The Modernist Temperament: 1885-1940

1. The Modernist Temperament: 1885-1940

2. In the late 1880s, another strand of performance – in rebellion against realism – was emerging. • The brief that art should seek to represent human behavior and the physical world ( as normatively perceived) had dominated theory and practice since the Renaissance. It was a fundamental premise of realism and naturalism. • Beginning in the 1880s, one group of artists increasingly rejected this premise and substituted its own subjective visions (usually involving some degree of abstraction and distortion) • Between perception and representation is often considered the true beginning of the modernist temperament.

3. Symbolism (1/2) • The first artistic movement to reject representationalism was symbolism, launched in 1885. • arguing instead that truth is beyond objective examination. • Maurice Maeterlinck, wrote that the most important element of great drama is the “idea which the poet forms of the unknown in which float about the beings and things which he evokes, the mystery which dominates them.” • Unlike the realism, the symbolists chose their subjects form the past, the realm of fancy, or the mysterious present and avoided any attempt to deal with social problems or environmental forces. They aimed to suggest a universal truth independent of time and place that cannot be logically defined or rationally expressed. Thus their drama tended to be vague and mysterious. • The symbolists believed that the most important aspect of a production is mood or atmosphere.

4. Symbolism (2/2) • Prior to the twentieth century, artistic movements occurred linearly (that is, one succeeded another chronologically); in the twentieth century, several existed simultaneously. For example, between 1910 and 1920, movements called expressionism, futurism, dadaism, cubism, and a number of others (including realism) coexisted. • Thus the transition had been made from a common set of values to multiple sets of values – from the absolute to the relative – the most basic characteristic of the modernist temperament. • In the early 20th century, however, the visual arts no longer always depicted all details of the same picture as seen from on eye-point. • Ex. Picassos’ painting • Similar developments in music displaced melody, so that a composition could be valued not for its melodic and harmonic patterns but rather for its handling of time and atonal relationships

5. Appia, Craig, and Reinhardt (1/2) • During the early 20th century, two theorists – Appia and Craig – were especially successful in reshaping ideas about the “art of the theatre.” • Adolphe Apppia (1862-1928) was born In Switzerland • He sought to replace flat, painted scenery with three-dimensional structures as the only proper environment for three-dimensional actors. • He advocated the use of steps, platforms, and ramps to create transitions form horizontal to vertical planes • Appia was also a major theoratician of stage lighting. To reveal the shape and dimensionality of the setting and actor, Appia advocated the use of light from various directions and angles. • not until 1911 were lamps available with a concentrated filament of sufficiently high wattage to permit the development of spotlights. • Gordon Craig (1872-1966) began his career as an actor in the English theatre

6. Appia, Craig, and Reinhardt (2/2) • He saw it as a wholly autonomous art whose basic elements – action, language, line, color, and rhythm – are fused by a master artist. • Like Appia, Craig advocated simplicity in scenery, costumes, and lighting. Both sought to replace the representational approach to visual elements • Appia and Craig also promoted the concept of the director as the supreme, unifying theatre artist. • The influence of Appia and Craig was reinforced by the German director, Max Reinhardt (1872-1943), who was then amending earlier conceptions of the director. • For the first time, theatre history became important to directing, because Reinhardt frequently built productions around elements significant to the theatrical context in which a play had originally appeared. • alter the time or place of a play’s action • He believed that the production should serve the script (rather than the script the production, as has become common in more recent times). • most of his productions were still largely representational. Nevertheless, Reinhardt established eclecticism as the dominant directorial approach

7. New Artistic Movements • The decade between 1910 and 1920 was one of unrest and upheaval, epitomized by World War I. • Three of the most important of these movements were futurism, dada, and expressionism • Futurism was launched in 1909 by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944), an Italian who glorified the speed and energy of the machine age, which he saw as the key to an enlightened future. • The futurists sought to replace old art forms with a number of new ones, among them collage, kinetic sculpture, and bruitisme (‘noise music” based on the sounds of everyday life). • Dada was grounded in rejection of the values that had provoked Word War I. • in neutral Switzerland, where in 1916 Dada was born. Dada’s principal spokesman was Tristan Tzara (1896-1963) • Expressionism emerged around 1910 in Germany. It sought to counter materialism and industrialism

8. “The Hairy Ape” • “The Hairy Ape” derives its unity from its central theme: humanity’s frustrated search for identity in a hostile environment. • “They do not recognize that their quarters resemble “the steel framework of a cage” or that they themselves resemble Neanderthal man” • Yank dies without achieving the sense of belonging that he has so desperately sought. • Yank is symbolic of modern humanity in an industrialized society • Only a few of the characters in “The Hairy Ape” have names. Most are representative types or members of groups. • O’Neill seems to suggest that all human beings in the modern, industrialized world have been distorted – the workers having been reduced o the level of animals, the rich having become useless puppets. • O’Neill suggest that, beginning with Scene 4, everyone whom Yank encounters should wear a mask • “The Hairy Ape” is representative of both the outlook and the techniques of expressionism. The episodic structure and distorted visual elements are typical

9. The Postwar Era • By the 1920s, modernism dominated “high” art both in Europe and America • advent around 1929 of sound films and a major economic depression • In the United States, the majority of those who continued to attend live theatre still preferred some version of realism. New theatrical movements were welcomed first by “art” or “little” theatres • Thornton Wilder (1897-1975), especially for Our Town (1938), with its distrillation of everyday human experience in small-town America