Transcript EMILE ZOLA Naturalism in the Theatre

Kristin Greczko and Justine Labute
•Born April 2, 1840
•Spent childhood watching conventional theatre
•Wrote literary and art reviews
•Wrote several short stories, essays, plays and
novels
•Supporter of Theatre Libre
•Died in Paris on September 29, 1902 from
carbon monoxide poisoning
•Early years of 19th century founded in strong
neoclassical direction
•Major battle of romanticism in France was
fought in the theatre
•The mid 19th century theatre reflected a more
“realistic” tendency
•Theatre Libre = Free Theatre
•Founded in Paris by Andre Antoine in 1887
•Dramatization of a Zola novel
•Exempt from censorship
•Combined realism with naturalism
•Is the depiction of subjects as they appear in every
day life, without embellishment or interpretation
•Goals are truth and accuracy
•1870’s gave rise to realism
•First playwright to break from theatrical conventions
was Ibsen
•Ibsen made the public aware of a new era of theatre
•Zola provides the theoretical framework
•Is a movement in theatre that seeks to replicate a believable
every day reality
•First appeared in France in the 1870’s
•Grounded in Charles Darwin’s doctrine: The Origin of Species
•Two main determinants of the individual: hereditary and
environment
•Scientific method: environment = cause; behaviour = effect
•Darwin’s theory of evolution identifies human progression
from atoms
•Stage should also evolve from simplistic to complex
•Naturalism attracted many adherents because
of contemporary political and economic
conditions
•Franco-Prussian War of 1870/1871
•The Dreyfus Affair
•“There are two quite opposite opinions on the issue: one holds
that the stage should be kept bare, as in the classical set, and the
other insists on an exact reproduction of the environment,
however complicated it may be”. (358)
•17th Century: set and environment were not seen as having any
effect on the development of the play
•“Our modern, individualized characters, acting under the sway
of environmental influences, living our lives on stage, would
look perfectly ridiculous in the 17th century setting”. (360)
•Slow continuous movement to lending more importance to the
environment
•Literature also advanced = disappearance of abstract characters
•“In the old days, real characters used to move around in sham
settings, today it is sham characters who move around in real
settings”. (361)
•Theatre is not a separate entity, although it does have it’s own
perspective
•Props and scenery immediately establish a situation
•“A writer will undoubtedly come who will at last put on stage real
characters in real settings, and then people will understand”. (361)
•“Each century man becomes more into view and steps away
from religious and philosophical idealism”. (362)
•Rare when one produces an historical play, not to be concerned
with the accuracy of the costumes
•“Costuming in our contemporary plays is almost always false: a
fear of simplicity, a refusal to accept the characters’ social status
when those characters tend toward the repulsive or ridiculous in
dress”. (363)
Truth in the theatre continues to suffer
•“There is no such thing as a language of the theatre”.
(366)
•Moved beyond monotonous recitative chant and 17th
century plain song
•Truth = Simplicity
•Goal of modern theatre
•“Truth in costuming requires truth in setting, in
diction, in the plays themselves”. (365)
•Irritated by such meticulous reproduction. It is
destructive of audience attention when the play is
performed
•Isolation of theatre. The theatre has a language of
it’s own
•Against the war on convention; turn tradition
into an immutable code
Schiller
Zola
Cause
The behaviours are
the fault of a moral
shortcoming of the
individual
Behaviours are the
product of the
environment,
which is created by
the society
Effect
Examination of
Examination of
human and societal human and societal
behaviours
behaviours
•Mimesis: both Schiller and Zola support
mimesis
•Morality: Schiller believes the purpose of
theatre is to educate the individual on how to
be moral and just. Zola believes that a change
in society must occur in order to influence
human behaviour.
•Schiller: “Sight is always more powerful to
man than description”. (251)
•Schiller: “[The stage] is a mirror”. (251)