#3 ART OR SCIENCE? Realism & Naturalism
Introduce
QUIZ
"If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground,
it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it
will blow up everything in its way."
—Emile Zola
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“I don't want realism. I want magic!"
― Tennessee Williams​
Visualize: Real?
The Lower Depths
Crimes of the Heart
Visiting Mr. Green
Illusion?
Architecture
Opera
Modern
Think: The Big Questions
Can theatre help us identify and understand our problems and, perhaps, even solve them?
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Should theatre present life as it should be (idealism) or life as it is (realism)?
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Does theatre have a responsibility to be historically accurate?
Watch: Historical Context
QUIZ
This week, we're back in Europe to learn about Realism and Naturalism. In the 19th Century, playwrights like Eugene Scribe, Alexandre de Dumas Fils, and Emile Zola remade the French theater, first with Realism, and later with Naturalism. What are those things? Watch and learn
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, theater was evolving rapidly in Europe. Impresarios like Georg II, Duke of the Duchy of Saxe Meinengen (in what is now Germany), were pushing theater troupes to new heights of realism. New methods of staging, acting, set building, and even rehearsing were making plays more realistic than ever.
Get ready for Russian modernism. Mike is teaching you about the playwrighting of Catherine the Great, Anton Chekhov's plays, the Moscow Art Theater, and the acting theories of Stanislavski. It's all very real, and very modern. From a Realism and Modernism perspective.
Lecture Slides
Sample Plays
A Doll's House
by Henrik Ibsen
Norwegian (1879)
Realism
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Uncle Vanya
by Anton Chekhov
Russian (1898)
Realism
Trifles
by Susan Glaspell
American (1916)
Realism
Compare: Acting Styles
Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923) was a French stage actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress in the history of the world". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of Europe in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas.
Stanislavsky changed the course of theatrical history. This is a clip from the documentary film "Stanislavsky and the Russian Theatre" which explores the main themes which led to the founding of The Moscow Art Theatre (MXAT) and the formation of Stanislavsky's system of acting.
Stanislavski’s conception of “psychological realism” in performance challenged ideas about the essential features of the actor’s craft that had been held for centuries. Stanislavski’s key insight was in seeing the actor as an experiencer of authentic emotional moments.
Know: Vocabulary
1885 theatre electricity
Anton Chekhov
August Strindberg
box set
Emile Zola
Eugene Scribe
fourth wall
Freytag’s Pyramid
gas table
George Bernard Shaw
Henrik Ibsen
heredity and environment
historical accuracy
Konstantin Stanislavsky
magic “if”
Moscow Art Theatre
naturalism
photorealism
realism
Sarah Bernhardt
single-play bill
star performer
star system
thesis play (problem play)
well-made play
(Re)Interpret: A Doll's House
Lighting
Victorian wall bracket gas lamp fitted with batswing gas jet/burner and 'comet' fitting shade.
Running on denatured alcohol/methylated spirits, a small internal pilot light heats the interior of the burner (where cotton soaked with alcohol is packed), the resulting vapour exits at a tiny hole/jet and when lit produces a hot blue Bunsen flame to heat the mantle to incandescence.
This is a combination-fixture that alternates gas (facing up) and electric (facing down) globes. These were pretty common in the days when electric supplies were unreliable. Here, only the gas fixtures are lit.