Midterm Drama.pdf

Catalog Chapter 6 & Realism ··························································································································································· 1 Ibsen & Shaw's Article····························································································...

Catalog Chapter 6 & Realism ··························································································································································· 1 Ibsen & Shaw's Article························································································································································· 4 Summary·············································································································································································8 Chapter 6 Period Second Half of 17th Century The 18th Century Later 18th Century & the 19th Century The End of 19th Century Details ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ Beginning of 20th Century After WWI (19141918) ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ Restoration of the Monarchy (1660). Reopening of the theatres. Theatres were built with a roof. Stage was open to the audience on one side only. Painted scenery. Appearance of actresses. Moliere’s Plays (The greatest of French comedy writers): Old Roman comedies Those which ridiculed the weaknesses and follies of the society ▪ Medical profession (The Imaginary Invalid) British drama is remembered by the works of comedy writers, Sheridan and Goldsmith. Notable decline in play-writing. High standard of acting was maintained. Plays of unreal sentiment and sensation (melodramas). People were too self-satisfied and too interested in money-making. Expensive extras. Scenes as near to real life as possible (real water, real trees or animal). New inventions and discoveries. New ideas. Emerge of socialism. Henrik Ibsen, a Norwegian, showed ordinary people afflicted by the conventions of their society and social issues. European plays concerned: The lives of ordinary people. The conflict between rich and poor. In Britain, George Bernard Shaw wrote about social and political problems and social evils in a humorous way. The Apple Cart shows the conflict between an imaginary king and cabinet. John Galsworthy wrote tragedies based on social problems and industrial strife or conflict between employer and employee or between the old aristocracy and the newly rich industrialists. Loyalties is considered one of his best plays. Realism, tried to show the life of people of all classes as it really was. Heroes and heroines were made out of ordinary people in realism. Europe became disillusioned and shattered. Experimentation for new drama for the tastes of modern man. Impressionism and Expressionism happened, but were not satisfactory. The forgotten once again was restored. The gap between drama and Church was narrowed. Poetic or verse drama was revived. T. S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral was both verse and religious. ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ Revival of Amateur Drama. Drama was de-professionalized and de-centralized. Professional drama = Professional Theatre Professional companies = Repertory Amateur drama in Britain is directed by such organizations as the British Drama League. ❖ Examples of Amateur Groups: Norwich: Elizabethan-type stage Cornwall: Ancient Greek-type stage ❖ Dustbin Drama: Many of the experiments seem to dwell too much on the sordid aspects of life, which sometimes leave the audience in a state of depression. The American Negro Ireland ❖ Actors, darkened their faces at first. ❖ A sudden surge of national and patriotic pride, th ❖ During the 19 century, Negro actors appeared. which led eventually to independence and ❖ Their plays dealt with social problems of the separation from Britain. Negros, slavery, and living conditions in the ❖ This nationalism was expressed in drama. towns. ❖ The Irish Dramatic Movement (Their aim was to ❖ Most popular Negro instrument: Banjo → express in drama the life and language of the Minstrels. Irish people). ❖ The Irish Dramatic Movement plays: Simple English Ordinary simple life of peasants Old legend and folklores ❖ Another groups’ plays: Vernacular Irish. Sean O’Casey. Subject: Slums of Dublin city. Realism ❖ Realistic and Nonrealistic are descriptive adjectives that describe: Mode of presentation (producer) o Stage set o Costuming o Make-up Mode of form and content (playwright) o Language and management of dialogue o Themes ❖ Realism on stage depicts believable characters facing ordinary and relatable struggles. These plays typically use down-to-earth and uncomplicated dialogue. ❖ Drama: Realistic: Realistic conventions aim to imitate the external appearances of real life on stage (e.g. realistic sets and props, naturalistic acting and dialogue). o Elaborate, detailed sets that mimic a real room or location. o Costumes that accurately match the historical period. o Naturalistic acting that imitates real speech patterns and behavior. o Dialogue with colloquial speech, slang, grammatical mistakes. Nonrealistic: Nonrealistic conventions make no attempt to imitate reality and instead use imaginative or stylistic techniques (e.g. bare stages, verse dialogue, soliloquies). o Sparse or suggestive sets with little detail. o Costumes that use symbolic colors or exaggerated elements. o Acting that is more expressive, poetic, ritualistic. o Dialogue in verse, arias, poetic monologues. ❖ The term “unrealistic” is used for a character, and judges how sensible or practical is in relation to reality. It is not used to describe a work’s artistic style and techniques. ❖ Dramatic Conventions: A 3-wall room as a room with 4 walls. Actors sit and stand to face the audience. Understandable language. Dramatic techniques: soliloquies, asides, etc. Ibsen’s Articles First Article ❖ Ibsen has invested this play with the quality of a revolutionary pamphlet. ❖ Stockman echoes Ibsen’s private conversations about the filth and disease of modern municipal life, the tyranny of the compact majority, the mediocrity of parliamentary democracy, the cupidity of the Conservatives, and the hypocrisy of the Liberal Press. ❖ Dr. Stockman is a multifaceted, mixing noble and base qualities. ❖ An Enemy of the People, is not a presentation of a truth, with a protagonist who serves as the dramatist’s spokesman, but rather a study of how people – including the protagonist – respond to a truth in the light of their own human limitations and needs and bend it, consciously or otherwise, to their own purposes. ❖ An Enemy of the People dramatizes some of the problems of the development of a full-fledged capitalist society, particularly the conflict of individuality versus common interests. ❖ Major Characteristics of An Enemy of the People: An Enemy of the People focuses our attention primarily upon a single character, scarcely asking us to feel any concern for the fate of anyone else; other characters are defined in relation to Dr. Stockman, either as subordinate allies or, more often, as adversaries and foils. These other characters are sketched in rapidly and possess only a few decisive traits that keep recurring to our attention; the recurring traits are often linked to repeated verbal formulas (like Aslaksen’s “compact majority” and “moderation”), and as a result the characters sometimes veer toward caricature. The action concerns itself with a problem, the relationship between the individual and society; the conflict between telling truth pure, whatever the cost, and tailoring it to serve some supposedly higher priority; the right of the individual to free expression of his ideas, especially to their expression without fear of reprisal (some call it tenure); the question of who most deserves to hold power in the community and guide its destiny, etc., etc. The problem in An Enemy of the People, moreover, is not only clearly dramatized but also to a considerable extent “solved,” in that the protagonist constitutes our primary connection with the action, he is in most respects highly sympathetic, his adversaries possess obvious shortcomings, and his strong denunciations of them explicitly put forth a number of clear-cut assertions about the issues of the play. In the exposure of the adversaries’ shortcomings, the play contains a good deal of satire. The satire produces a good deal of comedy. The structure is simple and straightforward. The play contains a good deal of local color ❖ The most familiar type of realistic drama known in Europe up to date of Ibsen’s play, is the social problem comedy. ❖ An Enemy of the People seem to be a realistic social problem comedy. ❖ Dr. Stockmann’s problematic qualities: His rashness, his naivete about people, society, and politics, his lack of self-awareness, his egotism, his aristocratic sense of superiority, his eagerness to lock horns with the brother he so obviously resents. ❖ The characteristic that initially distinguish him from his brother – his heartiness and conviviality, his love of food and drink, his enjoyment of companionship, his extravagance of speech, his propensity for violence – evoke the carnival atmosphere traditionally associated with the comic hero. ❖ What makes this play a comedy is that the protagonist is himself a pompous and pretentious fool for whom learning has served only as a means of self-glorification: it has provided him with the Latin that he spouts at his family and fellow citizens and the techniques of disputation with which he tries to gain power over them, and it has made him sufficiently knowledgeable. ❖ By the end of Act IV, Stockmann initiates the self-comparison to Christ. ❖ Act IV, is a tragedy. ❖ Stockmann keeps it fresh by his further denunciations of his fellow citizens as animals and by his developing self-comparison to Christ. ❖ An Enemy of the People differs from most realistic social problem comedies in that it is not a monolithic work. It is instead a complex generic experiment. Second Article ❖ An Enemy of the People’s compelling moral issue: The absolute value of Truth. ❖ An Enemy of the People must be seen as a generic hybrid, compounded of traits characteristic of both comic and serious drama. ❖ The tendency to give heroic stature to Stockmann goes back beyond modern scholarship to the early performance history of the play. ❖ Stockmann was quickly identified as the prototypical democratic revolutionary, the fearless champion for justice against the forces of repression and coercion. ❖ Stockmann is a flawed hero. ❖ The main reason why commentators have conferred a noble image on Stockmann is the author’s presence behind the character. The doctor echoes many of Ibsen’s most trenchant, iconoclastic pronouncements. The dramatist, like his creation, had nothing contempt for the tyranny of the majority, scorned the hypocrisy of the so-called liberal press, and exuded the same arrogant sense of aristocratic superiority and uniqueness as his creation. ❖ Stockmann is “a superb comic figure, enthusiastic and impractical, irascible and naïve, colorful in his passionate eloquence, bubbling over with fighting spirit and humor.” ❖ Stockmann is vain, inconsistent, hot-tempered, impulsive, and almost childishly egocentric – traits of character which, far from inflating him to heroic status, bring him down to our common humanity. ❖ Ibsen caricatures three centers of power in particular. To begin with, he mocks the petty officialdom that struts about in the person of Peter Stockmann, Thomas’ older brother. The printer Aslaksen represents the landed petit-bourgeois in his role as leader of the property owner association. Finally, the journalists Hovstad and Billing, the self-proclaimed champions of the free independent press fearlessly exposing the moral rot of the community, embody the most naked forms of opportunism and deceit. ❖ The naked self-interest, small-mindedness, and hypocrisy of these people are reinforced by the language Ibsen puts into their mouths. ❖ The mayor enhances his prestige by a pretentious Latinizing vocabulary. ❖ Thomas is a truth-bearer concerned philanthropically with the health of the community and its visitors. His love of humanity, his warm and indulgent spirit informs all of Act I. ❖ He maintains that a society based on lies – lies by his definition – should be utterly destroyed. “Let the whole country be laid waste; let the whole people be eradicated!” ❖ His outrageous declaration is the direct cause of the collective decision to label him what he has in fact become by his own pronouncements: an enemy of the people. Thus the philanthropist, under the pressure of a wounded ego and a hostile public, becomes a hater of mankind. ❖ The fifth act of An Enemy of the People begins in a somber mood, a point of ritual death in archetypal language, a moment when all seems lost and a comic ending impossible. The cascade of misfortune that rains down during the final act reinforces this atmosphere of defeat and humiliation. The Stockmann family will be turned out of the house, Thomas is dismissed from the spa staff, his daughter Petra is fired from her teaching position, the children, goaded into fighting at school, are sent home. The loyal Horster has been relieved of his captainship for having hosted the meeting of Act IV. ❖ Three Genres within the Play: Social Problem Comedy: Act I & II. Traditional Comedy: Act III. Tragedy: Act IV. Shaw’s Article ❖ Grene’s article, shows George Bernard Shaw's significant influence on British drama, particularly in addressing social issues. Shaw's works brought a fresh perspective to British theatre, actively engaging with the societal concerns of his time. ❖ Christopher Innes highlights Shaw's pivotal role in shaping British drama, setting the course for other dramatists and defining its terms. Shaw's impact on the realistic treatment of social questions in English drama has been enduring. Despite his focus on early 20th-century England, Shaw's plays remain relevant and thought-provoking in the 21st century. The article also discusses Shaw's socialist vision, his inspiration from Ibsen, and the themes prevalent in his works, providing a comprehensive overview of his contributions to the British dramatic tradition. ❖ Key Themes in Grene’s Article on Shaw: Social Determinism ▪ Characters' actions and development are influenced by the societal structures and conditions they live in. Philosophy and Social Criticism ▪ Shaw's works integrate empirical criticisms of modern society, emphasizing the importance of economic and political conditions in shaping human behavior and societal norms. Evolution of Morality ▪ Shaw challenges traditional notions of morality, viewing it as transitory and evolving with civilization. He questions the concepts of vice and virtue, highlighting the influence of societal norms on moral judgments. Idealistic Optimism ▪ Despite his critique of society, Shaw is portrayed as an idealistic optimist, driven by humanitarian values and a passion for social change. »An Enemy of the People« Characters Thomas Stockmann ❖ Medical officer of the Municipal Baths. Peter Stockmann ❖ Mayor of the town, Chairman of the Baths’ Committee. Mrs. Stockmann ❖ Dr. Stockmann’s wife. Petra Ejlif and Morten Hovstad ❖ Their Daughter, a teacher. ❖ Their sons. ❖ Editor of the “People’s Messenger.” Billing ❖ Sub-editor. Aslaksen ❖ A printer. Morten Kiil Horster ❖ A tanner, Dr. Stockmann’s father-in-law, “The Badger” ❖ Captain of the ship. Settings Story ❖ A coastal town in southern Norway. Act 1 ❖ Dr. Stockmann’s sitting room. Act 2 ❖ Dr. Stockmann’s sitting room. Act 3 ❖ The editorial office of the “People’s Messenger.” Act 4 ❖ Captain Horster’s house. Act 5 ❖ Dr. Stockmann’s study. Key Words in the Play: ❖ Digestion: Show Peter Stockmann’s lack of tolerance. ❖ The Baths: The great common interest that unites all. First the focus of their municipal life, but then infected. ❖ Pesthouse: What Dr. Stockmann calls the baths. ❖ Infusoria: The poison (microorganism) that has infected the baths. ❖ Molledal: The place that the pollution was coming from, the place were most of the tanneries were located. ❖ Conduit-pipes: The problem of the infection, they should have lifted up the intake of the pipes into a higher position. ❖ Typhoid cases: A disease caused by the infected baths. ❖ Gastric fever: A disease caused by the infected baths. ❖ Moderator: Aslaksen. ❖ Regular Gold Mine: What Aslaksen calls the baths. ❖ The town’s pulsating heart: What Billing calls the baths. ❖ Heirlooms: The stones people have thrown at his house. Important Matters: ❖ How did “The friend of the people” turn into “The enemy of the people”? Went farther than the matter of pollution and criticized officials. Financial issues: (The repairs, would cost around 15-20 thousand pounds) ▪ Raise the tax or municipal funds. ▪ Shut the baths for two years. ▪ No visitors. ❖ Which character does reveal his true colors in the play? What were his motivations? Hovstad His motivations: ▪ To manipulate the situation to his advantage. ▪ To break up the fossils. ▪ To influence Petra. ▪ To show off as the representative of the liberal media. ❖ Principles of Democracy: Participation of citizens. Equality. Accountability. Transparency. Political tolerance. Multi-party system. Control over the abuse of power. Freedom of economy. Human rights. Free and fair elections. Free courts. ❖ Dr. Stockmann’s Discoveries: First Discovery: The infected baths by poisons and infusoria. Second Discovery: The infected community by pestiferous soil of falsehood. Tricks for Identification: (Words mentioned only by some characters) Thomas Stockmann Vermin, pest-, Peter Stockmann Mrs. Stockmann Petra Ejlif and Morten Hovstad Billing Aslaksen Morten Kiil Horster Moderate, moderation Famous Quotes: “You see, the point is that the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.” - Dr. Stockmann “You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.” - Dr. Stockmann “Public opinion is an extremely mutable thing” - Peter Stockmann “The most dangerous enemy of the truth and freedom amongst us is the compact majority” - Dr. Stockmann “A party is like a sausage machine; it mashes up all sorts of; heads together into the same mincemeat fatheads and blockheads, all in one mash!” - Dr. Stockmann “A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.” - Billing “Oh yes, right right. What is the use of having right on your side if you have not got might?” - Mrs. Stockmann “All the same, one ought to vote, at any rate.” - Billing “Even if one doesn't know anything about what is going on?” - Horster »Candida« Characters James Morrel Prosperine Garnett Alexander Mill (Lexy) Mr. Burgess Candida Eugene Marchbanks ❖ A Christian Socialist clergyman. ❖ Morell’s secretary. ❖ Morell’s curate. ❖ Candida’s father, a businessman. ❖ Morell’s wife. ❖ A poet. Settings Story ❖ A fine October morning in the north east suburbs of London. Act 1 ❖ Morell’s house. Act 2 ❖ Morell’s house. Act 3 ❖ Morell’s house. Important Maters: ❖ Shaw was born in Dublin in a middle class English family. ❖ Yeats calls Shaw “the smiling sewing machine” because his plays fuse comedy and social issues. ❖ Shaw directed his wit and satire at things that traditionally were too sacred to be ridiculed, such as marriage, heroism, and parenthood. ❖ Shaw highlights the error of social viewpoints. ❖ Discussion is the basis of his plays. ❖ Shaw’s Two Volumes of Plays: (They vary in tone and subject matter) Plays Pleasant: ▪ Candida, Arms and the Man, The Man of Destiny, You Never Can Tell ▪ They challenge conventions, ideals, values and beliefs through humor, satire, and wit. ▪ They address social and political issues with a light tone while delving into complex themes like love, marriage, heroism, and societal norms. Plays Unpleasant: ▪ Widower’s Houses, The Philanderer, Mrs. Warren’s Profession ▪ They focus on more serious and critical subjects like horrible living conditions of the working poor people in urban slums, societal injustices, exploitation, and moral hypocrisy. ❖ The Fabian society: Aims to establish a democratic socialist state in Great Britain through gradualist and evolutionary socialism rather than revolution. Root of the name: Fabius Cunctator, Roman general, known for his patient tactics. Key principles: ▪ Promoting socialism through reforms. ▪ Permeating socialism ideas into mainstream political parties. ▪ Advocating for social progress through education and research. Prominent figures like Shaw. The Fabian Society has influenced the Labor Party and British politics through emphasizing equality, collective action, democracy, and human rights in its pursuit of social change. The society, not revolutionary in nature, focused on social and psychical progress, emphasizing clean living and a communistic vision. Shaw's influence extended to the publication of "Fabian Essays in Socialism," which promoted socialism through reform rather than revolution.