Modern Drama: 19th Century Innovations

The Modern Drama

• Until the 19th century, European playwrights based tragic plots on ancient myths or legendary history, and comic material on stock characters/attitudes.
• Playwright choices from Athens to the mid-18th century reflected a belief that important events only happened to highly placed people.
• The artists' abilities were tested through imitation, not innovation during that time.
• Familiar plots and characters regularly resurfaced in plays.
• The style of presentation in plays began to change in the 19th century with the emergence of romantic ideas.
• Playwrights began to introduce innovations and styles and theoretical justifications and portrayed real happenings in human society instead of basing it on myths and stories. Key reason for innovation in 19th century drama/theatre was the camera and technological advancements.
• Early 1800s: Theaters could be equipped with background, storage, and revolving turntables.
• Plays were no longer presented against a single painted backdrop. Gaslights were introduced to some theaters in the 1820s.
• By the mid-19th century, lighting effects were managed by a technician at a central board.
• Sunlight could transform into moonlight and summer into fall during performances.
• Specific geographical locations could be reproduced/shifted on stage easily.

Industrial Progress and Drama

• Mid-19th century Europe: Industrial progress boomed in places like France and England.
• Theater became a barometer of social change and benefited the growth.
• Rich audiences enjoyed drama that catered to their state/taste.
• Playwrights became entrepreneurs, created sellable products, and wrote a high volume of plays.
• Important form of drama from this time in Europe is known as Boulevard Drama/Theatre, which is an umbrella term to describe plays that were written for profit vs. art.
• Replaced myths/history, tragic heroes/nationalist figures. Boulevard dramatists/playwrights of mid-19th century focused on middle class citizens.
• Plays of the time period concentrated on the upper-middle class and their world/privileges.

20th Century Drama

• Early 20th century drama presented serious works, following European countries.
• The West End (Broad Way equivalent) produced musical comedies/well-made plays.
• Venues took on direction which was political, satirical, and rebellious.
• Common themes in new early 20th century dramas were political, reflecting unease/rebellion of workers.
• Philosophical themes explored "who" and "why" of life.
• Revolutionary themes covered colonization and loss of territory.
• Modern playwrights explored common societal business practices, political ideologies, and the rise of the repressed.
• Industrialization impacted 20th century drama, which resulted in plays that lamented alienation of humans in a mechanical world.
• World Wars played their part where the middle class attended popular conservation theatres dominated by notables like Noel Coward and George Bernard Shaw in the West End. Commercial theatre thrived.
• After the Wars, taboos were broken, and new talent emerged and set out to toiled with realism.
• Some were radically political, others questioned naturalism and legitimacy of beliefs.
• "Theatre of Exorcism" term came into use due to the large number of plays to confront/accept the past.
• Playwrights of the era: Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Caryl Churchill, Brian Friel, Tom Stoppard.

Types of Modern Drama

• Theatre of Realism:
  • In theatre, realism meant to directly observe human behaviour as Mirroring human society and the happenings in the society.
  • Emerged to make theater more useful to society.
  • Required plays to align with reality.
  • Playwrights used contemporary settings, backgrounds, characters that were departure from typical characters.
  • Focused on lives of lower class and the relationship between poor and rich.
  • Focused on class, gender, and race.
  • Contributor is Henrik Ibsen.
• Theatre of Social Realism:
  • Plays showed up around the 1930s.
  • Had a political conscience. The world was in depression. Plays painted a harsh picture of moral poverty.
  • Aimed to show government the penalties of unrestrained capitalism.
  • Contributor: George Bernard Shaw.
• Absurdist Drama:
  • Existentialist theatre that emphasized direct perception over abstract consideration.
  • Served as a poetic lyrical form.
  • The expression of the intuition of human beings through movements, situations, and concrete imagery.
  • Language was downplayed. Includes symbolism, Dadaism, surrealism, theatre of cruelty, and expressionism.
• Dadaism:
  • Reaction against World War I.
  • Art form including writing, painting, poetry, and theatre.
  • Dadaist wrote manifestos detailing beliefs and disgust of colonialism/nationalism.
  • Manifesto presented opposition to current aesthetics and values, therefore Dadaism is anti-art.
  • Rejected values of society to disgust/offend.
• Symbolism/Aestheticism:
  • Formalized and stylized drama form that presented dreams/fantasies mixed in common plots.
  • Aestheticism was used by English playwrights (W.B. Yeats, Harold Pinter).
  • Plays were stylized with minimal set pieces and vague blocking.
  • Popular in early 19th century.
• Surrealism:
  • Like aestheticism, had roots in mystical.
  • Developed physicality of theatre and downplayed the use of words, where actions were used instead .
  • Other common characteristics are expected comparisons and surprise.
  • Samuel Beckett associated with type of drama.
• Theatre of Cruelty:
  • Subset of the type of drama and was inspired by the ideas of Antonin Artaud.
  • Theatre is seen as a "representational medium" to bring current ideas/experiences to the audience through participation/ritualistic theatre experiments.
  • Theatre should present/represent equally, relies heavily on metaphors.
• Expressionism:
  • First coined in Germany in 1911.
  • Movement peaked in the 1920s with two distinct branches.
  • Characters speak in short, direct sentences or long, lyrical sentences.
  • Usually did not name characters.
  • Spent time lamenting the present and warning against the future.
  • Spiritual awakenings and episodic structures are fairly common.
• Epic Theatre:
  • Rejected realistic theatre.
  • Championed by Bertolt Brecht.
  • Realistic theatre was too picture perfect so the theatre is based on Greek epic poetry.
  • Portrayed dramatic illusions with stark lighting, blank stages, placards, music, and long pauses.
  • The result of Brecht's belief made drama should be made within the audience,
  • Aimed to reinforce realities rather than challenge them.
  • Aimed to preserve social issues.

Differences Between Classical and Modern Drama

• Significant difference is the portrayal of the protagonist.
• Classical tragedy used highly placed people like kings/gods/generals/president, while modern drama uses common people.
• Modern drama can have tragedy that indicates a society without involving disrupting the entire thing.
• Classical drama was not uniform. Greek tragedy differed radically from modern.
• Modern drama is seen as varied and borrows elements from many works. Where some modern playwrights borrow from greek play structure like the chorus.

Greek Tragedy

• Some Roman tragedies were closer in style to modern drama.
• Classical drama, especially Greek tragedy and old comedy, presented plays with three actors in multiple roles.
• Actors wore masks, stylized costumes, and female roles were played by young men.
• The chorus sang/danced and added to the plot.
• Presented in Amphitheaters with circular orchestra, and audience sat in rows in hillside.
• Modern drama uses proscenium stages.

Acting

• Classical drama was performed outdoors with natural light.
• Modern drama is indoors with artificial stage lighting.
• Classical forbidded display of bodily function, but modern drama show everything to be realistic.
• Technological advancements in modern drama was not available in past.

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

• Thomas Stearns Eliot was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic, and editor and was prolific during his life.
• Major 20th century poet and a central figure for modernist poetry and drama.
• Born September 26, 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri.
• Strong influence on Anglo-American culture from the 1920s until late of century.
• Experimentation in diction, style, and versification helped helped revitalize English poetry.
• Shattered old orthodoxies in various critical essays, introduced English new form.
• A publication of four Quarters in 1943, the greatest living poet in English and order of man of letters.
• He was awarded for Literature in 1948.
• Descended from New England family who relocated to St. Louis.
• allowed a business degree.
• Proceeded from Smith academy in St. Louis to Milton which is located in Massachusetts, then Harvard in 1906.
• Received Bachlor of Art degree in 1909 after three years.
• at harvard he was influenced by geroge santayana and irving baby.
• His philosophy would amplify his British Philosophy with F. H. Bradly and T. E. Hume.
• spent a year in france attending lectures at Sorbonne.
• reading and helped him find and connect with American poetry with Ezra pound in 1914.
• Four corees:editor, dramatist, literate, critic, and english poet, modernist, and the murder.
• Died on fourth of January in London.