Romanticism & Realism

8th Grade Drama Lab

Theater History Unit

The Restoration offered theater to which exclusive group?

The Upper Class

The rest of the world was starving for theater

Romanticism Foundations

Romanticism Themes

Romanticism is built on themes

Major themes –– truth – beauty– love

– freedom– nature – adventure – exotic

locations

Big Theme: Good Vs. Evil

� Romantic writers saw everything as black or white.

� Characters were either good or evil. (Heroes vs. Villains, etc.)

� What are some modern day examples??

Art Examples

The Market Cart

By Thomas Gainsborough

What themes are represented here?

Art Examples

The Executions of the Third of May 1808.

Painted in 1814 by Francisco Goya

How about here?

Romanticism in Literature

Alexander Dumas –The Three Musketeers

Romanticism in Literature

Victor Hugo – Les Miserables, HernaniWhen Hernani was first performed, it was so different from “classical”theater that people rioted in the streets!

Melodrama

�Melodrama is a form of Romanticism

� It uses music to manipulate the audience's emotional response and to denote character types

Melodrama Characters & Plot

Used common stock characters:– the hero, the villain, the heroine (damsel

in distress), an aged parent, and a comic man in crazy plot

General Plot:–sensational plot featuring themes of love and murder

Melodrama is like . . .

�Modern Soap Operas– Overacting– Unrealistic– Crazy conflicts in the plot

Realism

�First signs of Realism began in the 1850s

� It began as a reaction to the extreme fakeness of Romanticism

Beginnings

�Began in France

�First playwrights:– Alexandre Dumas– Emile Augier

Henrik Ibsen

Known as “The Father of Realism”

Shocked audiences because he questioned accepted social behavior.

Plays: A Doll’s House (1879) & The Wild Duck (1884)

George Bernard Shaw

� Irish/English� Wrote Comedies� Used realism to

promote social ideas and discussion.

� Plays: Major Barbara(1905) & Pygmalion (1912)

Anton Chekhov

� Most famous Russian realist

� Moscow Art Theater was world known

� Plays: The Three Sisters (1901) & The Cherry Orchard (1904)

Other Locations & People

� Germany – Gerhart Hauptman

� England – John Galsworthy, Oscar Wilde, James M. Barrie

� Russia – Nikolai Gogol & Ivan Turgenev

Konstantin Stanislavski

� Co-founder of Moscow Art Theater

� Director & Acting coach

� Created “System” of acting still used today