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Naturalism (theatre)
Naturalism is a movement in European drama and theatre that developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It refers to theatre that attempts to create an illusion of reality through a range of dramatic and theatrical strategies. Interest in naturalism especially flourished with the French playwrights of the time, but the most successful example is Strindberg's play '' Miss Julie'', which was written with the intention to abide by both his own particular version of naturalism, and also the version described by the French novelist and literary theoretician, Emile Zola. Zola's term for naturalism is ''la nouvelle formule''. The three primary principles of naturalism (''faire vrai, faire grand'' and ''faire simple'') are first, that the play should be realistic, and the result of a careful study of human behaviour and psychology. The characters should be flesh and blood; their motivations and actions should be grounded in their heredity and environment. The presentation o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Realism (theatre)
Realism was a general movement that began in 19th-century theatre, around the 1870s, and remained present through much of the 20th century. 19th-century realism is closely connected to the development of modern drama, which "is usually said to have begun in the early 1870s" with the "middle-period" work of the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen. Ibsen's realistic drama in prose has been "enormously influential." It developed a set of dramatic and theatrical conventions with the aim of bringing a greater fidelity of real life to texts and performances. These conventions occur in the text, (set, costume, sound, and lighting) design, performance style, and narrative structure. They include recreating on stage a facsimile of real life except missing a fourth wall (on proscenium arch stages). Characters speak in naturalistic, authentic dialogue without verse or poetic stylings, and acting is meant to emulate human behaviour in real life. Narratives typically are psychologically drive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drayman Henschel
''Drayman Henschel'' (), also known as ''Carter Henschel'', is an 1898 five-act naturalistic play by the German playwright Gerhart Hauptmann. Unlike his 1892 play ''The Weavers'', Hauptmann focuses on the story's psychological rather than social dimensions.Jelavich (1984, 455). As with his 1902 play '' Rose Bernd'', the play charts the demise of an ordinary man who falls victim to circumstances beyond his control. As with many of Hauptmann's dramas, it ends with the main character's suicide. Plot Malchen Henschel is feeling sickly and feels she may die. She bandies words with Hanne, a gruff servant. Her husband enters, discussing his business as a drayman, carting goods from one place to another. Mrs. Henschel is jealous when she learns that her husband was kind enough to get Hanne's apron for her. If she dies, what would happen to Gustel, her baby daughter? Says Malchen: "One thing I tell you now- If I dies, Gustel dies along with me! I'll take her with me! I'll strangle her befo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerhart Hauptmann
Gerhart Johann Robert Hauptmann (; 15 November 1862 – 6 June 1946) was a German dramatist and novelist. He is counted among the most important promoters of Naturalism (literature), literary naturalism, though he integrated other styles into his work as well. He received the 1912 Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Prize in Literature in 1912. Life Childhood and youth Gerhart Hauptmann was born in 1862 in Szczawno-Zdrój, Obersalzbrunn, now known as Szczawno-Zdrój, in Lower Silesia (then a part of the Kingdom of Prussia, now a part of Poland). His parents were Robert and Marie Hauptmann, who ran a hotel in the area. As a youth, Hauptmann had a reputation of being loose with the truth. His elder brother was Carl Hauptmann. Beginning in 1868, he attended the village school and then, in 1874, the Realschule in Breslau for which he had only barely passed the qualifying exam. Hauptmann had difficulties adjusting himself to his new surroundings in the city. He lived, along with his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Weavers (play)
''The Weavers'' (, Silesian German: ) is a play in five acts written by the German playwright Gerhart Hauptmann in 1892. The play, probably Hauptmann's most important drama, sympathetically portrays a group of Silesian weaving, weavers who staged an Silesian weavers' uprising, uprising in 1844 due to their concerns about the Industrial Revolution. The play was translated into Yiddish language, Yiddish by Pinchas Goldhar in the 1920s, after which it became a favorite of the Yiddish stage. In 1927 it was adapted into a German silent film ''The Weavers (1927 film), The Weavers'' directed by Frederic Zelnik and starring Paul Wegener. A Broadway version of ''The Weavers'' was staged in 1915–1916. Plot summary Most of the characters are proletarians struggling for their rights. Unlike most plays of any period, as pointed out many times in literary criticism and introductions, the play has no true central character, providing ample opportunities for ensemble acting. Criticism Critic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Creditors (play)
''Creditors'' () is a naturalistic tragicomedy by the Swedish playwright August Strindberg. It was written in Swedish during August and September 1888 in Denmark. It was first published in Danish in February 1889 and appeared in Swedish in 1890. It premiered at the Dagmar Theatre in Copenhagen in March 1889.Meyer (1991b), 118. It is seen as one of Strindberg's most powerful plays.Meyer (1991b, 119). Strindberg himself, writing in 1892, described it as his "most mature work." Characters *Adolph - an artist. *Tekla - a novelist, Adolph's wife. *Gustav - a teacher, Tekla's former husband.Strindberg, August. Bjorkman, Edwin. Translator. ''Plays''. ''Creditors''. Charles Scribner's Sons. 1913. /ref> Plot This three-character play takes place in a parlor adjoined to a room in a seaside resort hotel. It begins with Adolph, an artist, sculpting a small nude female figure. With him is Adolph's new friend, Gustav, who has been visiting for a week and inciting changes in Adolph's li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
August Strindberg
Johan August Strindberg (; ; 22 January 184914 May 1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist, and painter.Lane (1998), 1040. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg wrote more than 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography, history, cultural analysis, and politics during his career, which spanned four decades. A bold experimenter and iconoclast throughout his life, he explored a wide range of dramatic methods and purposes, from naturalistic tragedy, monodrama, and historical plays to his anticipations of expressionist and surrealist dramatic techniques. From his earliest work, Strindberg developed innovative forms of dramatic action, language, and visual composition. He is considered the "father" of modern Swedish literature and his '' The Red Room'' (1879) has frequently been described as the first modern Swedish novel. In Sweden, Strindberg is known as an essayist, painter, poet, and especially noveli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Father (Strindberg)
''The Father'' () is a naturalistic tragedy by Swedish playwright August Strindberg, written in 1887. It is about the struggle between parents over the future of their child; resulting in the mother, using her cunning manipulative skills, subduing and finally destroying the father. Plot Captain Adolph, an officer of the cavalry, and his wife, Laura, have a disagreement regarding the education of their daughter Bertha. Laura wants her to stay at home and become an artist, while Adolph wants Bertha to move into town and study to be a teacher. Adolph says that his decision is final, and that the law supports him, because, he points out, the woman sells her rights when she agrees to be married. The argument grows and becomes fierce. Laura, cunning & manipulative, suggests that Adolph may in fact have no rights in the matter. Laura lies to the family doctor that Adolph may be mad, because, as an amateur scientist, he thinks he has discovered life on another planet by looking thro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leo Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution reform, pre-reform Russian orthography. ; ), usually referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential authors of all time. Born to an aristocratic family, Tolstoy achieved acclaim in his twenties with his semi-autobiographical trilogy, ''Childhood (Tolstoy novel), Childhood'', ''Boyhood (novel), Boyhood'' and ''Youth (Tolstoy novel), Youth'' (1852–1856), and with ''Sevastopol Sketches'' (1855), based on his experiences in the Crimean War. His ''War and Peace'' (1869), ''Anna Karenina'' (1878), and ''Resurrection (Tolstoy novel), Resurrection'' (1899), which is based on his youthful sins, are often cited as pinnacles of Literary realism, realist fiction and three of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Power Of Darkness
''The Power of Darkness'' (, Vlast′ t′my) is a five- act drama by Leo Tolstoy. Written in 1886, the play's production was banned in Russia until 1902, mainly through the influence of Konstantin Pobedonostsev. In spite of the ban, the play was unofficially produced and read numerous times. Overview A peasant, Nikita, a farmhand of another wealthy peasant seduces a young orphan girl and abandons her for the wife of his master, Anisya, who poisons her already sick husband to marry Nikita. At the same time he has an affair with Anisya's daughter and eventually impregnates her (i.e., his new stepdaughter). Under his wife's and mother's influence, he murders the newborn. On the day of his stepdaughter's marriage, he surrenders himself and confesses to the police. Production history French theatre pioneer André Antoine staged ''La Puissance des Ténèbres''—a French translation of the play, by Pavlovsky and Oscar Méténier—in Paris at the Théâtre Montparnasse on 10 Febru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aleksey Pisemsky
Aleksey Feofilaktovich Pisemsky () () was a Russian novelist and dramatist who was regarded as an equal of Ivan Turgenev and Fyodor Dostoyevsky in the late 1850s, but whose reputation suffered a spectacular decline after his fall-out with ''Sovremennik'' magazine in the early 1860s. A realistic playwright, along with Aleksandr Ostrovsky he was responsible for the first dramatization of ordinary people in the history of Russian theatre.Banham (1998, 861). "Pisemsky's great narrative gift and exceptionally strong grip on reality make him one of the best Russian novelists" according to D.S. Mirsky. Pisemsky's first novel '' Boyarschina'' (1847, published 1858) was originally forbidden for its unflattering description of the Russian nobility. His principal novels are '' The Simpleton'' (1850), ' (1858), which is considered his best work of the kind, and ''Troubled Seas'', which gives a picture of the excited state of Russian society around the year 1862. He also wrote plays, includ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Bitter Fate
''A Bitter Fate'' (, ), also translated as ''A Bitter Lot'', is an 1859 realistic play by Aleksey Pisemsky.Banham (1998, 861) and Moser (1992, 273). It is a story of a peasant woman, who, while her husband was away for quitrent works, had been seduced by a young '' pomeshchik'' and had brought him a child. The four-act play tackles Russian serfdom and the social and moral divisions that it creates. With the exception of Leo Tolstoy's '' The Power of Darkness'' (1886), it is the only major play to dramatise the experiences of Russian serfs in the history of Russian realistic drama. It was started in early 1859 in St. Petersburg, finished on 19 August and first published by '' Biblioteka Dlya Chteniya'' in November that year,Yeryomin, M.P.Commentaries to Горькая судьбина The Selected Works by A.F. Pisemsky. 1959 // А.Ф.Писемский. Собр. соч. в 9 томах. Том 9. Издательство "Правда" биб-ка "Огонек", Москва, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
