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drama > Realism > Flashcards

Realism Flashcards

1
Q

Prior to Realism:

A
  • Romanticism (Intellectual movement)
  • Melodrama (Popular movement)
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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
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3
Q

Themes

Romanticism

A

conflicts in the soul, mysticism and supernaturality

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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
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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)
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6
Q

Romantic writers and their goals

A

Romantics wanted a return to nature and idealism
- Literary: Wordsworth, Keats, Shelly, Byron, Coleridge

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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
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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
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9
Q

Formula of Plays

Melodrama

A

Formula: a villain poses a threat, the hero escapes the threat, rescues the heroine, happy ending

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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
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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
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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
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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)
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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
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15
Q

SOPOCO

Realism

A
  1. Industrial Revolution
  2. Victorian Society
  3. Colonialism and Political Oppression
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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

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