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Russian Civil War + Bolshevik Revolution (1917)

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(1917) Over a million people died. Ended with Bolshevik, russian communist in charge. Murdered family with machine gun. Russia became one of the largest mass murderer places.

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Bolshevik

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Larger

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Soviet

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council

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Lenin

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1st Dictator of the soviet union. Trying to organize dysfunctional country. Trying to run country without money. Began starving enemies to death. Major way of russian mass murder. Too busy to have a hand in arts and theatre. Theatre flourished until the death of this man.

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Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874-1939)

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Major director. Mentored by Stanislavsky until quarrel with him. Was going to let him direct a production but did not like his over the top theatricality style. Wasn't trying to make it real, but rather a circus. Inspired by watching how factory operated. Inspired by anything but realism. Didn't like realistic acting style. Stanislavsky was high priest of realism and naturalism. This man was the opposite. He eventually had his own theatre, where he could perfect his techniques of theatre. Believed art was about something more than politics. He died because of this. He would not change is style, so he denounced what Stalin was doing. Accusing Stalin of destroying art. Later his apartment was broken into, his wife was beaten to death, and then disappeared and later found dead.

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Constructivism

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Meyerhold's style of design. His description of the set was a machine for acting. He was inspired by machines. Big on ramps, stairs, ladders.

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Biomechanics

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Meyerhold's style of acting. Using the body as a machine for acting. Actor must be like a machine, able to "drop down and give 10 push ups". He could say "jump up and down 3 times and burst into tears". To teach the actors commands. Meyerhold worked from the outside in, Stanislavsky was the opposite. Has the actor doing something physically difficult, thus to lead the actor to discharge appropriate emotion.

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"The Inspector General" (1920s)

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Meyerhold's production in the 1920's. Extreme non realism. His most famous production. Included a moment where the lead is standing center stage and there were 20 identical doors behind him and one moment on cue all the doors opened with a hand holding a bag of money. Not realism.

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Joseph Stalin (Stalin's Purges in 1930's)

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2nd dictator of Soviet Russia mid 20's-1953. 30 million murdered Russians. Utterly paranoid. Terrifying. Very interested in theatre and the arts. Dictatorships developed a strong hand in art. Loved realism. He hated Meyerhold's style. He assumed political messages were being sent during over stylized productions and acting. Thought it was a corruption. Art is an instrument in propaganda. Stalin developed strong loathing of Meyerhold, and him using unrealistic plays and heightened style. Wanted realistic plays that weren't depressing or downers, but plays that made people enjoy their life.

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Miss Julie

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Deomnstrated Strindbergs' preoccupation with what he considered to be the elemental and inevitable conflict between men and woman. Won high praise for its emphasis upon heredity and environment, its unusual setting (a triangular view of one corner of a kitchen), and its use of pantomimes to replace intermissions. Many critics considered it an excellent exemplar of naturalistic principles. Manifesto of Naturalism. Miss Julie is apart of a world in a family from a Russian play. Intermixing of social classes. She has sex with the butler. Like "Cherry Orchard". Naturalistic, shows you every little detail. She gives a dog an abortion. Misogyny and sexual neurosis.

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August Strindberg

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Wrote influential nonrealistic plays. Swedish dramatist. (1849-1912) Misogynist. Got addicted to drugs. Great playwright of 19th century. "Miss Julie", "Dream Play", chamber plays.

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Naturalism

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Theatre that attempts to create an illusion of reality. Detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character. Realism on speed. Realism taken to the extreme. The world as it is, with nothing edited out. For example, Strindberg's play "Miss Julie". The setting of this play is a kitchen. The presentation of the play should be realistic. The conflicts should be meaningful, life-altering significance, and the play should be simple. Emil Zola is related to this term.

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Inferno Period

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When Strindberg was put into mental asylum and changed his style of writing. He wrote "dream plays" or "chamber plays" 1890's - 1900's. Try to emulate what happens in a dream, "anything is possible."

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Franklin Wedckinds' Spring Awakenins (1891)

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This authors first important play is the story of adolescent struggle with sexual awareness. One dies from a botched abortion, another commits suicide, and still another is saved from a similar fate only by the mysterious "man in the mask". The play is interesting in part because of its intermingling of naturalism and symbolism, of brutal frankness and lyrical expression. German court had to rule that the play was not obscene. The person who staged it was Max Reinhardt.

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Max Reinhardt

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German director, 1900-1940s. Staged Spring Awakenings. Had is own theatre Detaches Theatre, Berlin. His flagship production was A Mid Summers Night Dream and made it into a movie. Eclecticism. Opened the door for there being a differenet style for every kind of play. Notable for doing Shakespeare, classics, Social realist (Ibsen, STringberg, Shaw) Oedipus in a circus. Medieval plays real cathedrals. Intimate drawing room productions. Every play = its OWN style. Always over prepared as a director.

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Eclecticism

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Max Reinhardt's style. Good at doing many different kind of things and styles.

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Symbolism

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An artistic and poetic movement or style using symbolic images and indirect suggestion to express mystical ideas, emotions, and states of mind. It originated in late 19th century France and Belgium. Influence of Poe + Wagner. Symbols = Deeper reality. Lunge Poe + The theatre L'Oeuvre, Paris. Alfred Javry, King Ubn (1896). Neo-absurdist, neo-primitivism. Whats more important than expressing the human pschiky.

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Realism

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Meant to bring a greater fidelity of real life to the stage. imitation of reality. Everything is a style. Style of performance which aims at reproducing reality, as it is recognizable. With certain things edited out. Flurished in the 19th century. Selective reality. For example, use of domestic detail to reveal inner turmoil. Shares stylistic choices with naturalism, including focus on everyday (middle-class) drama and ordinary speech and settings. A Doll's House is an example. Closely connected to the development of modern drama.

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Theatrical Expressionism around the 19-20th century

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A maunders movement in drama and theatre that developed in Europe (principally Germany) in the early decades of the 20th century and later in the US. Most plays done in this style were structurally episodic, deriving their unity from a central idea or argument, often holding out the promise of a future Utopia. Thought to project strong feelings into objects and to portray them as modified and distorted by the artist's own vision. Opposed realism and naturism on the grounds that those movements focused attention on surface details and implied that the observable phenomena of contemporary materialistic and mechanistic society represent fundamental truth. Not committed to symbols, but presenting the world in a distorted, emotional way. Trying to express the most personal, usually violent and dark, aspects of a human psychiky.

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Futurism (1900's-1910's)

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Filippo Tommaso Mavinett. Multi-media performance. Performer audience intermingling. About breaking down tradition. Trying to shake up the norms by letting the audience interject with the performance. mixing up a static and strangling social convention. "Blow up the museums"

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Dadaism (1910s)

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Tristan Tsara. Chance art - poetry created by chance, because chance rules the world that we live. Embrasses sillyness. Playful edge. Saying the world is already destroyed and almost laughing along with it. Life is absurd, life doesn't make scene, so LAUGH at it.

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Surrealism

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Realistic elements in dream combinations.

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Jean Coctean

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French surrealist. Playwright, poet and artist

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Magritte + Dali

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Surreal painters

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US Theater

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Came through colonial performances by Enligsh troops.

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The Contrast (1787)

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By Royal Tyler. Set in New York City in 1780s. Set between people who think the brits had it all together, and those who are proud to be american. Hero of the play gets the girl who is torn between him, Conelle Manly. American version of comedy of manners. Making fun of conduct. Ends in marriage. Between those who are american and see themselves separate verse those who have to ape european ways. This contrast is still alive today. American art can't stand up to British art. They think american theatre can't keep up with what happened in Europe. Caused by colonialism. The "Father Land" was Europe so they think american can't add up to it.

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The Minstrel Show

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the first kind of theatre born and bred in the US. Indigionus american concoction. White performers, performing in blackface to make themselves look african american. Imitated what a black person was like. To underscore and solidify racist stereotypes. Became a place for variety acts. Performed to denigrate and make black people look stupid. Form of entertainment that showed interesting black culture tradition. Song and dance. Went on till early 20th century. Many black performers got their start in the Minstrel shows. They would perform in the shows, if they put the makeup on their face and did the racist mannerisms expected of them. Several black stars started in this circuit. Had to follow racist expectations.

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American Civil War 1861-1865

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Lost more people in civil war than any other war. both sides were american. Actors made their star appearance. Assassin of Lincoln.

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Edwin Both (1893)

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Famous for Hamlet. Booth Park. He and his father split ways during the war. On the side of the north, great admirer of Lincoln. Matinée idol type. His brother killed the president. Lets of integrity. Very noble and kind. Players club.

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John Wikes Booth (1865)

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Killed Lincoln.

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The Players Club

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NYC

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The African Company (1821-3)

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In central park, there was the afterican grove tea shop. Owed by William Henry Brown (1823) First production was a Shakespeare piece.

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"King Shotoway" (1823)

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By William Henry Brown. Manager of theatre.

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Ira Aldridge

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Greatest black actor in 19th century. The company eventually closed and he went to Euopre

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The Black Crook (1866)

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(1866) Mellow drama. Intermixing french dancing girls with a horrible show. The first great american musical was born through this. Enormous success, ran for decades.

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George M. Cohan

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Put on the show Little Johnny Jones (1903) American themed musical play.

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Show Boat (1927)

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Kern. Race relations. Memorable music. Classical music score.

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Oklahoma (1944)

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The "Book musical" Musical numbers are made organically and necessary for the continuance of the plot.

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Steven Sondheim

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Most important living musical composer. Proven that the american musical can cover any topic.

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Lorraine Hansberry

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A Raisin in the Sun (1959) Black family, Civil Rights moment Awareness of African Roots Woman's Rights - Self discovery - people teasing her about being a docotor, Benitha, desire to become a doctor is surprising for any woman. Race and gender issues. Gay Rights - Lorraine was gay. Married a gay white man, Benitha says "Maybe i won't be married at all"

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Eugene O'Neil (1889-1953)

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James O'Neil Sr., his father, was poor. Fell in love with theatre at early age, James sold his soul for The Count of Monte Cristo. Edwin Booth Beyond The Horizon (1920) Province Town Playhouse The Hairy Ape, The Emperor Jones, Strange Interlude, Mourning Becomes Electra. 1930's O'Neil wins Nobel Prize for Literature Late plays The Iceman Cometh Long Day's Journey Into Night A Moon for the Misbegotten Had something very personal to day.

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William Inge

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Picnic (1950) about life, depression, Only writer to kill himself because of a bad review.

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antiquarianism

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in 19th century Europe, the practice of researching and recreating authentic styles of dress, architecture, and interior design when producing plays written or set in the past (later replaced by the term "historical accuracy") Studying or collecting antiques from the ancient past.

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John Robinson Planche's staging of Shakespear's KING JOHN (1821)

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(1821) He was a British dramatist, antiquary and officer of arms. Responsible for introducing historically accurate costume into 19th century British theatre. Expert on historical costume. His work on KING JOHN was a success and led to a number of similarly-costumed Shakespeare productions.

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Auguste Comte & Positivism

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He was a French philosopher and doctrine of positivism.

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Positivism

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the conviction that all things are knowable and expressible and that movement through time shows a general progress toward better things

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Charles Darwin & Evolution

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This scientist made himself known in the late 19th century when he published his book on the Origin of Species. He challenged the religious philosophies of Creationism which became a very controversial topic of that era. Natural selection (species will acquire attributes that it needs to survive) and Survival of the Fittests (the species that were strongest would naturally survive) are related to the history and evolution of what theatre has become today.

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Karl Marx & Communism

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Questioned traditional beliefs. He was a German outlined a socialist philosophy in the Communist Manifesto (1848) Marxism was a reaction against evils he percieved in the industrial revolution. He believed that the workers would unite to oveththrow their oppressors and create a egalitarian, classless society in which wealth would be shared.

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Sigmund Freud & Psychoanalysis

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A method of mind investigation, specifically the unconscious mind. A therapy of neurosis (illness caused by stress, depression, anxiety). Relates to "dream plays", like Strindberg, where the author imitates the disconnected but seemingly logical form of the dream. Anything may happen. It it like a key to understanding suppressed desires.

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Henrik Ibsen (1828 - 1906)

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Major 19th century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. often referred to as the "father of the modern theate". Receiver of the Rome prize (a writing retreat). Author of A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts. Created Norwegian National Theatre in Bergen in 1851. Much of his work contributed to the development of realism. "Well-made play".

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Peer Gynt (Ibsen 186)

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Verse play by Ibsen (1867) . Its protagonist is a man who avoids issues by skirting (walking around) them. A skillful blending of fantasy and reality. Interpreted by many as a satire (irony) on the Norwegian character. Contrasts with Brand

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Brand (Ibsen 1866)

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Verse play by Ibsen (1866). A dramatic poem, depicts an uncompromising idealist who sacrifices everything, including his family, to his vision. It established Ibsen's reputation, and the financial security which it brought made it possible for him to work as he pleased.

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Verse play

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Any drama written as verse to be spoken; another possible general term is poetic drama. formally a single metrical line in a poetic composition.

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A Doll's House (1879)

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Nora, upon realizing that, as a woman, she has always been kept ignorant of the practical world and treated as a plaything, chooses to leave her husband and children in order to learn about the world so she can make decisions for herself. Greeted as an attack on family and home, the bedrocks of civilized society.

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Ghosts (1881)

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Mrs. Alving, conforming to traditional morality, has remained with a depraved husband only to have her only son go mad, presumably from inherited syphilis. Greeted as an attack on family and home, the bedrocks of civilized society. The allusions to venereal disease and sexual misconduct in this play were considered so offensive to standards of public decency that it was forbidden a production in most countries.

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"Dream Plays" (1890's - 1910's)

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Strinberg's influential plays wrote after undergoing a bout with insanity during the 1890's. Partially because of his recent experiences and partially under Maeterlinck's influence. He says "the author has tried to imitate the disconnected but seemingly logical form of the dream. Anything could happen; everything is possible and probable. Time and space do not exist. On an insignificant background of reality, imagination designs and embroiders novel patterns, free fancies, absurdities and improvisations. Character split, double, multiply, vanish, solidify, blur, clarity.

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"Chamber Plays" (1890's - 1910's)

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A play of usually three acts which can be performed with a small cast and practically no sets or costumes in a small space. Like a blackbox theatre. Became popular in the early 20th century, with leading exponents being Max Reinhardt and August Strindberg. The name is derived from the term chamber music.

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"The Dream Play" (1902)

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By Strindberg. Reshaped reality according to his own subjective vision. Time and place shift frequently and without regard for logical sequence, the real and the imaginary merge, and the seemingly commonplace is invested with sense of significance. Alienated human begins, lost and rootless, seeking meaning in an in comprehensible universe, trying to reconcile disparate elements: lust and love, body and spirit, filth and beauty.

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Marxist-Leninist

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The political ideology adapted during Joseph Stalin's rule by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Comintern, which its proponents consider to be based on Marxism and Leninism.

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"The Ghost Sonata" (1907)

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Best known of five "chamber plays" Strindberg wrote for the "Intimate Theatre in Stockholm. echoes many of the ideas found in "The Dream Play".

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The Intimate Theatre, Stockholm

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From 1907 to 1910 Strindberg was associated with August Falck, an actor and producer at this theatre. Seating only 161, this theatre was intended as a home for Strindberg's plays, and for it he wrote five "Chamber plays".

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Andre Antoine (1858 - 1943)

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A french actor, theatre manager, film director, author, and critic who is considered the father of modern mise en scene (placing on stage) in france. Founded the Theatre-Libre in Paris in the 1880's. He was influenced by the naturalistic novels of Emile Zola and by the theatrical realism of the Meiningen Company.

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Theatre-Libre, Paris (1880's)

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Independent, private theatre founded in Paris in 1887 by Andre Antoine, which became the proving ground for the new naturalistic drama. Antoine believed that environment shaped character and behaviour, and he sought to create settings that would faithfully reflect every aspect of real life.

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Emile Zola (1840-1902)

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A french writer, the most well-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism. An admirer of Comte and an advocate of the scientific method as the key to all truth and progress. Believed that literature must either become scientific or perish. Argued that drama should illustrate the "inevitable laws of heredity and environment" or record "case studies"

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4th Wall Realism

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The imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled BOX SET in a proscenium theatre. This illusion is often associated with the naturalist theatre of the mid 19th century and especially with the innovations of the French director Andre Antoine.

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Otto Brahm (1856-1912)

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He was a German drama and literary critic, theatre manager and director. His productions were noted for being accurate and realistic. He was involved in the foundation of the progressive Freie Buhne (Free Stage) company, of which he became president and producer. He also edited the company's weekly magazine. Also managed the Deutsches theatre in Berlin, and was responsible for modernizing its output.

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Freie Buhne

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An independent theatre taking it's inspiration from the Theatre Libre. "Free stage" was organized in Berlin in 1889. Its purpose was for staging new, naturalistic plays. Unlike Antoine's company, however, the German group was a governing council. Otto Brahm was elected president and became its guiding spirit. In order to secure the services of professional actors, this theatre gave its performances on Sunday afternoons since its actors and most of its personnel were regularly employed by established theatre, especially the Deutsches, Berliner, and Lessing.

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J. T. Grein (1862-1935)

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A Dutch-born critic and impresario who helped establish the modern and independent theatre in London. Persuaded George Bernard Shaw to become a playwright.

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The Independent Theatre

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Modeled on the Theatre Libre and the Freie Buhne, this theatre was headed by J. T. Grein. Like its predecessors on the continent, this theatre was organized on a subscription basis to avoid censorship, and like the Freie Buhne, it gave its productions on Sundays in order to gain the cooperation of theatre managers and actors. The opening play ing 1891, "Ghosts", prompted more than 500 articles, most of them vituperative, bitter, and abusive.

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George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

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Anglo-Irish critic and playwright. wrote regularly for the Independent Theatre until his death. He wrote primarily in the comic form. Used paradoxes to make both characters and audiences reassess their values. He was a Fabian society socialist. "The Perfect Ibsenite", "The Perfect Wagnerite" essays. Greatest theatre an music critic in the English language. Persuaded to start playwriting in 1890's by Grein. Known for dialectic plays and commercial success. Arguably the greatest English language playwright since Shakespeare.

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Fabian Society Socialist

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A British socialist organization whose purpose is to advance the principles of socialism via gradualist and reformist means. Founded in 1884 in London. George Bernard Shaw wrote many brochures and speeches for this society.

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"Mrs. Warren's Profession"

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A play written by George Bernard Shaw in 1893 and first performed in London in 1902. The title refers to prostitution.

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Pygmalion (1916)

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A dialectic play by George Bernard Shaw. Named after a Greek mythological character.

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Anti-Realist Movements

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Expressionism (1880's-1910's) Frank Wedekind's Spring Awakening (1891) Melodrama, Romanticism, the well-made play, Symbolism. Meyerhold,

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