Theatre Realism Flashcards
Goals/characteristics
Recreate real life on stage.
Emphasis on detailed sets “working worlds”, which characters inhabit. Relationships with others deeply impacted by specific environments.
Characters emerge as victims of forces larger than themselves.
Audience forced to reflect critically on their own society.
Provoke social conscience.
Act as an inspiration for society to take action against injustices.
Motivate psychological understanding of human condition.
“Real” people not entirely good or bad-antihero (struggling, imperfect protagonist)
Refuse to make moral judgements.
Not elevated drama. Stage is an environment not acting platform.
Natural and conversational dialogue.
Staging
Population shift due to Industrial Revolution in England-people left rural countryside for employment in busy cities.
Impact drama.
Theatres upgraded to accommodate greater audiences.
Proscenium Arch from romanticism remained but painted flat back cloth disappeared.
Replaced with box set-room with 3 walls.
Through 4th invisible wall audience acted as voyeurs secretly observing a slice of life on stage.
Never acknowledge presence of audience.
Hidden behind fourth wall.
Staging-characters and relationships deeply impacted by specific environments.
Where characters find themselves is integral to plot.
If elsewhere action of play might be different.
Characters enter/exit through actual doors.
“Working world”.
Enormous attention paid to set dressing-working doors, sofas, vases, flowers, carpets, portraits, curtains at windows etc.
Invention of electricity helped enhance working world. Darken auditorium, keep box set well let. Created separation to strengthen illusion that audience hidden spying on reality.
