Realism Flashcards
1
Q
Prior to Realism:
A
- Romanticism (Intellectual movement)
- Melodrama (Popular movement)
2
Q
Romanticism
A
- Dominant theatre movement
- Emphasised: individual, imagination, man’s relationship with nature (God), love of beauty
- Explored inner feelings and a higher purpose of life
- Heightened emotions, extravagant plots, grand entrances/exits, declamatory.
- Used exotic faraway locations, legends, mythology, fantasy, dreams, supernatural
- Tableaux Vivant – living picture
- Plays were sensational and sentimental in tone
- Confined to the apron
3
Q
Themes
Romanticism
A
conflicts in the soul, mysticism and supernaturality
4
Q
What made Romanticism prosper? (SOPOCO)
Romanticism
A
- Indus revolution and rapid urban growth: these movements satisfied increasing demand for theatre
- Era of financial prosperity for theatre
5
Q
Staging
Romanticism
What did the audience see on the stage?
A
- Spectacle and visual extravagance
- Sophisticated technology and machinery - “sensation drama”
- Special effects: became the principle attraction, more than the play itself
- Developments in lighting
- Examples: moving panoramas (spool), treadmills (moving ships, carriages, horses etc.)
- This theatrical movement was highly in development of silent cinema (La Lune)
6
Q
Romantic writers and their goals
A
Romantics wanted a return to nature and idealism
- Literary: Wordsworth, Keats, Shelly, Byron, Coleridge
7
Q
Melodrama
A
- Sentimental drama with extravagant theatricality
- Romantic, full of violent action, featured triumph of good over evil
- Romantic settings: ruined castles and wild mountains
- Term means ‘music drama’ – music used to increase emotional response in the audience, and to suggest characters
- Constructed world of heightened emotions
- Many special effects: fires, explosions, drownings, earthquakes
- Simplified moral universe: good are rewarded and the bad punished
8
Q
Characterisation
Melodrama
A
- Appealed to a working-class audience: heroes and heroines working class and villains were upper class
- Characters were stock types: hero, heroine, villain
9
Q
Formula of Plays
Melodrama
A
Formula: a villain poses a threat, the hero escapes the threat, rescues the heroine, happy ending
10
Q
[2]
Extensive vs Intensive setting
Melodrama
A
- Extensive structure: many settings, large casts, jumps in time
- Intensive structure: single setting (time and place), small cast (one main action), linear/chronological time – unity of time, place and action – Aristotlean unities
11
Q
VAUDEVILLE
A
- Multi-act theatre from USA (1880’2-1920’s)
- Bill: Programme of acts
1. ‘Dumb act’ - allowed audience to arrive
2. ‘Headliner’ - biggest draw on the bill
3. ‘Chaser’ - boring act, chased audience out - Constantly revolving preformances
12
Q
Music Hall
A
- England: music, dancing, singing, juggling, high kickers, burlesque
- Came from song and supper rooms
- Heydey of music hall was 1850s – WW2
- Replaced by film as popular entertainment
13
Q
Developements in lighting
A
- Innovations in lighting aided the developement of Realism
- 1820’s: Gas replaced candle and oil lamps
- 1850’s: Central panel of gas valves - control of lighting (dimming, brightening)
- Lime light - spotlight, follow spot + special effects eg: Beam of sunlight/moonlight through a window
- 1880: Electricity rapidly takes over gas
- Artificiality of flat props and staging (painted scenery) emphasised ∴ Realists started using 3D props (real doorhandles, carpets etc)
- With that, stage business emerged - making tea, boiling water on stage (1870)
14
Q
Realism
A
- Theatre became concerned with debating the realities of living
- Realism shows human behaviour and surroundings EXACTLY as they appear in real life – a slice of life on stage – objective representation
- Reaction and rebellion against highly emotional and subjective approach of Melodrama and Romanticism
- They had lost their appeal – idealistic, and not connected with what was happening at the time
- Theatre needed a new stylistic platform to address social injustice and issues
- Realists strove to find social truth: believed that showing the truth on stage
would help to solve social problems - Views were grounded in scientific outlook: need to understand human behaviour in terms of cause and effect
- Playwrights wrote about society around them in an objective manner
- Plays were about contemporary subjects and showed naturalistic human behaviour
- Challenged moral values and social norms
15
Q
SOPOCO
Realism
A
- Industrial Revolution
- Victorian Society
- Colonialism and Political Oppression
16
Q
Industrial Revolution
SOPOCO of Realism
A
- Mid 1800’s: shift from agricultural society → manufacturing one
- Led to general misery: mass urbanisation and industrialism - overpopulation, crime, poverty, unemployment, disease, addiction, child labour
∴ Romantic yearning for nature and beauty was out of touch - Home industries changed to factories
- Rise of Capitalism
- Productivity and efficiency grew and so did scientific knowledge
- CBD’s formed
- Economic changes caused radical social changes
- Also: development of superior military technology
17
Q
Victorian Society
SOPOCO of Realism
A
- Victorians maintained a veneer [thin, decorative covering] of conservative morality
- Women of upper and middle classes expected to engage: taking tea, charity work, motherhood, trophy wives (ref to Nora)
- Falsehood of ‘ideal family’ maintained
- Double standard (oil and water) meant that harsh realities of working class were conveniently ignored, underprivileged seen as a mass to be tolerated
- Misogyny, strict gender roles, patriarchal thinking
18
Q
Colonialism
&
Political Oppression
SOPOCO of Realism
A
- By 1820s Napoleonic wars were over and triumphant feeling led to a rise in nationalism and a new political agenda
- Race between countries to expand political and territorial influence: Colonisation (exploitation of natural resources and indigenous people for labour)
19
Q
INTELLECTUAL, SCIENTIFIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL CONTEXT
A
New ideas emerged – paradigm shift (profound change in the way we understand ourselves and the world) – from religion → science
* Influenced by historical and literary figures
20
Q
August Compte
A
- 19 th century philosopher
- Theory of Positivism: only science could be of real benefit to society
- An important tenet (philosophical belief/principle/theory) is the idea of CAUSE AND EFFECT
- Anything beyond one’s own experience is irrelevant
- Positivism: observation, prediction and control
- All events must be understood in terms of cause and effect
- Progressive theory
21
Q
Charles Darwin
A
- Explored origins of humanity
- People were made up of two things:
1.Heredity (genes, DNA)
2. Environment (social conditions in which we live) - Therefore human behaviour is largely out of our control: we cannot truly be held accountable for actions
- This implicated previously held beliefs about morality
- Theories also cast doubt on existence of God
- People began to question if there was life after death
- Progress only possible through application of the scientific method: observation and research
- Use science to solve social problems
- Man was now no longer seen a divine being out on earth by god to rile over the lesser creatures, but man OF nature, and an object to be studied
- Evolution all forms of life developed from a common ancestry
- Survival of the fittest
- Progress and improvement are inevitable
- Humans reduced to a natural object
22
Q
Sigmund Freud
A
- Suggested that socialisation suppresses our instinctive desires and urges
- Emphasised existence of subconscious
- Pioneered psychoanalysis
- Said that we may never understand the motivations of others or even our own desires
- Influenced the idea of subtext in performance (internal vs external life and behaviour of characters)
23
Q
Frederick Nietzsche
A
- God is dead – man had lost touch with God and begun to move away from traditional religious beliefs
- People no longer saw God as a centralised driving force in their lives
- Led to development of nihilism: rejection of ALL religious and moral principles, often the belief that life is meaningless
- Extreme skepticism and pessimism
24
Q
Karl Marx
A
- Developed Marxism – belief in an ideal classless society (reaction against rise of Capitalism, growing class divide etc)
- Equal distribution of Wealth
- Common ownership of means of production
25
Q
Realism in the Theatre
Intentions, roots, change, subject matter
A
- Intention: to show a slice of life on stage (show the truth on stage)
- Why? To solve social problems
- Grounded in scientific outlook: objectivity, cause and effect, observation and research
- Move from subjective (Romanticism) to objective (science)
- Explored contemporary (of the time) subject matter
26
Q
Realist Playwrights
Henrik Ibsen, GB Shaw, Anton Chekov etc
A
- Strove for a truthful depiction of real world (observation)
- Used theatre to address social problems (a lot of plays were highly shocking and controversial)
- Wrote about society of the time
27
Q
Genre
Romanticim
A
Realistic Problem Play
- Main themes: social issues
- Investigated social and domestic problems, morality and relationships
28
Q
Structure
Realism
A
- Unity of time, place and action (Aristotlean unities)
- Intensive structure: few characters, single setting, short space of time
- Linear and chronological
- “Well-made play” – Freytag’s pyramid
- Exposition, rising action (conflict), climax, falling action (denouement, resolution) end.
29
Q
Setting
Realism
A
- Contemporary settings of the time – one locality (eg: drawing room)
- Time: that time (mid to late 1800s, early 1900s)
30
Q
Themes
Realism
A
- Contemporary settings = contemporary themes
- Every day and relatable issues
- Truthful depiction of life
- If the audience doesn’t like what they see – change it!
31
Q
Characters and Acting Style
Realism
A
- 3D characters (internal motivations, grow, develop, change – character arc)
- Creation of characters based on observation of real life people and reflect realistic character traits and behaviour
- Subtext (Freud and subconscious) – internal desires drive our outward behaviour
- Characterisation psychologically complex
- Actors move amongst the furniture
- Recreate realistic stage business
- Playwrights: extensive stage directions
32
Q
Staging
Realism
A
- Proscenium Arch (upholds the 4 th wall - like looking into a window at characters lives)
- Box set (3 walls and imaginary 4 th wall)
- 3D scenery (real doorknobs)
- Realistic acting style
- Electric lighting
- Lots of attention to detail (sets intended to emulate and reproduce real-life spaces)
33
Q
Preformance Picture
A
- Creates a living picture (tableau vivant)
- 4th wall: suspension of disbelief, creates the illusion of reality
- Stage should feel like a separate reality
- Curtains close between acts
34
Q
Darwin and the Set
Realism
A
- Set design: echoes Darwin’s theory that environment shapes character
