Natasha Lloyd Actress | Do you Know Some Modern Playwrights?

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Do you Know Some Modern Playwrights?
Natasha Lloyd Actress
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Modern Theatre

• The Beginnings of Modern Theatre (1875-1915)
• Richard Wagner- an innovator who injected theatre
  with the contemporary trend toward realism,
  calling for many changes to take place in the
  theatre world. Wagner is probably best known for
  his concept of a new type of theatre
  structure--the festival theatre. He designed the
  structure to fulfill his ambition of a classless
  theatre. Famous throughout the world, the
  architectural design of the festival was
  fan-shaped, making all seats equal in sight
  lines, as well as equally priced.

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Modern Theatre

• The theatrical evolution during this period
  included the emergence of the modern director.
  Germany's Georg II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen was
  one of the most famous early modern directors.
• He produced plays that were the most historically
  accurate of the 19th century.
• Designed all the costumes, scenery, and
  properties used by his troupe. Georg also adopted
  the practice of long rehearsal schedules and the
  idea of ensemble acting. He created carefully
  blocked crowd scenes and family groups, which
  made a small number of actors seem like a large
  gathering.

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Modern Playwrights

• The prolific and controversial playwright Henrik
  Ibsen wrote 25 plays in the late 19th century
  including his most famous, A Dolls House and
  Hedda Gabler.
• Ibsen is known as the father of modern realism.
• Some of his subject matters were scandalous for
  his time.

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Modern Playwrights

• George Bernard Shaw was one of the most prominent
  writers of late 19th century, early 20th century.
• Wrote plays, critiqued plays, very vocal on
  social issues of the time.
• Wrote satirical plays such as Pygmalion, Arms and
  the Man, and Major Barbara.

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Modern Playwrights

• Anton Chekhov was the most famous Russian
  playwright.
• Wrote comedies such as The Cherry Orchard, The
  Seagull, The Three Sisters, and Uncle Vanya.
• He was an instrumental figure at the beginning of
  the independent theatre movement-The Moscow Art
  Theatre was one of a few theatre companies that
  started the trend.

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Realism

• The United States' Belasco was another famous
  director known for creating realist plays and
  sets.
• Also a noteworthy designer for his creation of
  the most modern (electrical) lighting instruments
  of the time.
• Introduction of the Box Set - 3 walls and an
  imaginary 4th wall.

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Realism

• Realism is where people move and talk in a manner
  similar to that of our everyday behavior.  The
  style has been dominant for the last 120 years. 
  It holds the idea of the stage as an environment,
  rather than as an acting platform.
• Verisimiltude- the appearance of being truthful
  or real.

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Realism

• Many artists began to find a psychological
  approach (Freudian) to theatre that emphasized
  the inner dimensions of the characters onstage.
• Stanislavski and The Moscow Art Theatre was
  indispensable to the development of Western drama
  in the 20th-century.
• He believed that actors should cultivate an
  inner life for their characters, from which all
  movement and gesture would flow.

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Constantin Stanislavski

• Actor/Director/Moscow Art Theatre
• His system had to do with an actor using their
  own Emotional Memory to create a characters
  emotional life-
• Stanislavski's 'system' focused on the
  development of artistic truth onstage by teaching
  actors to "experience the part" during
  performance. Stanislavski hoped that the 'system'
  could be applied to all forms of drama.

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Stanislavski

• Stanislavski soon observed that some of the
  actors using or abusing this technique were given
  to hysteria.
• He began to search for more reliable means to
  access emotion, eventually emphasizing the
  actor's use of imagination and belief in the
  given circumstances of the text rather than
  her/his private and often painful memories.

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Stanislavski

• Stanislavski's 'system' is a systematic approach
  to training actors. Areas of study include
  concentration, voice, physical skills, emotion
  memory, observation, and dramatic analysis.
  Stanislavski's goal was to find a universally
  applicable approach that could be of service to
  all actors.

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Stanislavski and Chekhov

• The two men worked together at The Moscow Art
  Theatre from 1898 to the 1920s.
• Chekhov wrote plays and Stanislavski acted and
  directed them
• They made this style of theatre very popular and
  it was brought to the United States by students
  Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler.

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Lee Strasberg

• Many actors routinely identify his system with
  Lee Strasbergs Method approach, an adaptaion
  of Stanislavskis approach. Strasbergs
  adaptation relied exclusively on psychological
  techniques and contrasted sharply with
  Stanislavskis multivariant psychophysical
  approach, which explores character and action
  both from the 'inside out' and the 'outside in.

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Stella Adler

• Stella Adler, who had also studied with
  Stanislavski, offered an American adaptation of
  the technique much more in keeping with that of
  Stanislavski focusing on both inner and outer
  sources of experience in building a character.

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Sanford Meisner

• In 1931, Sanford Meisner, Stella Adler, Lee
  Strasberg, and Harold Clurman, among others,
  joined together to establish the Group Theatre.
• It was the first permanent theatre company that
  brought Method acting, rooted in the methods of
  Konstantin Stanislavsky, to practice and
  prominence in America.
• Meisner appeared in twelve Group productions.

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Meisner

• In 1933 Meisner became disenchanted with pure
  Method acting. He wrote, Actors are not guinea
  pigs to be manipulated, dissected, let alone in a
  purely negative way. Our approach was not
  organic, that is to say not healthy.
• He had ongoing discussions about technique with
  Adler, who worked with Stanislavsky in Paris, and
  Clurman, who took a deep interest in the American
  character.
• Eventually he realized that if American actors
  were ever going to achieve the goal of living
  truthfully under imaginary circumstances, an
  American approach was needed. The Neighborhood
  Playhouse provided him with a venue to develop
  that approach on his own.

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The End

• Meisner maintained an emphasis on "the reality of
  doing," which was the foundation of his approach.
• Until his death on February 2, 1997 at the age of
  ninety-one, Sanford Meisner was one of the
  worlds most influential and respected teachers
  of acting. In fact, no teacher of acting in the
  history of theatre and film has produced a more
  extensive and prodigious whos who of actors
  than Sanford Meisner, yet most people outside the
  professional world of theatre have never even
  heard of him.