Realism (theatre)

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Realism was a general movement in the late nineteenth century that steered theatrical
texts and performances toward greater fidelity to real life. The realist movement began
with Henrik Ibsen[1] and was largely developed by Constantin Stanislavsky and his
Moscow Arts Theatre[citation needed]. Together with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko the two
pioneered a break away from the highly stylised and unrealistic theatre styles (e.g.
Melodrama) prevailing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Realism began earlier in the 19th century in Russia than elsewhere in Europe and took a
more uncompromising form.[2] Beginning with the plays of Ivan Turgenev, who used
"domestic detail to reveal inner turmoil", Alexandr Ostrovsky, who was Russia's first
professional playwright, Aleksey Pisemsky, whose A Bitter Fate (1859) anticipated
Naturalism, and Leo Tolstoy, whose The Power of Darkness (1886) is "one of the most
effective of naturalistic plays", a tradition of psychological realism in Russia culminated
with the establishment of the Moscow Art Theatre by Constantin Stanislavski and
Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko.[3] Their ground-breaking productions of the plays of
Anton Chekhov in turn influenced Maxim Gorky and Mikhail Bulgakov.

The realist dramatist Thomas William Robertson in Britain, August Strindberg in

Scandinavia, and Eugene O'Neill in the United States of America, among others, rejected
the complex and artificial plotting of the well-made play and instead present a theatrical
verisimilitude that would more objectively portray life as recognizable to the audience.

This is accomplished through realistic settings and natural speech which give form to the
general philosophy of naturalism (roughly, the view that man's life is shaped entirely by
his social and physical environment). However, the style of realism soon came to
distinguish itself from Naturalism as a style that was heightened reality. Realism
maintained the strength of such elements of drama as tension and focus, while
maintaining an audiences direct connection and relation to the situation and characters.
They were a reflection of themselves. Realism is the art of drawing from one's own
personal memories and feelings to show and present an emotion. It is the art that has
helped and led into method acting. Realism takes human morals and emotional inner
thoughts and beliefs to bring about most of the conflict it presents. Naturalism is a break
off of realism that uses physical dangers for its conflict instead of moral and inner
character conflict such as realism. Realism was first crafted into the works of
Shakespeare and other early 16th century writers.[4]

Surrealism and theatre

Surrealist theater depicts the subconscious experience, moody tone and disjointed
structure, sometimes imposing a unifying idea.[16]

Antonin Artaud, one of the original Surrealists, rejected Western theatre as a perversion
of the original intent of theatre, which he felt should be a religious and mystical
experience. He thought that rational discourse comprised "falsehood and illusion", which
embodied the worst of discourse. Endeavouring to create a new theatrical form that
would be immediate and direct, linking the unconscious minds of performers and
spectators, a sort of ritual event,[17] Artaud created the Theatre of Cruelty where emotions,
feelings, and the metaphysical were expressed not through text or dialogue but
physically, creating a mythological, archetypal, allegorical vision, closely related to the
world of dreams.[18]

These sentiments also led to the Theatre of the Absurd whose inspiration came, in part,
from silent film and comedy, as well as the tradition of verbal nonsense in early sound
film