Conversation piece
A conversation piece , also a social piece , is a form of comedy .
origin
The foreground of a conversation piece is the witty, witty-pointed dialogue. Plays that are considered conversational pieces originated mainly in the second half of the 19th century, more rarely in the 20th century in England and France.
The literary scholar Péter Szondi described the term by characterizing the conversation piece as an “ attempt to save drama by saving dialogue, which however becomes mere convention ”. The action that takes place in the higher social circles is driven by external events. Topics include women's suffrage, free love, mesalliance and socialism.
Important representatives of the conversation piece are Eugène Scribe , Victorien Sardou and Sacha Guitry in France , Oscar Wilde , George Bernhard Shaw and Thomas Stearns Eliot in Great Britain . In German-speaking countries, there was largely no social background for the training of typical conversation pieces. Works by Hermann Bahr and Arthur Schnitzler can best be assigned to the genre. In 1921, Hugo von Hofmannsthal created Der Schwierige, a comedy whose actors are masters of conversation on the one hand and where the empty conversation itself is discussed on the other.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Brauneck / Schneilin: Theaterlexikon 1 , rowohlts enzyklopädie, Hamburg, 5th edition 2007, p. 562