Naturalism (theater)

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The naturalism in the second half of the 19th century, an era or flow in the history of theater that, Germany and Russia went out of France. Often it is superficially characterized as a "like-in-life" style. It has a literary, an equipment and an acting component.

Theater literature

From the side of theatrical literature , naturalism is an attempt to make people and their surroundings credible, and that means, above all, to portray them as "unadorned". This mainly affected figures from the lower social classes. For this purpose, verses were omitted and colloquial language (e.g. dialect ) was used. Apparently banal topics with socially critical objectives were brought onto the stage.

The romance theory of Émile Zola provided an essential impetus (cf. naturalism (literature) ). The precise observation of people should lead to a precise representation of their living conditions and their behavior. Naturalism tended to show the life of the discontented or the underprivileged. Anton Pawlowitsch Chekhov , Maxim Gorki , Gerhart Hauptmann and Henrik Ibsen have written naturalistic plays.

Furnishing

With regard to the equipment , stage naturalism tries to create an illusion with as realistic as possible, not just painted or implied stage design elements and costumes. Especially in the popular Parisian theater and in the grand opera that started there, the technical possibilities had been enormously increased. The painted elements of the decoration gave way to the "practical" elements (such as doors, windows or cupboards that could be opened).

The demand for historical and local "fidelity" of reproduction met these expanded possibilities. (In the 18th century, however, theater was still performed in contemporary fashion, regardless of where the play came from, and the main distinguishing feature was the class of the characters.) The Meiningen principles of the tour company of the same name required historically accurate costumes.

Detailed room decorations with all the usual furnishings were popular on the stages since the end of the 19th century (see the room pictures in the first half of the century). The opening to the auditorium thus becomes a precisely definable, transparent but impermeable fourth wall . The prerequisite for this was differentiated theater lighting , which was only made possible by gas light and electric light (with the auditorium now being completely darkened ).

theatre

Theaters or theater associations committed to naturalistic drama, with the help of which the censorship for public performances should be circumvented, emerged in several European countries since the late 1880s, partly with the support of social democrats: the Théâtre libre in Paris (founded in 1887 by André Antoine ) , the Freie Bühne Berlin (1889) and the Freie Volksbühne Berlin (1890), the Independent Theater Society (London 1891) and the Moscow Art Theater (1898).

Acting practice

As far as the actors are concerned, naturalism tries to bring the stage play closer to “real” human behavior through memory exercises. On the one hand, this happens through the observation of people who are in situations similar to the role played; on the other hand, about the memory of one's own experiences. These two approaches can complement or contradict each other.

The audience is perceived in naturalistic theater, but is no longer directly involved in the play, as was customary in popular theater with side- by- side talking or extempores . This style required a much longer trial period than before and increased the importance of the director .

The first acting teacher to rely on nature observation was François Delsarte . The founder of the naturalistic acting technique was Konstantin Stanislawski with his Moscow Art Theater. Although he was increasingly hostile since the beginning of the 20th century and distanced himself from an image-naturalism, his school remained decisive for the German and Eastern European actor training and created essential stimuli for American film acting (see Lee Strasberg and the Method Acting ) .

The naturalistic performance practice came out of fashion not least under the influence of film, which allows quick cuts and a higher degree of compression, which also shaped the theater of Expressionism. Stanislawski's psychological realism, according to which the actor should "live" his feelings on stage as much as possible from his own experience or closer observation, stood in the way of a rapid development of characters, a tightening and intensification of the plot and did not allow a distant comment on his own role.

literature

  • Heinz Kindermann : European theater history . Vol. 8–10: Naturalism and Impressionism , Salzburg: Müller 1968–1974.

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