Modernism Enlightenment Modernism • There is a singular, • Humans can accomplish universal truth anything using science • You can reach the truth through art • Even meaninglessness • Originality is possible has meaning (ar<s<c genius) • There is a difference between culture that elevates versus culture for the masses The Modernist Avant-garde • Symbolists • People need to be shocked out of their • Futurists apathy • Dadaists • Expressionists • Surrealists Symbolists • (first of the non-realis<c movements) • 1893 Théâtre de l'Oeuvre • founded by Aurélien-Marie Lugné Poë (1869-1904) Inspired by: • Edgar Allan Poe • Henrik Ibsen • Roman<c poets • The Iliad • The Bible • Believed in geng to deeper meaning under the words through mythology and spirituality Alfred Jarry (1873-1907) • Ubu Roi - staged in 1896 by Lugné-Poë • A vulgar and disgus<ng parody of classical tragedy (mostly Macbeth) • A man kills the king and his family so that he can become king • First word causes a riot Jarry's woodcut of Ubu Futurists - 1910s, Italy • Filippo Marine (1876-1944) • Belief in technology, speed, and machinery • Associated with Italian fascist ideology • Incited rio<ng in Trieste by burning Austrian flag (pro-war) • Art of Noise - use words and noises that sound like machinery and ar<llery • Movement - ges<culate geometrically Art of Noise Dada - 1916-1920, Zurich • Cabaret Voltaire , Tristan Tzara (1896-1963), Hugo Ball (1886-1927), • and Emmy Hennings (1885-1948) • Sound poems • Trying to convey the nonsense of current events • simultaneity and indeterminacy Hugo Ball Expressionist Pain<ng Edvard Munch - The Scream (1893) Gert Wollheim - The Wounded Man (1919) Ernst Ludwig Kirchner - Berlin Street Scene (1913) Erich Heckel - Two Men at the Table (1913) Expressionists - 1910s-1920s, Germany • Ernst Toller (1893-1939) - Transfiguraon (1918), and Man and Masses (1921) • Sophie Treadwell (1885-1970) - Machinal (1928) • Distorted line, exaggerated shape, abnormal coloring • Universal character types • Set looks like world as seen through the eyes of the protagonist • Usually aacks war, industrializaon, and prisons and suggests a utopian future • episodes Transfiguraon Elmer Rice - The Adding Machine Surrealists 1920s-1930s, France Parade Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) • Meningi<s as a child • syphilis as a young adult • addicted to opium and laudinum • Theatre and Its Double (1938) • Jet of Blood (1925) • Primi<vism - looked to primi<ve cultures for truth • "Theatre of Cruelty" to disrupt logic and help audience find the truth in their sub-conscious minds Epic Theatre • Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) • Epic Theatre - Believed in a theatre that would awaken people to reality. • Verfremdungseffekt - alienaon effect. • To make the spectators aware of the fact that they are watching a play: Verfremdungseffekt 1. The use of projec<ons and other mechanical devices visible to the audience. 2. Using songs and narrave passages. 3. Having characters refer to themselves in the 3rd person. His plays • The Three-penny Opera (1928) - Cabaret-style poli<cal sare. Based on John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1728). • Mother Courage and her Children (1939) • Galileo (1939) - what happens when people don't s<ck up for their principles. Later revised in 1949-51 aer the bombing of Hiroshima. Mother Courage Absurdism • Absurdism is a label invented by scholar Martin Esslin. It is important to note that none of these people saw themselves as part of a movement. • Absurdist plays deal with existential issues (the meaning, or lack, of our existence), but in an absurd way. • Plays lack a clear narrative structure, characters, and contain nonsensical dialogue. Eugène Ionesco (1912-1994) • Rebellion against conventional drama. • The Bald Soprano (1949) - mostly exercises in nonsense. A parody on language and cliché. • The Chairs (1952) - Futility of conveying a message. Jean Genét (1910-1986) • The Maids (1948) • The Balcony (1957) • reenactment and memory, "playing" at gender and race, deviants as important part of society Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) • Born in Ireland, moved to Paris. • Friends with James Joyce, and initially a writer of Irish poetry. • In Paris, he met Ionesco and others, and began writing in French. • Waiting for Godot (1950) - a play about nothing. Two men wait and wait and wait. • Staged in 1953 to great acclaim. • Act Without Words (1956) and Play (1963) Waiting for Godot.