Realism (dramatic arts)

Realism was a general movement in the late ninteenth century that steered theatrical texts and performances toward greater fidelity to real life. The realist movement began with Constantin Stanislavski and his Moscow Arts Theatre. Together with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko the two pioneered a break away from the highly stylised and unrealistic theatre styles (e.g. Melodrama) prevailing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The realist dramatist Thomas William Robertson in Britain, Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg in Scandinavia, and Anton Chekhov and Maksim Gorky in Russia, among others, as well as Eugene O'Neill, in the United States of America, rejected the complex and artificial plotting of the well-made play and instead present a theatrical verisimilitude that would more objectively portray life as recognizable to the audience. This is accomplished through realistic settings and natural speech which give form to the general philosophy of naturalism (roughly, the view that man's life is shaped entirely by his social and physical environment). However, the style of realism soon came to distinguish itself from Naturalism as a style that was heightened reality. Realism maintained the strength of such elements of drama as tension and focus, while maintaining an audiences direct connection and relation to the situation and characters. They were a reflection of themselves. ^[1]

Notes