Theatre History Overview - Part 63 - Melodrama

While it is now known that melodrama has exaggerated plot with clearly good and cleary bvad characters, the first technique for melodrama was to alternate spoken drama with short pieces of music.

While Kotzebue is the person who is mainly responsible for starting melodrama, there are examples from earlier that fall into the category. Sigmundus was a 1753 play by J.E. Eberlin that contained some melodramatic scenes. Then 1762's Piygmalion by Jean-Jacques Roussaeu was considered a full melodrama.

The popularity of opera in the 19th century helped lead to musical overtures. This kept the idea of melodrama going. It allowed for a dramatic structure of melodrama to form. This structure did not use music and the idea of melodrama with cheap overacting became prevalent.

By the victorian era, melodrama feature six stock characters. These were the hero, the heroine, the villain, the sidekick of the hero, an aged parent, and a servant of the aged parent. These roles were not always kept. Stock characters became known as the hero, the faithful servant of the hero, the heroine, the villain, the villain's accomplice, and the maidservant.

Typical melodrama paved the way for what is considered Broadway's first musical, The Black Crook. Cartoons often use the premise of melodrama in at least one episode. The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle is a cartoon full of melodrama. If it is difficult to remember what melodrama is like, think of the Dudley Doright of the Mounties cartoons from The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle. These are not perfect examples of the stock characters at all times because sometimes one character serves as more than one of the stock characters. However, the general guide is that Dudley Doright is the hero, the inspector is the faithful servant, the heroine is some random defenseless woman (or women, or just a person or people), the villain is Snidely Whiplash, the villain's accomplice is Homer, and Nell Fenwick is the maidservant.

If you don't know Dudley Doright of the Mounties, watch the following video.



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