HISTORY OF THE THEATRE: THE MODERN PERIOD

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1.0 INTRODUCTION

The history of the theatre in modern times is full of reactions and counter reactions. John Gassner captures this tendency of the modern theatre clearly when he states that the “theatre in our own times is like passing fancies” for “successive stimuli and responses aroused enthusiasms which generated shift of conventions from time to time”. In this unit, we will examine some of the strands of the modern theatre such as Realism, Nationalism, Symbolism, Absurdism, Expressionism, etc.

3.1 Origin and Factors that Led to the Birth of the Modern Theatre

The origin of the modern theatre is usually traced to the second half of the nineteenth century. By this period, scholars and writers had begun to react against the escapist disposition of Romanticism. The ugly effects of industrialization pushed them to pay increasing attention to “ordinary people and the contemporary scene” (Hewitt, 27). There was a kind of movement from the bizarre to the familiar. “The creation of realistic illusion increasingly became the aim of theatre art” (28).

Many factors brought the modern theatre into existence. They include the following:

Industrial Revolution

By nineteenth century, industrial revolution led to the invention of manufacturing machines. These machines, to a very great extent, replaced human labour. Loss of job generated a lot of despair among the people, making pessimism to rule the thought of men. In an atmosphere of poverty, decay and hardship, writers saw Romanticism and its flight from the real world as a complete falsehood. In the theatre, the quest to present life the way it is lived gave rise to Realism.

Comte’s Theory of Positivism and Darwin’s the Origin of Species.

August Comte and Charles Darwin affected the modern world in a very significant way. Comte opines that Sociology is the summit of all the sciences because the goal of all knowledge is the health of society. He “demanded that metaphysical explanations of event and behaviour be abandoned in favour of material explanations based on observation and analysis” (Brockett, 378). He argued that to find out the causes of social problems and the remedies would help to bring about desirable change in human society. Realism owes much to Comte’s ideas often referred to as the theory of positivism. Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species, among other things, states that the primary causes of behaviour are heredity and environment. This view highly influenced the concept of Naturalism in theatre.

The Theory of Dialectical Materialism

The theory of dialectical materialism attributed to Karl Max sees capitalism as evil and calls for its replacement. Marx argues that socialism will encourage the realization of the full potential of every individual. This theory advocates the use of revolution as the last option of ensuring social change. This facilitated the evolution of revolutionary aesthetics in the modern theatre.

The World Wars

The first and the second world wars traumatized the western world as they almost destroyed the foundation of its great civilization. Human and material wastage compelled thinkers to review the long held opinion of man as a rational being. The theatre of Absurd was an offshoot of this radical thought.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1

Discuss two factors that led to the birth of the modern theatre.

3.2 Realism and Naturalism

Realism in theatre is used to describe plays and productions that appear lifelike both in form and content. According to Barnard Hewitt, “the movement was doubtless stimulated by the development of photography, for it was more and more a photographic realism which the nineteenth-century theatre artist sought, more and more a look at the world as if through the eye of a camera” (28). Realistic plays are written in everyday language. Characters are expected to be normative both in speech and in conduct. Realism insists that all human problems should be brought in the open, including issues previously considered unsafe for public discussion. Consequently, the question of paternity of children, sex, and divorce which were formerly seen as unspeakable issues found expression in the realistic theatre. Henrik Ibsen, a Norwagian “gave the moment shape and direction, buttressed its strength, and consolidated its position by the swift succession of challenging master pieces he flung into the theatrical arena” (Vargas, 169). In A Doll’s House, Ibsen displayed mastery of his new style and established himself as a world acclaimed playwright. August Strindberg (Sweden), Hauptmann (Germany), Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekov (Russia) were famous playwrights in the realistic tradition. These authors examined biting domestic issues in bold and outspoken manner. They made no effort to fantasize reality in their plays.

Realism in its extended form is known as Naturalism. This form derives its impetus from Charles Darwin’s view that heredity and the environment are the causal factors of human behaviour. Naturalism in theatre was introduced by Emile Zola (1840-1902). In the preface to his play entitled Therese Raquin, Zola states:

The stage is to become a laboratory for the study of

life – a laboratory where the motives and behaviour of

human being are to be viewed with complete

objectivity; a place where case studies could be lucid before an audience with scientific detachment of a lecture hall and with greater vividness and clarity; a place where a bleeding slice of life might be held up for study and analysis…. Life is to be seen naked, and romantic illusion of life should be abolished, not pain nor ugliness should be spared.

He finally states “I am waiting finally until these evolutions take place on the stage; until they return the sense of science to the study of nature… to the painting of life in an exact production”. So, in the main, Naturalism attempts to bring issues closer to science. Characters are torn by inner and external passion, while language reflects the speech of the humble. Plays explain locales of actions in order to reveal how the environment can influence behaviour. According to Hewitt, Naturalism “rested on the idea that men and women are products of heredity and environment, that their actions are dictated by instinct rather than reason, and that they can be understood only in term of the physiological and psychological laws to which, like other animals, they are subject”(56).

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2

What is Realism?

3.3 Symbolism

Symbolism was the first reaction against the Realist theatre. It was launched in 1890 in France by Maurice Maeterlinck with the production of The Intruder and The Blind. In the main, the symbolists saw Realism as drab, something uninspiring and incapable of arousing the human imagination. Hewitt expresses the view that the symbolists “sought the truth about man not through objective observation and deductive reasoning, but through subjective feelings and visions. And they proposed to express that truth in the theatre “through mood-inducing symbols, not through the creation of illusion of everyday life”(74). In other words, the symbolists concerned themselves with the portrayal of inner truth “Maeterlinck believed that the greatness and beauty of tragedy are not expressed in the actions of the characters, but in their apparently superfluous words and in their silences, for it is the inner dialogue, the character’s communion with his soul, and his soul’s communion with the forces which moves the universe that matters” (75).

In a bid to strip their plays and productions off the garments of Realism, “the actors spoke in a staccato chant like priests, and according to some critics, behave like sleepwalkers, their gestures were strongly stylized” (Brockett, 439). Also, actors were occasionally caused to perform behind a veil in order to remove them steps away from the world, and to reduce them to mere shadows and fragments of the imagination. They employed poetry to help restore grandeur and imagination to the stage and to produce images of the soul’s reality. Although symbolism influenced playwriting, it found its true home in stagecraft. In stagecraft, designers created world of fantasy. The works of Adolphe Appia and Edward Gordon Craing exemplified the objectives of the symbolist.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3

What is Symbolism?

3.4 Expressionism

The expressionist theatre developed in Germany in the early part of the twentieth century as a conscious reaction against Realism and Naturalism. It began shortly before the first world war, and became a major force in discussing the destructions and the disorderliness that followed the war.

Like the symbolists, the expressionists rejected the idea of a photographic presentation of life and event on the stage, but the two forms differed in some ways. In the first instance, “while the symbolists sought to escape the materialism and ugliness of their day by mystical flight into the ideal world of universal truth and beauty, the expressionists savagely satirized the materialism and ugliness of the modern world, or cried out in anguish against its inhumanity”

Secondly, according to Hewitt, “sometimes the hero of expressionist drama is Dionysian, he attempts to embrace life, to live to its fullest, or, prevented by society and convention, he commits suicide’(104). A typical example of this kind of hero is found in Eugene O’Niell’s play, Emperor Jones

In expressionist drama, great effort is made to create language that is significantly a departure from the commonplace language. For example, sometimes articles, adjectives and preposition are omitted. Oftentimes, language appears terse, rhetorical or even esoteric.

Both in language and action, there is a certain inclination towards nihilism, and the overriding atmosphere is that of disillusionment. Apart from the plays of Eugene O’ Niell, Elmer Rice’s The Adding Machine and The Subway, as well as John Howard Lawson’s Rodger Bloomer, among others, show us in an expressionist tradition, the effects of modernity on the psyche of an increasingly disillusioned mankind.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 4

Discuss two characteristics of Expressionism.

3.5 The Epic Theatre

The Epic theatre is “a strongly didactic theatre” which “grew out of the social and economic upheaval in Russia and Germany after World War I, spread through Europe and the United States in the wake of the economic depression of 1930s, and was sustained by the political aftereffects of world war II” (Hewitt, 140).

Epic theatre drew inspiration from the doctrines of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel, the world’s most popular critics of capitalism. Drawing inspiration from views expressed by Marx and Engel against capitalism, “in the late 1920s two young men, Erwin Piscator (1893-1966), a director, and Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), a playwright, dissatisfied with the subjectivity of expressionism and with the limited scope of realism, laid the groundwork for a theatre of political and social ideas, a didactic theatre, to which they applied the term ‘Epic’ in order to denote its broad canvas and its narrative character” (146).

Epic theatre is a theatre of reason, not the type that evokes emotion. In it, the members are expected to think as they watch the unfolding of the dramatic event. They are not required to empathize with characters. In fact, the Epic theatre launches an attack against psychological drama. Brecht feels that empathy draws the audience away from the message. He argues that it is only when the members of the audience detach themselves from the action of the play that they can be in a position to reflect and form good judgment about the play. Brecht’s methodology of realizing his objective in drama is known as alienation technique, which in fact, is a collection of many artistic devices aimed at preventing the audience from identifying with the play psychologically. One of these devices is called historification. This implies that “action must not take place in the total present but in a strictly defined past” (Esslin, 13). Here, contemporary social scenes are presented as if they had occurred in the distant part. The aim is to stir the audience’s mind to think.

Secondly, scenes of plays are disjointed and presented in a cinematic fashion. Relevant songs are inserted here and there.

Thirdly, in order to destroy the magic of the theatre, all technical elements of the theatre such as lighting instruments and devices of songs are placed in the full view of the audience. Sometimes actors interact with the audience. They are not encouraged to identify with characters they are imitating. They are told to view themselves in the “third person”

Another significant device is the narrator or the narrating voice. The narrator intervenes between the scenes of a play and the audience in order to provide certain missing links in the play. Such links often include the background information and causes of certain events not directly presented in the play.

Characters are social types. They hardly change. It is either that a character is good or bad. There is no attempt at character transformation.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 5

Discuss the aim of the Epic theatre.

3.6 Theatre of The Absurd

According to Barnard Hewitt, “the suffering and destruction of World War II, the continuing threat of the atomic bomb, the tension between East and West, and the stress attendant upon the emergence of new nations in the Middle East, Africa and Asia gave rise in the arts to a new reaction against logic and reason”(159). In the theatre this new spirit manifested itself as the theatre, of Absurd.

World War II had left Europe and America in complete despair and pessimism. Hunger, starvation and diseases compelled the survivors of the war to look at the world as a meaningless place, a place with terrible moral standards and in complete want of rationality. Theatre of the Absurd was developed to portray this senselessness and illogicality of human existence. And this meaninglessness was celebrated both in form and content of the play. Martin Esslin opines that there is a tendency towards a radical devaluation of language. There is no attempt to obey the rule of grammar. Sentences do not follow in sequence. In terms of characterization, dramatic personages appear to have neither past nor future; they live only in the present. This lack of history makes it difficult to trace the causes of actions. According to Martin Esslin, “the hallmark of (the theatre of Absurd) is its sense that certitudes and unshakable basic assumptions of former ages have been swept away, that they have been tested and found wanting, that they have been discredited as cheap and somewhat childish illusions”(4). Absurdism derived impetus from an essay by the existentialist philosopher and playwright, Albert Camus. Lamenting the terrible effect of the World War II, in that essay, Camus writes:

A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and light, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promise land…. The world itself is not reasonable, that is all that can be said (6ff).

Examples of absurdist plays include, Waiting for Godot, The Zoo Story and Oh Dad Poor Dad.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 6

What factors led to the birth of the theatre of Absurd?

3.7 Theatre of Ritual

“The impulse to transform theatrical art into a kind of religious experience appeared early in the twentieth century” (Hewitt, 160). The effort became a formidable force to reckon within the 1950s and 1960s. Inspiration was drawn from many sources namely, the Greek theatre, Roman Catholic doctrines, the Noh theatre and the African masked theatre. This theatre aims at expressing the spirit of man, Gordon Craig sees the stage as a temple and the actor as holy as the priest offering a mass.

Antonin Artaud sees the theatre in its ritual form as a kind of safety valve through which unwanted emotions could be caused to escape. “To Artaud, the most important aspects of existence are those submerged in the unconscious, those things that cause division within people and between people and lead to hatred, violence and disaster. He believed that if given the proper theatrical experiences, people can be freed from ferocity, and can then express that joy that civilization has forced them to repress, for theatre can evacuate those feelings that are usually expressed in more destructive ways” (Brockett, 472).

Artaud’s theatre is called the theatre of cruelty because he sought to use unfamiliar and shrill sounds, physical action, intimidating lighting, incantations, masks, apparitions, groans and cries etc. to attack the audience’s nervous system. Artaud expressed the concept of his theatre in a book, The Theatre and its Double.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISEE

Discuss the aim of Theatre as Ritual.

3.8 Eclecticism

Today, the theatre can best be described as eclectic, both in terms of playwriting and production. Subjective and objective approaches to art embrace each other in one production in a brotherhood fashion as Realism, Naturalism, Symbolism, Expressionism, Absurdism and Ritual theatre, as well as the Epic Theatre mingle. Dramatists borrow and mix freely known dramatic theories in order to represent adequately the multi-dimensional nature of man and his artistic preoccupations since the dawn of human civilization.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 7

Why is the theatre eclectic today?

4.0 CONCLUSION

The history of the theatre in the modern period exhibits frequent changes. It is “one of rebellion and reaction, with new forms challenging the old, and the old forms in turn providing the basis for the new” (Styan, xi). Realism, Naturalism, Symbolism, Expressionism, Absurdism, Epic theatre, among others, are some of the many strands of the theatre in the contemporary times. Dramatists develop these forms in quick succession in order to reflect the rapid transitions that characterize the modern society. Realism examines the physical world as can be observed with the senses. Naturalism sees man as soulless, a product of heredity and environment. Symbolism, Expressionism and Theatre as a ritual concentrate on the spirit of man, while Epic theatre devotes itself to the revival of rationalism. The above notwithstanding, the theatre today appears to be more or less eclectic in nature. Dramatists no longer care for purity of form. They borrow ideas from available traditions and mix them up thoroughly in order to reflect the many dimensional aspects of life adequately.

5.0 SUMMARY

In this unit, we examined the history of the modern theatre. We traced the origin of the modern theatre to the second half of the nineteenth century. We observed that many factors facilitated the emergence of the modern theatre. Notable among these factors include the industrial revolution, capitalism, August Comte’s theory of positivism, Darwin’s The Origin of Species, Marxism, and the two World Wars. We noted that these factors were responsible for the fluctuating tendencies of the theatre in modern times. We finally examined the many strands of the theatre in modern times. And these strands include Realism, Naturalism, Symbolism, Expressionism, Epic theatre, Absurdism and Theatre as Ritual.

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

Discuss two factors that helped to bring about the modern theatre.

7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS

Hewitt, Barnard (1970). History of the Theatre from 1800 to the Present. New York: Random House incorporated.

Gassner, John (1966). The Theatre in our Times. New York: Crown

Publishers.

Brockett, Oscar G. and Franklin J. Hildy (1999). History of the Theatre Eighth Edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Vargas, Luis (1960). Teach Yourself Guidebook to the Drama. London: The English Universities Press.

Styan, J.L.(1981). Modern Drama in Theory and Practice: Realism and Naturalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dukore, Bernard F (1974). Dramatic Theory and Criticism: From Greeks to Grotowski. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Esslin, Martin (1973). The Theatre of the Absurd. New York: The

Overlook Press.

Artaud, Antonin (1958). The Theatre and its Double. Trans. Mary Caroline Richards. New York: Grove.

Camus, Albert (1967). The Myth of Sissyphus and other Essays. Trans. Justine O’ Brien. New York: Alfred A. Knopt.