Theatre History Overview - Part 69 - Realism

Realism started in Europe in the late 19th century. It rejected the sentimentality of romanticism. Naturalism is also part of realist theatre.

Realism refers to depicting life in an accurate and faithful manner. In writing, the events in human life are depicted as matter-of-fact. There were three basic rules for realist art forms.

1. Truth resides in material objects that we can perceive with all five senses. (Ex. truth can be found in a rock, but it isn't found in the wind).
2. Observation could solve everything.
3. The highest home of science was human problems.

Realism also resulted in whte is know as the well-made play. This form was mainly created and popularized by Eugine Scribe and Henrik Ibsen. There are seven basic rules to a well-made play. Most of these rules can be found in Ibsen's A Doll's House, but he had started to play with the rules at the time he wrote that play, so there are times it veers away from the rules.

1. The plot contains plot points that are secrets to the characters in the play, but they are known to the audience. (e.g. In A Doll's House, only Nora, Krogstad, and the audience know that Nora signed the note for money and owes Krogstad. The audience waits to find out what the other characters will think about this situation if they ever find out about it).
2. Careful attention is paid to exposition. This may take up the entire first act. Then props such as letters and contrived entrances such as a friend visiting at an inopportune time, are used to increase suspense. (e.g. The whole first act of A Doll's House tends to deal with the fact that Nora is a spendthrift and talks about her history with money).
3. Expected logical reverses happen. The protagonist of the play will have successes and failures with the antagonist. (e.g. Nora feels like they are not in financial trouble and will spend money. Then Torvald will remind Nora that she can't frivolously spend money.)
4. The antagonist will have scenes were things are discovered about the protagonist that can be used to hurt the protagonist. (e.g.
5. The audience knows of a misunderstanding that happens in the play, but the characters in the play do not know that it occurred. (e.g. The audience knows that Nora got the money through forgery to get a loan, but the others don't know this until Nora tells Kristine.)
6. The denouement (the end where things are resolved) is logical and believable. (This one is one that breaks the rules. At the time A Doll's House was written, as condesending that Torvald treats Nora, a wife leaving her husband and children was not believable.)
7. The general action of the play is repeated in each individual act. (e.g. Nora has not paid all that much attention to her children and leaves them with the nanny at the end of the first act. She is getting ready for a party to which she is concerned, not about Torvald or her children, at the end of the second act. Then, at the end of the third act, she leaves, abandoning Torvald and her children).

Other authors of realism include George Bernard Shaw, Anton Chekhov, Emile Augier, and Alexandre Dumas fils (the "fils" indicates that he was the illegitimate son of Alexandre Dumas [the author of The Three Musketeers.]) Realist plays are still performed to this day.

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To Play To The Gas - Theatre Etymology - Part 27

n this day, if somebody says, "to play to the gas," it sounds like a car term. After all, there are things that happen with cars or trucks and they are said to add play to the gas pedal. However, the phrase to play to the gas is thought to have meant to make just enough money to get by, meaning that a theatrical production made just enough money so people were literally able to play their gas bills.

However, that exact definition does not seem to be found. In the fifth volume of Slang and its analogues past and present. A dictionary, historical and comparative of the heterodox speech of all classes of society for more than three hundred years. With synonyms in English, French, German, Italian, etc by John Stephen and William Earnest, "to play to the gas" is said to mean to play to small audiences. This was published some time between 1890 and 1904.

It is interesting that the phrase then appears in a 1906 Dutch publication known as Tall en Lettern. This means Language and Arts and seems to be by J.M.N. Kapteijn. The Dutch phrase is "Voor stoelen e n banken spelen" which translates to "Play chairs and sofas." However, it is not listed as that translation in English in the publication. Instead, it says that the phrase is the equivalent of "to play to the gas." It would seem that this is supporting that the phrase actually means to play to small audiences as it sounds like playing to chairs and sofas was something that was probably done in homes of people who held theatre there and thus had sitting rooms with a few chairs and one or a few sofas for friends.

It seems that the next time the phrase appears in recorded print is in 1933 in the book Earl Derr Biggers Tells Ten Stories by Earl Derr Biggers. It is said to have come from the October 7, 1922 edition of The Saturday Evening Post in a story called "Moonlight at the Crossroads." He wrote that one of his characters was talking to another called Maynard and said, "My dear sir, you can never appreciate the life I got into. For a short time all went well; then the houses fell off. We didn't play to the gas. Our salaries stopped, our pitiful luggage was seized for hotel bills, we ate but rarely. Somehow, we struggled on. I had never dreamed such misery could exist in the world. We managed to reach Dublin, and there my resistance gave out. I wired a friend for money to go home." This part of the story does have to do with people in the theatre and seems to support the phrase "to play to the gas" meaning to make enough money to get by.

The phrases can make sense when put together. Actors may have played to the gas, meaning a small audience that paid just enough for them to make enough money to pay the gas bill or make whatever they needed to get by. The phrase could have also changed meaning over the years as language does tend to change.

The word play has many definitions. When it is a noun, the word play seems to come from the Middle English noun pleye or the Old English nounn plega. When it is a verd, the word play seem to come from the Middle English verb pleyen or the Old English verb pleg(i)an. This can be comared to the Middle Dutch word pleien meaning to leap for joy, dance, rejoice, be glad.

The word gas was coined between 1650-1660 by the Flemish chemist J.B. van Helmont. It is thought that he coined the word based on the Greek word cháos meaning atmosphere.

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Theatre History Overview Part 107 - Kitchen Sink Drama

Kitchen Sink Drama is a theatre movement that started in Britain in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It was a form of drama that deliberately left from realism and the well-made play.

In kitchen sink drama, working-class life and popular culture is depicted as it experienced in real life. The characters tend to be young, angry, and disillusioned. The plays are seen as intelligent and self-reflective.

The term kitchen sink drama came from the movement kitchen sink realism or kitchen sink school. This was a movement that started with British painters in the 1950s. The name is derived from a painting by John Bratby that featured a kitchen sink. Kitchen sinks became a symbol for domesticity.

The first truly well-known kitchen sink drama play is Look Back in Anger by John Osborne. Another notable play from kitchen sink drama is A Taste of Honey by Tony Richardson. This play is notable because rather than the protagonist being male, the protagonist is a young female.

While it outside of the main region and main time for kitchen sink drama, the song "Prelude/Angry Young Man" by Billy Joel fits into the genre of kitchen sink. There is a young man that is angry with his working class conditions. Billy Joel has told the story of the inspiration for this song which isn't actually from kitchen sink, but the road manager who inspired the song with his actions had served in the Vietnam War in the 1950s, so the person would have had the ideals of the angry young man of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

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References

• Dunn, E. (n.d.). Everything you need to know about kitchen sink dramas. Reader’s Digest. https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/culture/film-tv/everything-you-need-to-know-about-kitchen-sink-dramas
• Kitchen sink school. Oxford Reference. (n.d.). https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780198604761.001.0001/acref-9780198604761-e-1886
• MacCabe, C. (n.d.). A taste of honey: Northern accents. The Criterion Collection. https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/4193-a-taste-of-honey-northern-accents
• Prelude/angry young man. One Final Serenade: The Songs of Billy Joel (Billy Joel Fan Site). (n.d.). https://www.onefinalserenade.com/preludeangry-young-man.html#:~:text=Billy%20explains%20the%20inspiration%20and,time%20getting%20along%20with%20others.

Playwriting - Part 1 - The Inciting Incident

When it comes to reading plays and playwriting, most plays have an inciting incident. Absurdist plays may not have one, but that doesn't mean a person won't be able to find one. The thing about an inciting incident is that different people will find different points that are inciting incidents. What is certain is that when a play has an inciting incident, it will be somewhere near the beginning of the play. This most likely means within the first 10 pages, although it may be a few more pages if the introductory material is engaging.

The inciting incident is an event that jolts your main charactger out of his or her everyday routine. It should be the spark that starts your plot. However, it is not something about which you need to stress. If you write well, you should automatically have an inciting incident once you are writing your play (or, honestly, any type of writing that follows a basic plot - e.g. a novel, a short story, a screenplay, etc.)

The inciting incident is not an active moment for your main character. In Legally Blonde: The Musical, most would agree that the inciting incident is when Warner dumps Elle. This happens to her and it sparks her journey to prove to Warner that she is not dumb and can make it through law school.

Here is a list of plays and what I find would probably be the inciting incident that sets the main character on his or her journey. You may disagree with me and as long as the incident that you find would set the main character off on his or her journey, yours can also be correct. Feel free to share your ideas in the comments.

• Hamlet: When Horatio tells Hamlet that he saw the ghost of his father.
• Macbeth: When Macbeth is made the Thane of Cawdor because this makes him think that what the witches say has to be true.
• The Winter's Tale: When Leontes suspects that Hermione is cheating on him with his best friend, Polixenes
• The Producers: When Max Bialystock is told that producing a Broadway play that is a flop can make him more money than producing on that is a hit.

This can also be done with novels, short stories, and movies.

• Harry Potter: When Hagrid tells Harry, "You're a wizard, Harry.
• Monsters, Inc: When Boo enters Monstropolis.
• Green Eggs and Ham: When Sam-I-Am asks the other character if he would like green eggs and ham here or there.
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: When the white rabbit has a waistcoat and a pocket watch passes Alices.
• Oedipus Rex: When Creon tells Oedipus that Laius's murderer is to be punished.
• There's a Monster at the End of this Book: At the very beginning when it says, "There is a monster at the end of this book."
• The Monkey's Paw: When the Sergeant-Major takes the money's paw out of his pocket for the Whites to see.

Try finding the inciting incident in some of your favorite plays, novels, and short stories. What are they? Why not comment and let me know what you've found?

Theatre History Overview - Part 49 - Jewish/Yiddish Theatre

Edit: I've been told that this is bad information. Sorry about not having good sources. I thought I had found some decent sources, but apparently I didn't.

I did not mean to ever use the word Jew to be offensive, I have always only equated the word Jew with somebody who is of the Jewish faith. So, I am sorry to those who are offended by the word. I had not learned any differently that there was a distinction between the two.

Thanks to, Orli Nativ here is some information. This comes straight from her words:

There was Hebrew language theatre performed in Italy as far back as the 1530s, and 'Purim-spiel' type religious plays prior. The 16th century stuff is really interesting! There's an important, wide distinction to be made between Hebrew language theatre, and Jewish theatre, which has a much wider history due to geographic and linguistic variation. There's a lot more Israeli theatre history beyond Habima too!

Here are some informative links that she provided:

• Theatre at the Virtual Jewish Library
• The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe
• Israelis Theatre at My Jewish Learning

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While Jews have ancient literature, they don't have ancient theatre. In 1913, a man named Nahum Tsemach tried to establish a theatre company called Habima (meaning "the stage") in Lithuania. His theatre dealt with Jewish themes, but it had financial troubles and closed. However, it re-opened in Russia in 1917 with the help of Menaham Gansin and Hanna Rubina. The first show was performed in 1918.

In 1922, Tsemach's theatre first performed its most famous play, Dybbuk. Tsemach took his play on tour and when he tried to come back to his company in Israel, the company did not accept him as they were running the theatre company their own way. They had actors direct the plays and in 1937, the first original Jewis play was performed.

Despite this history, Jewish only started to have a good beginning during World War II. This is because of the concentration camps. Sometimes it was because of being in a concentration camp as mentioned in the overview of German theatre history. Other times, it was because of the small spaces where they were hiding.

Jews would meet in small rooms or areas and they would play games, study, and sing for each other. They might also act out stories. Sometimes t hese stories were simply accounts of what they had to endure every day. However, doing these activities help them to keep their spirit.

In 1948, Habima came back to Europe after a disappointing tour in the United States. They started to realize that the way they were managing the company wasn't working. Despite these problems, the theatre lasted through the 1950s and 1960s while they produced plays such as Anne Frank and Hanna Sanesh as well as others that dealth with the subject of the Holocaust. In 1969, the company became a theatre of the stage and a new building was opened for the company in 1970. On Israel's 40th birthday, Habima became the official national theatre.

In general, Jews, Hebrews, and Israelis seem to love theatre. There are many theatre festivals held in Israel and they deal with Hebrew and Jewish culture. Some of the festivals are The Internationsl Festival of Puppet Theatre, The Teatronetto Festival, and The Festival of Alternative Theatre. Dybbuk is still performed around the world today.

(I appologize, but due to many unforseen circumstances - including an internet connectivity issue, this counts for my blog post for Sunday, June 17, 2018.)

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Theatre History Overview - Part 26 - Scottish Theatre

Scottish theatre goes back to the medieval period. Like many places, they had liturgicla dramas and mystery plays. Many festivals were accompanied by performances of at least one of these plays. One example is ludi de ly haliblude which was staged at Aberdeen in 1440 and 1445.

During the reformation in the 16th century, the church did not like theatre that was not for a religious or moral purpose. Even plays that were not Catholic or were anti-Catholic in any way were not accepted. Around 1540, James Wedderburn has written anti-Catholic tragedies including Beheading of Johne the Baptiste and Dyonisius the Tyraone. because of this, he was forced to flee into exile. The same year saw David Lyndays write The Thrie Estaitis which is the only play to survive from before the reformation in Scotland.

In 1599, James VI arranged for a playhouse to be erected and to have a company of English actors perform. Very little evidence of theatre in 1600s Scotland edists. However, there is doucmentation of Marcian or the Discovery by William Clerke in 1663. There are also records of plays by Thomas Sydsurf frome the second half of the 1600s.

In the 1700s, the church of Scotland was still mostly against theatre. Most Scottish playwrights would work in London. When there were performances in Scotland, most were by visiting actors. These actors would still face hostility from the church. In an attempt to censor and control what was being written about the British government through theatre, the Licensing Act of 1737 was passed. This made acting in Scotland illegal and theatre closed down.

In the late 18th century, Scotland saw a revival of theatre. This started with closet dramas, which were plays that were not intended to be performed on the stage, but to be read out loud in small groups of by a solitary reader. A few of the writers of closet dramas were James Hogg, John Galt, and Joanna Baillie.

By the 19th century, theatre was considered to be at its height. In the early 19th century, there were many theatrical adaptations of historic material. A few Scottish plays from the 19th century are adaptations of Sir Walter Scott's Waverly novels, The Heart of Midlothian, The Bride of Lammermoor, and Rob Roy.

In the 20th century, J.M. Barrie was probably the most prominent Scottish playwright of the 20th century. Before Peter Pan was novelized in 1906, he had written it as a play in 1904. The Theatre Act of 1968 was passed and it abolished the Lisencing Act of 1737.

The 1970s started a golden age for Scottish theatre. Theatre in Scotland still goes strong today. There are even well known theatre festivals, with the two most well known ones being the Edinburgh International Festival and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

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Scoring a Monologue, Part 4 - Putting It All Together

Now that I have covered objectives, stressing words, and beats, it is time to put scoring a monologue all together. If you haven't already gathered, Julie's objective here is to get Alice to understand that she is having a difficult time and that her way of coping with it is by getting drunk. What you don't see in this monologue is the other part of the play. Alice could be anybody. It so happens that in the play, Alice is Julie's roommate who copes with things by eating and overeating, too. However, in general, for a performance of just the monologue, that does not matter. Julie wants Alice, w whoever she is, to understand.

So, now that the objective is clear, it would be time to put emotions into the monologue as well as mark the stressed words and beats. When I started marking my monologue, it was actually a huge mess because I had a copy and just printed it and was writing in pencil all over my paper. Eventually I decided I needed it typed it up with spacing. What I am showing you now is a way I've made my markings much neater by typing what I had marked. However, to give you an idea of how a completely scored monologue may look, this is an idea. (And sorry about the last "Matter-of-factly," being selected. I just didn't get it unselected before taking my screen shot. It doesn't mean anything).

Remember, though, that everybody is going to score monologues differently. There is no right or wrong. Scoring a monologue is not something that is for grading (hopefully not, anyway), but for personal use to understand better how you would perform a monologue.

Theatre History Overview - Part 23B - Scandinavian Theatre

Sweden's Royal Dramatic theatre's monopoly was dissolved in 1842. The Mindre Teatern was then founded by Anders Lindeberg, a Swedish writer and journalist. In 1852, the Norwegian Dramatic School was founded by Johannes Benedictus Klingenberg, a Norwegian military officer and engineer. He was disappointed by the by the un-Norwegian repertoire that he found when he visited the Norwegian Theatre in Bergen. By 1854, the school was made into a performing arts theatre named the Christiana Norwegian Theatre. At first, Henrik Ibsen was associated with the Norwegian Theatre in Bergen where he was the stage director, but in the autumn of 1857, he took over the responsibilities for the operations of the Christiana Norwegian Theatre. He served in this capacity until 1862 when the Christiana Norwegian Theatre went bankrupt. On July 15, 1863, the Christian Norwegian Theatre and the Norwegian Theatre officially merged. It was in this same year that the Mindre Teatern was dissolved and sold to the Royal Theatre.

Also in 1863, Henrik Ibsen finished writing Kongs-Emnerne. The title means "pretenders to the crown," and Ibsen based the play on the life of King Hakon (1217-1263). In 1867, he finished writing Peer Gynt, his satire on second-rateness.The Swedish Theatre opened in 1875 which officially known as Svenska Teatern or Svenskan. It was founded by Edvard Stjermstrom on the peninsula of Blaiseholmen in Stockholm. Just a year later, Den Nationale opened in Stockholm.

In 1849, the playwright, Louise Grandberg (who was also Stjermstrom's wife), started writing and translating plays. Sometimes she did this with her sister. When they wrote together, they used the pseudonym Carl Blink. The the 1860-1861 theatre season, her play Johan Fredman was staged at the Mindre Teatern in Stockholm. Also in 1860, the actress Magda von Dolcke premiered in Denmark under the name Rosalinde Thomsen. At this time, she was in a well-known relationship with the Norwegian writer Bjornestjern Martinius Bjornson. In 1874, the actress became active in the Mindre Teatern. It is thought she started acting here because she was having an affair with King Oscar II of Sweden-Norway at the time while his wife, Sophia of Nassau, had went to Germany for her health. Dolcke then became active in Folkan and Djurgardsteastern in Stolkhom in 1876. At this time, the actor Albert Ranft started acting in Dolcke's theatre company.

Also, in 1876, Den Nationale Scene was founded in Bergen. Stjermstrom died in 1877 and his wife, the playwright Louise Granberg took over running Svenskan. In 1879, Ibsen finished writing A Doll's House which was considered extremely avant-garde in terms for feminism. After Granberg died, Svenskan became part of Ranft's theatrical empire. He also started his own traveling theatre company in 1884. In 1899, the Nationaltheatre in Christiana (later known as Oslo) opened.

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