her family to the sea, after
which some villagers bring in the corpse of Bartley,
who has fallen off his horse into the sea and drowned.
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Luigi Pirandello
(루이지 피란델로, 1867-1936)
• Italian playwright
• Nobel Prize in Literature (1934)
• Metadrama | 메타연극
• Six Characters in Search of
an Author (1921)
『작가를 찾는 6인의 등장인물』
• Satirical tragi-comedy
Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921)
•
•
In modern drama, playwrights have become more
conscious than ever of the potential of that tension
between illusion and reality, fact and fiction, in the
theatrical experience.
Pirandello used it in Six Characters in Search of an
Author by going so far as to show us the actors as
they really are as private individuals assembled for a
rehearsal, then the characters as imagined by the
author, and then these characters as portrayed by
those actors. (Martin Esslin, 1976: 91)
50
Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921)
(continued)
•
•
•
•
a movement in the early 20th century called
theatricalism or anti-illusionism.
rejected realist drama and substituted the dreamlike,
the expressive, and the symbolic.
disapproved of realism because it had abandoned the
defining tools of drama, such as poetry, interaction
between actors and audience, soliloquies, asides and
bare stages.
The theatricalists thought realism could not depict the
inner life of human beings.
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Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921)
(continued)
•
•
The play demonstrates these ideas in several ways.
The focus of the play is on the interactions of the six
characters with the real actors in the theater. This
suggests that human beings cannot distinguish
between the real and the apparent – the distinction
itself is illusory. “Reality” is merely what one happens
to believe in at the moment.
The Father character argues that fictional characters
are more “real” than living ones, since they are fixed
eternally, while a living person is constantly changing
and subject to time.
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