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Nineteenth century theatre
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nineteenth century theater is theatre of the 19th century. It was marked by the introduction of realism.
Realism began around 1850 as the Romanticism period was ending around 1870, and gave way to the 'isms' of Twentieth century theatre. Henrik Ibsen is considered to be the father of Realism in theater. In the UK, Thomas William Robertson was an early proponent.
The theme of Realism in theater was likeness to life and this movement sought to create theater that was a laboratory for the nature of relationships. The goal of a realism-era play was to set forth a functional or dysfunctional situation in an objective manner to an impartial audience. The audience is meant to view the characters as a visitor observes animals in a zoo.
Typically, the environment on-stage, the dress code and the language, could easily have been as in any single member of the audience's own home. For instance, in a scene set in a dining room, there would be the number of chairs at the dining room table that one would have in a home, even if there were only two actors in the scene. As it is perfectly ordinary to view contemporary criticism on television and in films today, it is difficult for us now to understand what impact this had on the audience at that time.
- Always credulous, nothing to test believability in audience
- Audience is never acknowledged
- Dialogue only, no asides, soliloquys or monologues (except when addressed to another onstage character)
- An individual represents a societal problem
- Fourth wall removed convention is strictly followed
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