American Theatre

historical background

20

BEGINNING OF TH CENTURY

England: Victorianism (Dickens)

• Italy: Verism (Verga)

• France: Realism and Naturalism (Zola, Balzac)

• →

rise of realism is strictly connected to the rise of middle-class it reflects their moral

• structure, the importance of appearance, family, marriage, the role of men (who had to work)

and that of women (who had to stay home and comply)

• →

crisis between end of 19th century and beginning of 20th century crisis of literary realism as

well

F — after his interpretation of dreams we see things differently from before. he thinks reality

• REUD

is expressed through dreams, which is the only time when we show our true selves. inside men

there is no rational mechanism and we only obey the rules of desires, which is why dreams give

us a key to interpret out reality

B — philosopher who revolutionized the concept of time by asserting that we have 2

• ERGENSON

different types and perceptions of time:

kronos: chronological, “objecive” narration of events, the time of science, “regular and

• measurable” floats of moments in time

kairos: how we perceive events in an emotional way, considering first the part of events that

• →

struck us the most “subjective” narration of time, “individual” time. everyone has a different

kairos,

perception of it can tight or broaden the narration.

W J — brother of Henry James, he theorized the stream of consciousness technique:

• ILLIAM AMES →

kairos

by narrating from the POV of a character, authors narrate by following his/her stories

aren’t narrated from an objective and chronological time as we are overthrown by the

character’s own individual perception

• →

E — relativized space and time with his Theory of Relativity: time isn’t always the same

INSTEIN

if we travel at a different speed, the perception of time is different and we have to count time in

a different way. out points of reference in time and space are arguable, as time and space are

not always the same

U B and G B — futurist painters, they try to find ways to reproduce

• MBERTO OCCIONI IACOMO ALLA

speed in a painting

E M — first literary movement influenced by the discoveries of 20th century

• UROPEAN ODERNISM

objectivity of reality isn’t sure anymore, man’s search is displaced into their individual

• →

consciousness 1st person narrator replaces the omniscient narrator

stream of consciousness, breaking-up syntax

• Coscienza di Zeno), Nessuno Centomila, Il Fu Mattia Pascal)

Italy: Svevo (La Pirandello (Uno

• ricerca del tempo perduto)

France: Proust (Alla

• The Lighthouse)

England: Joyce (Ulysses), Virginia Woolf (To

•

A M — not as radical as the European movement

• MERICAN ODERNISM Age of Innocence,

Edith Wharton (The although still traditional)

• Sound and the Fury:

William Faulkner (The uses stream of consciousness on the mind of a

• Ulysses)

lunatic, tougher and more radical than

Waste Land:

T. S. Eliot (The most radical example of modernism in poetry)

• 1917 enters in WW1 — not fought in US, something important because, differently for EU,

• American citizens don’t experience violence directly. the horrors of violence seeps through

→

American consciousness through the veteran’s shattering chronicles sense of pointlessness

of the violence of war as they don’t have strong heroic ideals to fight for, just economic once

post war feelings and attitudes of the American citizens include: sense of disillusionment

• and anxiety (Dos Passos’ and E. E. Cummings’s poetry, Faulkner’s novels)

1917 Russian revolution triggers an anti-communist hysteria (Red Scare), which lasts until the

• 50s. communism is perceived as a limitation to American freedom

1919 prohibitionism: Volstead Act forbids selling and transporting spirits

• 1919-21 salaries tend to increase, even if labour exploitation does.

• The Great Gatsby tomorrow we

Fitzgerald’s described the mentality of living for the day “for

• →

may die” even though they can have everything void in the soul

men and artists alike seek a sense and a place after such catastrophe and devastation

•

US “ “ 20 — age of jazz

ROARING S

→

gilded age 10 year period following the American Civil War

• period of apparent optimism: desire to change the world, excessive and frenetic desire of

• carpe diem

enjoying life, with a philosophy

cocktail parties, bootleggers (people who illegally sold alcohol), rise of Hollywood (Rodolfo

• Valentino), birth of the radio. years of easy profits in Wall Street and Big Business

lost generation — American intellectuals and artists who moved to Europe, where they thought

• there were fresher ideas. normally they moved either to London or Paris, back then considered

the capitals of new literary and artistic movements

US 30 S

24th October 1929 Black Monday, Wall Street Crash: beginning of a long crisis that will last up

• →

until the end of WW2 unemployment increases, Hoovervilles appear (villages for very poor

people who are made of huts and houses made of wood)

• →

vagabondi,

hobos: young adolescents who start roaming around they can’t find a job and

don’t believe in institutions

Steinbeck, Dos Passos, Guthrie represent these realities and figures

•

1933 New Deal: president Roosevelt adopts special measures to absorb part of the unemployed

• citizens (social work programs to reduce the crisis)

1936-7 new crisis: unemployment increases, strikes and social disorders up to the US

• participation in WW2

US 40 S →

1941 US enters war war as a solution for the crisis. it partially works: industries can produce

• items for army →

sense of being under threat from outside Red Scare of communism, fascism, nazism

• Bellow and Dos Passos write novels that revolve around the anxiety of the time

•

1945 end of WW2

• struggle to come out of the new trauma. the reconstruction of the post-war gives new impulse

to US economy

US “ 50 ”

TRANQUILIZED S

economic boom, improvement of the quality of life, particularly middle-class families

• called “tranquilized” even though lots of conflict remain underneath

• Intro to theater

théatron,

theater: from greek word “performance”, a number of arts through which stories

• (dramas) could be represented

now theater’s representations are seen as only held in theaters, but in the past it wasn’t true: the

• mere fact of speaking is not necessarily theater. theatrical representations could also be made

from one person on stage who just moves around, mimes something, dances, sings, speaks.

→

the stage doesn’t need to be a real one for something to be considered “theater”, it needs

someone who performs and someone who watches

MAIN THEATRICAL STYLES

(1) — serious drama + aim: make people think about themselves/morality + tragic,

TRAGEDY

negative ending (hero dies)

protagonist (hero) copes with events/consequences of his own actions

Romeo and Juliet

ex. Shakespeare’s

(2) — light themes + aim: make people laugh + happy ending

COMEDY

way of escaping reality: weaknesses of characters are exposed in a way that make people

→

laugh laughter as a complicity between actors and audience

(3) — musical comedy + positive ending

MUSICAL

action carried on by music, singing, dancing. becomes a trope in 20th century US.

(4) — representation of actions and characters without words. only gestural arts and

MIME

mimicry, meaning and communication conveyed without verbiage

(5) ’ — 18th century trope, Italian theatrical style: improvised + no real scripts,

COMMEDIA DELL ARTE

only a rough draft (canovaccio, with guidelines). use of masks, singing, dancing, acrobatics

(Carlo Gozzi). inspired by everyday life episodes.

ORIGINS

-

• PRE HISTORIC PERIOD →

evidence of some sort of representation only verbal, some sort of initiation rites

— tragedy,

• comedy

ANCIENT AND CLASSIC GREEK THEATER

6th century before Christ, a man called Tespi comes to Athen with a cart; in there he transports

some objects (scene objects, costumes, masks). at the time, theater meant actors who went

→

around from one city to the other and performed in front of the public born as a popular art

form. the origin of Western theater goes back to this time.

tragedy is considered the highest form of theater, with playwrights such as Aeschylus,

• Sophocles, Euripides: use of masks, chorus (a number of people who wore masks, that had

→

the function of giving the impression that the chorus was an impersonal entity they gave

people moral instruction, presenting the plot, making a preview of what was gonna happen

and commenting what was happening) + 3 unities (action, place, time: 1 main action + 1

location + action develops itself throughout 14 hours)

→

comedy is a lower form of theater Aristphanes’ and Menander’s interludes

•

paradigms of Greek theater are main points for all EU and US theater

• LATIN AND MEDIEVAL THEATER

continues Greek traditions with Seneca’s tragedies and Livius’ and Plautus’ comedies

→

after the fall of the roman empire, theater tends to disappear church doesn’t appreciate it, as

it makes mass seem like a theater (in the sense that people had to understand through words

and sermons what the preacher was saying and it gave people a lesson), a kind of sacred

representation that view theater as a rival. church also doesn’t approve of men and women

→

living together, something that actors needed to do as they travels actors are

excommunicated by church. only are performances exist and they are offered by the church

itself: they are usually played near them and are miracle, mystery and morality plays that narrate

episodes from the Bible or deal with particular virtues or sins.

• RENAISSANCE THEATER

golden century of theater: new theaters are built, classics rediscovered

Italy: Macchiavelli’s and Ariosto’s comedies, Tasso’s tragedies

/

• ELIZABETHAN JACOBEAN THEATER

golden age of British theater: from the anglican reformation to the closing of theaters in 1642

[closed by Puritans; after the closure: civil war], authors like Marlowe, Kyd, Johnson,

Shakespeare

17

• TH CENTURY

France: late renaissance — classic theater: 3 aristotelian unities respected. Corneille’s and

• commedia dell’arte

Racine’s tragedies, Molière’s inspired comedies

Spain: Lope de Vega, de la Barca

•

18

• TH CENTURY

weak century for theater La Merope.

Italy: pre-Goldoni playwrights, inspired by Molière — memorable tragedy: Maffei’s

• with the advent of Goldoni comedies are restored, and with Metastasio so are melodramas.

England: Augustan age (George 1) — decline of theater. middle-class tragedies produced by

• Lillo and Steele. 1730 plays by Fielding.

• →

Beggar’s Opera ante-litteram

memorable production of Gay’s (1728), a musical US

musical are drawn to this production, a satire of Italian operas, is dissimilar from other plays

produced in the same century

1737 Licensing Act: every play has to pass through censorship before being staged. wide

• development of comedies of sentimentality, particularly with Goldsmith and Sheridan.

France — theoretical texts concerning theater with Diderot and revolutionary theater with

• Beaumarchais

(1st half 19th century)

• ROMANTICISM →

romantic drama new conception of culture based on passion, proximity to nature, sublime +

things aren’t to be objectively described

Germany: Goethe, Schiller

• Carmagnola), da Rimini)

Italy: Manzoni (Adelchi, Pellico (Francesca

• England: Shelley, Keats, Byron

• (2nd half of the 19th century)

• REALISM →

realism takes the place of great tragedies sticks to reality, recognizes that there is objectivity

in reality and that everyone has to acknowledge this objectivity: age of positivism, scientific era

England: middle-class dramas, Wilde’s parodies, Shaw’s theater

• France: Hugo, although still influenced by romanticism

• Italy: Verga and verism

• US theater

DAWN Ye Bare And Ye Cubb

1665 1st documented instance of theater in the US: William Darby’s (“the

• →

beat and the cub”) the representation ends badly when 3 actors are arrested

1716 1st professional theater founded in Williamsburg, later closed in 1723

• 1749 theatrical company founded in Philadelphia, then moved to NYC

•

• The Prince of Parthia,

1767 1st American tragedy: Thomas Godfrey’s following the Elizabethan’s

model

A (1776)

MERICAN REVOLUTION The Contrast

1787 1st important and successful US comedy: Royal Tyler’s

• to avoid censorship, he presented the comedy not merely as escapism, but as a moral lecture

• that could support a Puritan kind of morality. it was performed in both Boston and NYC.

→

trope

Jonathan, the “ ” — becomes a in US theater typical American, doesn’t

• STAGE YANKEE

have a wide culture, he’s right and smart, with practical knowledge and intelligence that allow

him to survive (American pragmatism). in the play, Jonathan is a servant but he knows how to

talk and behave. he manages to go to a theater but then describes it in a negative way, saying

what Puritans would say (devilish place), but in an ironic way

19 TH CENTURY

starts to have considerable relevance

• heavily influenced by EU theater, in particular with authors like Noah, Bird, Boker

• A W

emerges the

• MERICAN AY

myth of the frontier

• “tall” tales — tales that contain exaggeration, usually told by miners when they found each

• other in the saloon. tend to tell episodes in an unrealistic way (~ Mark Twain)

prairies — contain ideas of vastness, territories, open-air life

• stage yankee

• James Nelson Barker

The Indian Princess, Pocahontas

1808 which inspired Disney’s

• Superstition,

1824 about witch hunts in England

•

William Dunlap

A Trip to Niagara, Or Travelers To America,

1828 thematizes conflict between EU-US.

• →

use of diorama stage scenery/support that looks like a poster at the back of the stage; it

is enlighten from behind so that it can show a landscape or the interior of a room (~ slide)

Anna Cora Mowatt

Fashion,

1845 an ironic comedy against excessive love of foreign things, typical of rich New

• →

Yorkers represents the excessive desire of New Yorkers to become similar to EU.

stage yankee: Adam Trueman

TURN OF THE CENTURY

idea of change comes later in US than in EU. Fitch and Belasco, adapters and representatives of

melodramatic strain between the 2 centuries, adapt many EU plays and write their own original

melodramas

David Belasco gives representation to 2 contrasting ideas of women:

Madame Butterfly,

1900 adapted from a short story and from which Puccini adapted another

• →

play — exotic, submissive and sensual woman transgression of Puritan standards

The Girl of the Golden West,

1905 also adapted from a short story and from which Puccini

• →

adapted another play — androgenic woman (~ men), ideal companion to the prairie man a

woman on the same level of man, she can ride a horse, make decisions →

expansion of urbanization and growing importance of the imaginary of the city immigration

• (people from the countryside come to the city for jobs), new cultures (people coming from other

states), technological innovations (industrialization), change in life rhythms (people coming from

→

rural background are accustomed to working with nature’s rhythms idea of variation and

→

changeability, different from people in the city, who work the same hours all day every day

→

idea of oppression) psychological and cultural consequences of the idea of the city

in this background were born modern performances with dichotomies:

• Our Town

city vs. small town — different dimensions, Wilder’s

• reality vs. imaginary dimension — reality as a negative dimension, playwrights and artists try

• →

to find and create a different reality through imagination importance of imagination in

Tennessee Williams and Mowatt

modernity vs. past

• 1- 2

US THEATER BETWEEN WW WW

4 main themes:

(1) Trifles:

— represented mainly by Susan Glaspell, creator of play masked as a

KITCHEN THEATER

detective story where 3 women notice different details that makes them understand how a

man has killed and his motive. while their men talk more rhetorically but understand nothing,

the women stay in the kitchen and by observing details they solve the case.

type of play that has to do with small and internal spaces.

Glaspell brings together a number of playwrights during summer and creates a group of

Provincetown Players.

theater people, the

(2) — in particular Philip Barry’s. not quite as important at the time

COMEDIES

(3) / — takes place on the streets or, if represented in a theater, the

THÈÂTRE ENGAGÉ

STREET SCENE

setting is an external space. form of political (leftist) theater that deals with the problems of

→

real life close to working and poor people, as well as women. two main groups were

founded after this: Mercury Theater and Group Theater.

• Waiting for