Theatre History Week 8 Quiz

French Revolution & Its Impact on Theatre

• French Rev begins in 1719

• Reign of Terror lasts until 1794

• Historian Matthew S. Buckley reads the French revolution itself as a play:

  • Supposed to end w/ reconciliation of the ppl & the King (like in sentimental comedy)

  • Instead ends w/ the execution of the king and Reign of Terror

• For Buckley, this historical reality undercut the major genres of the 18th century: sentimental comedy and neoclassical tragedy

• When historical events didn't fit these narratives, the narratives themselves became unpopular

Rise of Melodrama

• Melodrama emerges as a hopeful genre for those traumatized by the revolution and terror

What was Melodrama?

• Melo = music in Greek

• Continuation of getting around spoken drama monopolies through music

• Became the most popular dramatic genre in the 19th century

• Originated by René-Charles Guilbert de Pixérécourt (1773-1844)

• Openly writes plays for "those who cannot read"

• Writes the first melodrama in 1800 titled "Coelina, or the Child of Mystery"

Plot of Coelina:

• Coelina, a young orphan, lives with her uncle Dufour, who intends to marry her to his son Stéphany. A mysterious mute stranger named Francisque arrives, and Coelina feels an inexplicable connection to him. Truchemont, a villainous local doctor, pursues Coelina romantically and becomes jealous. When Truchemont discovers Francisque is actually Coelina's father (whose tongue was cut out by Truchemont's accomplice years ago), he plots against him. As Truchemont's schemes unfold, Francisque's identity is revealed, proving Coelina is legitimate and wealthy. Justice prevails as Truchemont is exposed, Francisque is reunited with his daughter, and Coelina is free to marry her cousin Stéphany whom she truly loves.

• Uses Stock characters:

  • the mean villain

  • the sensitive hero

  • the persecuted heroine the simpleton/clown

  • the faithful friend (of the couple)

  • the villain's sidekick

• Preserves the rules of neoclassicism in that good is always rewarded

• But much less literary

Most famous Pixérécourt play

• The Dog of Montargis (1814)

• "The Dog of Montargis" (1814): Captain Aubri, traveling through the Forest of Bondy with his loyal dog Dragon, is murdered by his envious lieutenant Macaire who covets Aubri's fiancée Ernestine. When Aubri's body is discovered, his servant Eloi is falsely accused of the murder. Meanwhile, Dragon (Aubri's dog) repeatedly acts aggressively toward Macaire, raising suspicions. The dog leads people to Aubri's hidden grave and continues to harass Macaire. The King decrees a judicial combat between the dog and Macaire (a trial by combat). During this unusual duel, the dog overpowers Macaire, who then confesses to the murder. Justice is served, Eloi is freed, and Dragon is honored for his loyalty and role in exposing the true criminal.

• Establishes the "faithful dog" trope; audiences loved seeing the trained dog attack the actor

• Melodrama easily migrates and thrives in the UK because it circumvents the Licensing Act

Recap on Industrial Revolution

• 3 main aspects of Industrial Revolution

1. Invention of machinery (like the cotton gin)

2. Invention of steam engines (powering boats and trains)

3. Invention of the factory

• Results of the Industrial Revolution

• Massive growth of the WORKING class

• Urbanization

• Demand for theatre for illiterate workers in cities

Theatrical Reaction to 2 Revolutions

ROMANTICISM

• Sought to be literary and use poetic language

• Challenged established theatre conventions

• Used psychologically complex protagonists

• Set in exotic or historical settings

MELODRAMA

• non-literary mode, meant for working class who were illiterate

• embraced formulaic plots

• Reinforced conservative social values/morality

• Used stock characters

• set in the present

Rise of Romanticism in France

• Victor Hugo was the preeminent Romantic playwright in France (1802-1885)

  • Wrote Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (novels)

  • Wrote two plays

    • Cromwell (1827) - never performed

    • Hernani (1830) - huge controversy

  • Outlined his dramatic theory in the preface to Cromwell

1. Abandon of the unities of time and place

2. End the strict separation of the genres (comedy and tragedy)

3. Place dramatic action of a play in specific historical milieus (local color)

4. Incorporate grotesque alongside sublime elements. He rejects classical notions that separated these elements, insisting that true art must embrace both beauty and ugliness, the sublime and the grotesque, as they coexist in nature and humanity.

Hernani (1830)

Breaking the Rules:

• altered the Alexandrine verse, using enjambment used words considered beneath tragedy

• broke unities of time and place

• showed deaths and violence on stage

• humor was mixed with seriousness\

• Didn't use classical or mythological subjects

Opened on Feb. 25, 1830 at the Comédie Française

• Hugo did not have a claque (paid spectators that would applaud)

• Instead he gave free tickets to other Romanticists, who came to the play and cheered loudly every time an element of the play broke the Neoclassical Rules

• Meanwhile, traditionalists (and possibly paid claques) hissed and booed at the play's innovations

• The play runs for 2 months; very popular despite nightly riots

• Signals the triumph of Romanticism over Neoclassicalism in France

Spectacle & Stage Design

• Anti-Aristotle: Spectacle became its own artform

• Spectacle was “the result of an army of workers–talented, trained, and proficient in their respective arts”

• Spectacle had to be “appropriate to the magnitude of human emotion and the conflict between good and evil at the heart of its being, and it express in striking visual terms the sensationalism inherent in its nature”

Design Innovations

• Allowed lights to be set to full, medium, low, or (near) blackout

• Theatres installed gas lines that allowed better control of lighting fixture intensity. The downsides of gas light included more fires, gas buildups that led to explosions in a few instances, audiences experiencing illnesses due to due to gas leaks, and, with the lights being brighter, the scenic, costume, and makeup designers were forced to work harder as the brighter light exposed more flaws as the brighter light exposed more flaws and inconsistencies on stage

Invention of Limelight:

• Invented in 1816 by Thomas Drummond (1797-1840), a Scottish engineer

• Used to create the first spotlights

Sensation Scenes

• The sensation scene was designed to "unite the pictorial element with mechanical ingenuity to create a theatrical scene that would excite, thrill, and enthrall audiences, and was ultimately designed to make the audience sit up and gasp"

• More than pleasure in the visual, it contained something apart from acting which relied on scenic aid, intended to elicit a more complete sensory experience

• Audiences actively sought the bodily sensations–the thrills and chills of sensation drama so that rather than merely passively witnessing spectacle, the audience left the theatre feeling that they had experienced it

• Main types of sensation scene:

  • Horses stuff

  • Nature: natural disasters, earthquakes, fires, flood, cave-in

  • Machines, especially trains

Under the Gaslight

• Written by Augustin Daily in 1867

• How would you stage the train scene?

How to Stage the Train Scene

• For the train effect in "Under the Gaslight":

  • A track was built across the stage

  • The train itself was often represented by a painted flat (a two-dimensional painted canvas) with a headlight

  • The light from the "locomotive" would grow larger and brighter as it approached

  • A mechanical device called a 

  • "thunder run" (a wooden trough with cannon balls or rocks) created rumbling sounds

  • Steam effects were created using heated water and chemicals

  • The timing was critical - stagehands coordinated the light, sound, and movement cues precisely

  • Sometimes a treadmill or moving panorama would be used

The Goals of Melodramatic Acting

• “Communicating to the audience the emotions of the moment. They weren’t concerned w/ the nuances of social behavior or the subtleties of unconscious emotion”

• Each phrase, speech, or attitude of the melodrama actor prompted applause, for it was the experience if the moment that thrilled rather than the intellectual coherence of the whole" /virtuoso performance

• The goal was the communicate the emotions to the audience so they could also experience them

Delsarte Style of Acting

François Delsarte (1811-1871)

• Developed a system of "applied aesthetics"

• Inspired by faith and especially the Trinity

• His system was divided in thirds

• Body comprised of 3 sections:

  • The head = mental, intellectual zone

  • The torso = normal, emotional, moral, spiritual zone

  • The limbs = vital, physical zone

• Different parts of the body like the head, and limbs were also often subdivided into three parts. The face, for example, is the emotional expressive zone of the head subdivided again into its own mental (forehead and eyes), emotional-spiritual (nose and upper cheeks), and vital-physical zones (mouth, jaw, and lower cheeks). Here is one of Delsarte's famous "Ninefold Accords" about the positions of the head (right). According to this system, every part of the body could be used expressively and the interpretation lied its connection to his trinity. The position and gesture of elbows, wrists, hips, torso, where hands are placed in relation to the face all indicate a specific expression whether that be attraction, weakness, or a desire to protect. Delsarte said of shoulders, "When a man says to you in interactive form: 'I love, I suffer, I am delighted,' etc., do not believe him if his shoulder remains in a normal attitude.

Melodramatic Acting is where we get these gestures:

• Knee-slapping

• Knee-shaking

• Wringing hands

• Putting hand to forehead

• Putting your hand to your heart or your chest

Influence of Delsarte

• Became a staple of melodramatic acting in Europe

• Becomes the mode of acting Stanislavsky’s method reacts against

• Migrated by his students to the US

  • Americanized Delsarte System

  • Tableaus

  • Gymnastics

  • Modern Dance – Isadora Duncan and Ted Shawn

• Isadora Duncan (1877-1927)

• Ted Shawn (1891-1972)