Expressionism was a movement in drama and theatre that principally developed in Germany in the early decades of the 20th century. It was then popularized in the United States, Spain, China, the U.K., and all around the world. Similar to the broader movement of
Expressionism
Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...
in the arts, Expressionist theatre utilized theatrical elements and scenery with exaggeration and distortion to deliver strong feelings and ideas to audiences.
History
The early Expressionist theatrical and dramatic movement in Germany had
Dionysian
The Apollonian and the Dionysian are philosophical and literary concepts represented by a duality between the figures of Apollo and Dionysus from Greek mythology. Its popularization is widely attributed to the work ''The Birth of Tragedy'' by Fri ...
,
Hellenistic
In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...
, and
Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche became the youngest pro ...
philosophy influences.
[Samuel, Richard H.; Thomas, R. Hinton (1971). Expressionism in German life, literature, and the theatre, 1910-1924; studies by Richard Samuel and R. Hinton Thomas (1st American ed.). Philadelphia: A. Saifer. p. 204.] It was impacted by the likes of German poet
August Stramm and Swedish playwright
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 pla ...
.
[Garten, H. F. (1 June 1971). "The Theatre of Expressionism". Screen. 12 (2): 29–37. doi:10.1093/screen/12.2.29] ''
Murderer, the Hope of Women'' by
Oskar Kokoschka
Oskar Kokoschka (1 March 1886 – 22 February 1980) was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright and teacher, best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes, as well as his theories on vision that influenced the Viennese Expre ...
, written in 1907 and first performed in Vienna in 1909, was the first fully expressionist drama.
Expressionism was then explored and evolved in Germany by a multitude of playwrights, the most famous of which being
Georg Kaiser, whose first successful play, ''
The Burghers of Calais'', was written in 1913 and first performed in 1917.
Another highly influential German Expressionist playwright was
Ernst Toller
Ernst Toller (1 December 1893 – 22 May 1939) was a German author, playwright, left-wing politician and revolutionary, known for his Expressionist plays. He served in 1919 for six days as President of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic, ...
who had his first successful play, ''Transformation'', premier in Berlin in 1919.
[O'Connor, John; Styan, J. L. (May 1983). "Modern Drama in Theory and Practice, Volume III: Expressionism and Epic Theatre". Theatre Journal. 35 (2): 267. doi:10.2307/3207165] These German playwrights and many others explored and evolved expressionist theatre and drama until the movement faded in popularity throughout Germany by 1924.
In the 1920s theatrical expressionism became very popular in the United States among audiences and artists alike.
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of Realism (theatre), realism, earlier associated with ...
, although widely known for his
realist dramas, was the first playwright in the United States to experience success with an expressionist piece. O'Neill's ''
The Hairy Ape'' was the first fully expressionist play written by an American playwright, it premiered in 1922.
[The Oxford Companion to American Theatre (3rd ed.). ew York, N.Y. Oxford University Press. 2004. ] Elmer Rice
Elmer Rice (born Elmer Leopold Reizenstein, September 28, 1892 – May 8, 1967) was an American playwright. He is best known for his plays '' The Adding Machine'' (1923) and his Pulitzer Prize-winning drama of New York tenement life, '' Street Sce ...
gained notoriety shortly after with the premier of his expressionist play ''
The Adding Machine'' in 1923.
These playwrights and many others within the United States went on to write quite successful expressionist plays including
Lajos Egri's ''
Rapid Transit (play)
''Rapid Transit'' was a play by Lajos Egri that premiered at the Provincetown Playhouse, New York, in April 1927 and closed before the end of the month after 20 performances. Horace Liveright had bought and produced this work. Egri's expression ...
'', first premiering in 1927,
[Beil, Ralf; Dillmann, Claudia (2011). The total artwork in expressionism: arts, film, literature, theatre, dance, and architecture, 1905-25 / edited by Ralf Beil and Claudia Dillmann. Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz. p. 512. .] and
Sophie Treadwell's ''
Machinal'', first premiering in 1928.
[Walker, Julia A. (2005). Expressionism and modernism in the American theatre : bodies, voices, words. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 300. .]
Expressionism in theatre and drama has also experienced success in China and Spain. Notably, ''
The Wilderness (play)'' by
Cao Yu
Cao Yu (, September 24, 1910 – December 13, 1996) was a Chinese playwright, often regarded as one of China's most important playwrights of the 20th century. His best-known works are ''Thunderstorm'' (1933), ''Sunrise'' (1936) and ''Peking Man' ...
and ''
Yama Zhao'' by
Hong Shen were frequently produced in the 1920s and 1930s in China. Expressionism in Chinese theatre has recently experienced a resurgence in popularity since the 1980s. In Spain
Ramon Valle-lnclan's ''
Esperpento'', which was first produced in 1925, was very similar to German expressionist plays of the same decade.
Theatrical elements
The most defining characteristics of Expressionism in the theatrical context were the emphasis on uncovering intense emotions and the failure of societal systems that have been overlooked. Commonly, Expressionist theatre critiqued the government, big business, the military, family structures, and sexism.
Expressionism shifted emphasis from the text of pieces to the physical performance and highlighted the director's role in creating a vehicle to deliver theirs and the playwright's thoughts and feelings to audiences.
[Gordon, Mel (2017). The Routledge companion to scenography. London: Routledge. pp. 402–410.] This shift also reflected a greater faith in audiences' ability to receive a playwright's message on their own without complete textual guidance.
["The Theatre: Expressionism" (Vol. 1 Issue 1). Time, Inc. 1923.] In early German expressionist theatre, the protagonists often represented variations on the
New Man, one who was neither too meek or too headstrong, who was intelligent, and who was unafraid to act on their morals.
Structurally, Expressionism in theatre was often characterized by episodic scenes or station dramas (Stationendramen) which were modeled after the
Stations of the Cross
The Stations of the Cross or the Way of the Cross, also known as the Via Dolorosa, Way of Sorrows or the , are a series of fourteen images depicting Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ on the day of Crucifixion of Jesus, his crucifixion and acc ...
. ''
Machinal'' by
Sophie Treadwell utilized nine episodes to tell the story of Helen Jones instead of scenes.
Expressionist theatre also commonly adopted very general or simple names for the characters in the plays, like A Man, Woman, or in ''The Adding Machine'', "Mr. Zero"
Design characteristics
Expressionist theatre had very different scenic design compared to the theatrical movements that came before it like naturalism and romanticism.
Set pieces and props were typically used sparingly with much more emphasis on creating striking sound and light design.
When scenery was used, it was typically very symbolic and was a purposeful exaggeration or understatement of the setting.
Expressionist scenic design focus was more on aiding in the delivery of a scene's meaning versus a mere representation of setting.
Emil Pirchan, Ludwig Sievert, and
Ernst Stern were very influential expressionist scenic designers.
Famous works and playwrights
*Georg Kaiser: ''The Burghers of Calais'' (written in 1913, first premiered in 1917), ''
From Morn to Midnight'' (written in 1912, first staged in 1917)
* Ernst Toller: ''Transformation'' (premiered in 1919), ''Man and the Masses'' (written in 1920, first performed in 1923)
*
Reinhard Sorge: ''The Beggar'' (first performed in 1912)
[Williams, Simon; Hamburger, Michael (2008). A history of German theatre / edited by Simon Williams and Maik Hamburger. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 445. .]
*
Walter Hasenclever: ''
The Son'' (premiered in 1914)
[Rorrison (1998, 475) and Schürer (1997b, ix, xiv).]
*
Hans Henny Jahnn: ''Pastor Ephraim Magnus'' (first staged in 1917), ''Coronation of Richard III'' (first premiered in 1922)
*
Arnolt Bronnen: ''Parricide'' (first performance in 1922), ''Bird of Youth'' (premiered in 1922)
*Eugene O'Neill: ''The Hairy Ape'' (first performed in 1922), ''
The Emperor Jones'' (first staged in 1920), ''
The Great God Brown'' (premiered in 1922)
*Sophie Treadwell: ''Machinal'' (first premiered in 1928), ''O Nightingale'' (first performed in 1925)
*Elmer Rice: ''The Adding Machine'' (premiered in 1927), ''
Street Scene'' (first opened in 1929)
*Lajos Egri: ''Rapid Transit'' (first premiered in 1923), ''Believe Me or Not'' (first staged in 1933)
See also
*
Expressionist plays
Expressionism is a Modernism, modernist art movement, movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in History of art#Expressionism (c. 1905–1930), Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to pre ...
* ''
Neue Sachlichkeit
The New Objectivity (in ) was a movement in German art that arose during the 1920s as a reaction against expressionism. The term was coined by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, the director of the ''Kunsthalle'' in Mannheim, who used it as the title of ...
''
*
Epic theatre
Epic theatre () is a theatrical movement that arose in the early to mid-20th century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners who responded to the political climate of the time through the creation of new political ...
*
Theatre of Cruelty
The Theatre of Cruelty (, also ) is a form of theatre conceptualised by Antonin Artaud. Artaud, who was briefly a member of the surrealist movement, outlined his theories in a series of essays and letters, which were collected as '' The Theatre an ...
References
{{Expressionism
Modernist theatre
Theatrical genres