EPIC THEATER, THEATRE OF ABSURD, DRAMA OF IDEAS', REALISM IN FICTION

EPIC THEATRE

Introduction:

Brecht is best known for the creation of a new kind of theatre which he called ‘Epic Theatre’. In the early days of his career in the theatre Brecht was motivated by a desire to modernise German theatre - to free it from the stolid classicism of Schiller and Goethe, Romanticism, Naturalism and Expressionism. He experimented with the formal aspects of theatre, drawing on avant garde techniques of collage, montage, titles, the documentary and photo-journalism. He set about creating a theatre for the modern age (the theatre for the modern, scientific era ) which would represent the modern age and its subjects in a much more vital and realistic way than the stupefying dramas of bygone eras.  It was to be analytical and be primarily concerned with analyzing the social relations that determine action in bourgeois society. It was to be the ‘theatrical style of our time’, the dramatic form which corresponded to ‘the whole radical transformation of the mentality of our time’ For Brecht, the radical transformation was from a nineteenth century bourgeois world view to a twentieth century scientific one, from which perspective the artifacts and philosophical tenets of the past appeared old and in decline. The belief in the progress of history, fuelled by the Marxist notion of the march of history, is evident throughout Brecht’s writing. Brecht wanted to create a realism which is 'objective, critical and socially relevant'. Based mainly on Marxist ideals, Epic theatre focused on bringing to light social issues regarding the working class. The movement was strongly influenced by expressionism and Germany's Neue Sachlichkeit (German neo-realism). When Brecht was looking for a term that would encompass the type of theatre he was looking to create, he was influenced by the work of Erwin Piscator, an established German director who during the 1920s and 30s was involved in the creation of new theatre forms. Piscator was the first person to coin the phrase Epic Theatre, a term that Brecht is often associated with. The term ‘epic theatre’ was coined by Bertolt Brecht to contrast the style of theatre he advocated with the Wagner's Aristotelian or "dramatic" theatre.

Goals of Epic Theatre:

Brecht's earliest work was heavily influenced by German Expressionism, but it was his preoccupation with Marxism and the idea that man and society could be intellectually analyzed that led him to develop his theory of epic theatre. Brecht believed that theatre should appeal not to the spectator's feelings but to his reason. While still providing entertainment, it should be strongly didactic and capable of provoking social change. In the Realistic theatre of illusion, he argued, the spectator tended to identify with the characters on stage and become emotionally involved with them rather than being stirred to think about his own life. To encourage the audience to adopt a more critical attitude to what was happening on stage, Brecht developed his Verfremdungs-effekt ("alienation effect")--i.e., the use of anti-illusive techniques to remind the spectators that they are in a theatre watching an enactment of reality instead of reality itself. Such techniques included flooding the stage with harsh white light, regardless of where the action was taking place, and leaving the stage lamps in full view of the audience; making use of minimal props and "indicative" scenery; intentionally interrupting the action at key junctures with songs in order to drive home an important point or message; and projecting explanatory captions onto a screen or employing placards. From his actors Brecht demanded not realism and identification with the role but an objective style of playing, to become in a sense detached observers.

Brecht and his fellow epic theatre artists devised a set of staging and acting techniques meant to teach their audience to criticize the injustices and inequalities of modern life. Two keys to their technique are the notion of "theatricalism" and the concept of the "distancing" or "alienation" effect.

The first, theatricalism, simply means the audience aware that they are in a theatre watching a play. Brecht believed that "seducing" the audience into believing they were watching "real life" led to an uncritical acceptance of society's values. He thought that by keeping stage sets simple, showing exposed lighting instruments, breaking the action into open-ended episodes, projecting labels or photographs during scenes, or using a narrator or actors to directly address the audience, a production would allow an audience to maintain the emotional objectivity necessary to learn the truth about their society.

The second key to epic theatre, the "distancing" or "alienation" effect in acting style, has these same goals. Brecht wanted actors to strike a balance between "being" their character onstage and "showing the audience that the character is being performed." The use of "quotable gesture," (the employment of a stance, mannerism, or repeated action to sum up a character), the sudden shift from one behavior to another to put the audience off-balance, and the suggestion of the "roads not taken" in each moment of a character's decision-making are all the means to the didactic end of teaching us to criticize the society we see onstage in Epic Theatre.

Epic theatre assumes that the purpose of a play, more than entertainment or the imitation of reality, is to present ideas and invite the audience to make judgments on them. Characters are not intended to mimic real people, but to represent opposing sides of an argument, archetypes, or stereotypes. The audience should always be aware that it is watching a play, and should remain at an emotional distance from the action; Brecht described this ideal as the Verfremdungseffekt — variously translated as "alienation effect", "defamiliarization effect", or "estrangement effect". It is the opposite of the suspension of disbelief: "It is most important that one of the main features of the ordinary theatre should be excluded from [epic theater]: the engendering of illusion."

Techniques:

Common production techniques in epic theater include simplified, non-realistic set designs, announcements or visual captions that interrupt and summarize the action, and music that conflicts ironically with the expected emotional effect. Brecht used comedy to distance his audiences from emotional or serious events and was heavily influenced by musicals and fairground performers, incorporating music and song in his plays.

Brecht disrupted the principles of realism in these ways:

·         retelling a story, like one would an accident that they had witnessed, but not been a part of. This removes the actors and the audience from having too much of an emotional involvement with what they are watching;

·         making the familiar strange. By presenting the audience with something that they did not expect, Brecht was able to force them into thinking about what they were seeing, instead of accepting it; and the Use of Contradictions. To create complex characters and situations, Brecht believed that the use of contradictions was vital. Remember, this is a man who used to wear tailored suits with a silk lining, but on the outside they would look like workers clothes.

The Epic Play :  The Epic Play will follow a story familiar to the audience. The story is often in the form of a fable, or it will show historical events. Brecht’s intention in using known material was to make it unsensational: by taking away any attraction-grabbing ‘wrapping’ that an original story may have, Brecht was stripping away a disguise that dramatic theatre often uses.

The form of an epic play is episodic. Whereas the plays of Ibsen or Chekhov will construct scenes that relate directly to every other scene, Brecht’s plays consist of a series of lone standing, loosely connected scenes. Scenes were often book ended with musical interludes, captions or gestures. These interludes allowed the audience to reflect critically on what they had just witnessed and also prevented feelings of empathy or the illusion of reality.

His plays were able to stand-alone as Brecht wished to illustrate a story of perspective from many different viewpoints. He likened it to 10 different people witnessing the same car crash. The retelling of the story will be slightly different from each person as they have seen it from a different angle.

The characters in the epic play represent an individual who in turn represents all humankind. This also assists in breaking any empathy that one might feel for a character.

 Epic theatre introduced the parable form to modern theatre, the construction of a tale set in a different time and place that refers to the contemporary situation. The parable is a simple tale that communicates a moral point , as in the Biblical parables, or political point, as in Brecht. Music and titles and the fragmentation of the story or fable into episodes.

The Epic Actor:    Epic Actors serve as narrators and demonstrators. They retell events and in doing so demonstrate actions and events that assist in the audience’s understanding the situation. Brecht wanted his actors to always remember that they are an actor portraying another’s emotions, feelings and experiences.

To assist in achieving this, Brecht often used a device or theatrical technique called 'Gestus'. Gestus was a gesture or position that an actor would take up at crucial sections in the play. The gesture or action aimed to encapsulate the feelings of the character at the one time, and also briefly stopped the action. The most famous Gestus ever used was in Brecht’s Mother Courage where the character of Mother Courage looks out to the audience, her face posed in a silent scream.

Acting in epic theater requires actors to play characters believably without convincing either the audience or themselves that they are truly the characters. Actors often address the audience directly out of character ("breaking the fourth wall") and play multiple roles. Brecht thought it was important that the choices the characters made were evident, and tried to develop a style of acting wherein it was evident that the characters were choosing one action over another. For example, a character could say, "I could have stayed at home, but instead I went to the shops."

The Epic Stage: Brecht envisaged the Epic Stage as a place for discussion. The audience is presented with a topic of social or political relevance and an opinion or message on said topic. The epic stage provides its audience with questions, possible solutions and actively encourages them to think, determine and act.

Brecht had no desire to hide any of the elements of theatrical production. Lighting, music, scenery, costume changes, acting style, projections and any other elements he called upon were in full view of the audience; a reminder that they are in a theatre, and what they are watching is not real.

Brecht also wished to change the scale of the properties used, and then also use them out of context. For example, using a skyscraper that makes up part of the set and turning it over to use as a judges table in a courtroom. This challenged the audience, and also reminded them that they were watching something that was being manufactured, and not real life.

The Alienation Effect:    Perhaps the best known technique of Brecht’s epic theatre is the Alienation Effect: to make the familiar strange. Although the term ‘alienate’ may conjure up images of separating one thing from another by building a wall, this is not the case. The A-effect takes “…the human social incidents to be portrayed and label[s] them as something striking, something that calls for explanation, is not to be taken for granted…”-Willet. The purpose is that the audience be put in a situation where they can reflect critically in a social context. German dramatist Marieluise Fleisser said of his style,

"He did not analyse the characters; he set them at a distance .  He called for a report on the events. He insisted on simple gestures. He compelled a clear and cool manner of speaking. No emotional tricks were allowed. That ensured the objective ‘epic’ style."

Brecht detested the Aristotelian drama and the manner in which it made the audience identify with the hero to the point of self-oblivion. The resulting feelings of terror and pity he felt led to an emotional catharsis that prevented the audience from thinking. Determined to destroy the theatrical illusion, Brecht was able to make his dreams realities when he took over the Berliner Ensemble.

The Berliner Ensemble came to represent what is today called "epic theater". Epic theater breaks with the Aristotelian concepts of a linear story line, a suspension of disbelief, and progressive character development. In their place, epic theater uses episodic plot structure, contains little cause and effect between scenes, and has cumulative character development. The goal is one of estrangement, or "Verfremdung", with an emphasis on reason and objectivity rather than emotion, or a type of critical detachment. This form of theater forces the audience to distance itself from the stage and contemplate on the action taking place. To accomplish this, Brecht focused on cruel action, harsh and realistic scenes, and a linear plot with no climax and denouement. By making each scene complete within itself Brecht sought to prevent illusion. A Brecht play is meant to provoke the audience into not only thinking about the play, but into reforming society by challenging common ideologies. Following in the footsteps of Pirandello, he blurs the distinction between life and theatre so that the audience is left with an ending that requires social action.

The Epic Audience:   “The one tribute we can pay the audience is to treat it as thoroughly intelligent. It is utterly wrong to treat people as simpletons when they are grown up at seventeen. I appeal to the reason.”-Willet

The Relaxed Audience is how Brecht referred to the audience he wished the epic theatre to attract. Brecht often spoke of what he termed a ‘smoker’s theatre’, where audience members would puff on cigars, much like they would at a boxing match, whilst watching a performance. The relaxed audiences are interested in what they are watching; they are there to be entertained, and to think.

Although epic theatre is often perceived as lacking in emotion or entertainment value, Brecht was actually intent on creating a theatrical experience that entertained, educated and provoked thought. This misconception seems to stem from the notion that entertainment and education cannot co-exist. However his productions used intelligent humour, dance, music, clowning and colour to tell stories with high political and social content. After all, theatre is supposed to represent life, and life is derived from of combination of the personal, social and political climate of the time.

Other Tags:   Epic theatre, also known as theatre of alienation or theater of politics, is a theatre movement arising in the early to mid-20th century, inextricably linked to the German playwright Bertolt Brecht. Though many of the concepts involved in epic theatre had been around for years, even centuries, Brecht unified them, developed the style, and popularized it. It is sometimes referred to as Brechtian acting, although its principles apply equally to the writing and production of plays. Its qualities of clear description and reporting and its use of choruses and projections as a means of commentary earned it the name 'epic'. Brecht later favored the term dialectic theater, to emphasize the element of argument and discussion. The modern scientific method adopted makes it a 'documentary theatre': a kind of objective report on some social or political issue which appealed to reason.

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Mother Courage as a Epic

"When something seems the most obvious thing in the world, it means that any attempt to understand the world has been given up." How does Brecht attempt to ensure that the obvious is absent from this play?

Brecht's intentions when writing Mother Courage were to communicate his beliefs and make people aware of two major issues facing society: war and capitalism. According to Brecht, people deserve the wars they get if they subscribe to a political system which is unfair and favours a specific sector of society, namely capitalism, in which it is up to the individual to secure his own means of survival. In other words, if the system is unjust in any way, war and conflict is inevitable. For this to be understood, it would be essential that the audience sees the play for what it is, as opposed to becoming engaged in its story. This means that they would have to be alienated from the play, and made perpetually aware of it as a play and nothing more. To do this, Brecht jolted audiences out of their expectations and deliberately avoided theatrical techniques that would make appearances realistic. In this way, people were forced to confront the issues at hand and decipher the meanings behind what they were being shown.

The "obvious" being referred to by Brecht is what is clearly seen, what one cannot miss. It does not require reflection and arouses no thought. By alienating the audience in this play, they see that nothing is happening at an obvious level, and can gain true understanding of the characters' reasons for behaving as they do, and of the background against which they exist.

Brecht incorporated alienation techniques in the methods of staging used in performances of Mother Courage, firstly by keeping a very bright white light trained evenly upon the set throughout. This eliminated any opportunities for creating an atmosphere; any magical or romantic views of the stage were kept strictly at bay, and no attempt was made to convey the sense of a specific place. A banner was also used to introduce every scene, as opposed to a narrator, as was most common in dramatic performances of the day. This innovative technique appeared unusual to the audience and differed from the traditional storytelling manner. Also, as words were not being spoken to them, it was difficult to get caught up in the story, as it were ­ to be led into an emotion by, for example, an excited tone of voice. In addition, scene changes were made in full view of the audience, reminding them of its existence as a play, again alienating them from the impression of a "true life" tale. This sense was what was intentionally put forth in other plays of the time, and one method used was to communicate the impression that a fourth wall had been cut off from the scene and that the audience was viewing incidents in the characters' lives, almost as if they were spying on them. In Brecht's play, however, this effect was dispensed with; spectators were not intended to become involved, thus the fact that it was merely a play was constantly enforced. With regards to acting, actors were not meant to "become" their characters or persuade anyone of a transformation, they were required simply to show the character's behaviour. They did not intend to evoke empathy, but to startle the audience into objective thought. Theatrical illusion was used to the most minimal extent ­ stage machinery improved some representations of reality, but not enough to draw the audience out of the knowledge that they were still in a theatre. All of these methods were utilised to alienate viewers, so that they adopted and retained an attitude of inquiry and criticism in addressing the incidents and issues raised by the play, which is what epic theatre concentrated on.

Songs are frequently used in this play, and interpret the story in an objective tone. Mother Courage's first appearance on stage is initiated by a song, ensuring the audience is not empathetic, and drawing attention to it as a play from the beginning. Throughout the play, this is what the songs did, as well as make poignant observations and address real issues which Brecht wanted the audience's focus to be on. The sudden appearance of song at seemingly unlikely points in the play ­ when it is least expected ­ is alienating and can confuse an audience. Often a silly or light-hearted song would come up directly after a dramatic event, creating a lack of moral perspective and irony. Another alienating characteristic is the fact that the melodic and lyrical delivery of songs contrasts with their serious, occasionally distressing content. In the third scene, for example, the chaplain's song tells of the horrors of Christ's story, and yet the form resembles that of a nursery rhyme.

This occasional use of song makes the play difficult to define in terms of form of theatre; Brecht is mixing these forms in the same way as he does his writing style, which is both poetic and demotic. This alternating between almost romantic poetry and everyday, colloquial speech is recurrent, and the fluctuations are sudden. It is alienating that the two opposing styles are not separated in any distinct way, constantly ensuring the audience's expectations are denied.

To defer from the audience's expectations is the purpose of the play's structure ­ the space of time as passes unseen between the scenes is often great. After a dramatic event has surpassed, one would expect the reactions of the characters to be portrayed, or at least regarded, and the anticipated emotions to be seen, but instead one is shown occurrences of several years later. Thus, dramatic climaxes are forfeited. Also, in the same way as one cannot always see a connection between the songs and their surrounding dialogue, each scene is barely connected to the next, to the extent that the audience gets the impression that if a scene were removed, it would make little difference. There is no definite sequence of events, denying the characteristics of traditional story telling. Brecht brings in the theatre of realism by devising the play not as a convenient series of dramatic events, with a noted beginning and distinct end, for this is not what reality is. He also uses what he calls gestures, the denial of the audience's potentiality to empathise. This is an effect created by epic theatre, designed to compel the audience into remaining distanced from the story.

The methods used in this epic theatre produced an alienating effect, and deliberately separated itself from the conventional attributes of Aristotelian theatre, which appealed to the audience's emotions and evoked empathy, causing them to share the characters' feelings. Epic theatre, by definition, resolved to engage people's thinking and reasoning; Brecht objected to the soporific attitude of audiences and did not want them to be lulled into passive viewing, instead he compelled them to confront what they saw and analyse it. A significant method of alienation that ensures the audience does not get wrapped up in the suspenseful "what happens next" element of the story is Brecht's forestating ­ each scene is introduced with a summary of the following occurrences, establishing an inevitability which denies the audience of the passivity of viewing for the purpose of an unfolding plot. This encourages the adoption of a critical attitude, only through which understanding can be achieved. The conflicts of individual characters in Mother Courage are unimportant; the play's purpose as epic theatre is to attract the audience's attention toward more important societal issues.

The characters in the play can appear self-contradictory, which would be particularly alienating to an audience familiar solely with Aristotelian theatre. Though the characters change in this sense, no character development can be seen, and it is difficult for people to relate to them. In truth, not only would an audience be unable to empathise, but they would not know how to regard the characters. One is not given a defined set of emotions to experience, and because of the contradictions within characters, one cannot form an opinion on, or an attitude towards, them. The greatest example of this is Mother Courage herself, who is selfish and egocentric in that she subscribes to capitalist principles and is blind to their consequences. Yet, an admirable trait may be that she keeps on going through hardships and confronts danger, surviving in a man's world and ignoring her own pain for the sake of her children. However, though she disagrees with war in principle, she lacks strength of belief and exploits the war by profiting from it. The fact that she works hard ­ constantly, it would appear, from what we are shown of her life ­ but for little gain, would lead us to sympathise with her, though her deeds in the beginning of scene 3, her selling of ammunition to the opposing army, makes us question her morals. Another example of a contradictory character is the chaplain, who would be expected to condemn war and disapprove of it completely, though he said, "War satisfies all requirements, peaceable ones included, they're catered for, and it would simply fizzle out if they weren't." The chaplain can be said to have been based on contradiction ­ at first he was cold and formal, then later, on the battlefield, he helps the injured and shows a part of himself that is itself a victim.

What Brecht wanted to inspire in his audience was a willingness to change people's attitudes, their fixed money-centred mindsets which overshadowed, and caused confusion in, their basic moral values. According to Marx, whose principles Brecht believed in: unless man has food and shelter, he does not have freedom. This tenet is what Brecht asserts in Mother Courage, and whose understanding can only be gained when audiences realise that the obvious is an irrelevance, that this play should be seen not as a tale but as a presenting of issues. By using the aspects of character, song, structure, style, inevitability, and staging, Brecht ensures that the audience remains alienated, and that their expectations are not met. 

Failure as Epic Theatre -- especially in Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children

Bertolt Brecht, German playwright, created new kind of theatre, so called, "the epic theatre" which is antithesis to existing dramatic [Aristotelian] theatre. It was a great experiment on theatre and brought very important shift toward non-Aristotelian theatre in twentieth century. But in real performance, Brecht's theatres failed as the epic theatre because the audience deeply shared character's experience contrary to his expectation that people will judge the social reality by reasonably watching dramas. That is, the audience didn't like his theatre because it is reasonable but because it is emotional. Then, why did the epic theatre fail in appealing to the audience's reason? This paper will try to show the answer of this question mainly concerned about Mother Courage and Her Children.
Before the analysis of failure as rational theatre in Brecht's works, it is necessary that we know what the epic theatre is. Epic theatre is the theatre which appeals to the audience's reason and intelligence, not emotion contrary to Aristotelian theatre. So the audience should not share the character's experience and feeling. And the situation of realization of the social reality that has been thought to be natural, but in fact unnatural through such reasonable judgment is called "Alienation (in German, Verfremdung)." For this effect, Brecht uses unrealistic techniques.
Mother Courage and Her Children is the representative drama which failed in making the audience realize Brecht's intention -- especially in the character of Mother Courage. In the early performances, the audience understood her only as the victim of war just like themselves who had experienced the World War II contrary to Brecht's thought that she should be considered as a self-contradictory person. The summary of the play is as follows:

Mother Courage, set during the Thirty Year's War, focuses on the itinerant trader Anna Fierling, who with her three children follows the imperial and Swedish armies and sells liquor and other goods to the soldiers: One by one the children are killed: the not-very-bright Swiss Cheese is executed when he will not reveal the hiding place of the regimental cash box entrusted to him; the braggart Eilif, after being treated as a hero for stealing cattle, is shot as a looter; and the deaf-and-dumb Catherine is killed as she beats a drum to warn a town of impending massacre. Nevertheless, at the end of the play Mother Courage sets off pulling the wagon by herself.

The play criticizes both war and business. Mother Courage's business, which is for her children, depends on the war. But, at the same time, the war kills her children ironically. So Mother Courage has two characteristics: one is love for her children and the other is attachment to business which is connected to the war.

SERGEANT You're peaceful all right, your knife proves it. Why, you should be ashamed of yourself. Give me that knife, You, hag! You admit you live off the war, what else would you live off? Tell me: how can we have a war without soldiers?
MOTHER COURAGE Do they have to be mine?
SERGEANT So that's it. The war should swallow the pits and spit out of the peach, Huh?

Mother Courage's dilemma is the fact that the war kills her children while it helps her business. But, as the plot developed, Mother Courage's negative qualities of selfishness, her love to the business overwhelm the positive.

SERGEANT Do you know him?
(MOTHER COURAGE shakes her head)
What you never saw him before he took the meal?
(MOTHER COURAGE shakes her head) (p.437)

And, after she loses all her children, she never realizes the relationship between the war and business which are complement to each other and the fact that the war is her friend and enemy.

MOTHER COURAGE Here's a little money for the expenses.
(Harnessing herself to the wagon)
I hope I can pull the wagon by myself. Yes. I'll manage, there's not much in it now.
(Another regiment passes with pipe and drum)
MOTHER COURAGE Hey! Take me with you!
(She starts pulling the wagon. Soldiers are heard singing) (p.451)

This last scene really brings the feeling of sympathy. But, Brecht wanted that the audience realize the relationship. Therefore, he uses devices for the alienation effect such as the titles before each scene which break the suspense and are intended to encourage a critical attitude in audience, the songs which interpret the story in objective tone, exposition of the self-contradictory Mother Courage, etc. But these devices couldn't keep the audience from empathy. They sympathized Mother Courage. And such a response of them is the fatal failure in Brecht's view. Most of all, we can find the cause of their sympathy and the failure as epic theatre in Mother Courage and Her Children itself.
First, though Brecht takes a prudent attitude in selection of the historical setting , the story itself has the factor that makes the audience feel sympathy because it was in war (1941 in Zurich) or only after 4 years since the war ended (1949 in Berlin) when the early performance is held. Namely, it's inevitable that the audience interpret the drama as they like. Second, the situation of war in the play makes the audience justify the negative qualities of Mother Courage. Because it is the world that is abnormal, the audience come to understand her difficult situation. Though Brecht emphasizes Catherine as the symbol of social betterment contrasted with Mother Courage's selfish attitude toward society, it's not effective because Mother Courage is the protagonist who can be more attractive to the audience. (but, in fact, Catherine's behavior is more valuable in objective view. Of course, in this case, Catherine can be the direct pointing of what the people should be. But, Catherine also can be unimportant in view of the audience because she can be considered just as one of the victim and Mother Courage's object for love.) Third, because Mother Courage does not realize social reality -- the relationship between war and business, it is difficult that the audience do though Brecht wants that the audience get to know through alienation effect from the observation of Mother Courage's self-contradictory appearance. That is, the alienation effect is, even if it is more artistic, too indirect for the audience to understand reality because they are already sympathize Mother Courage. In addition, there are no character who is aware of the relationship, so the audience is demanded immoderate reasonable judgment to in empathy. But it might be inevitable that the characters cannot suggest how it is directly because it can be natural that they don't know the relationship in their historical situation. So Brecht couldn't help.
Brecht's drama's failure as the epic theatre shows us that it is really difficult that we exclude the audience's empathy. It may be because the trait of art is the possibility of various interpretation. Therefore the devices for alienation effect could be regarded only as another technique of modernistic drama in the audience's view. What we must notice is that empathy is risen in not only in Mother Courage and Her Children but also in all Brecht's drama -- especially in his great works. Namely, it means that alienation devices fail in general. In fact, though alienation is the concept including the effect that the audience realize the social reality, Brecht's alienation device only can make the good condition of reasonable judgment, not the judgment itself. That is, excluding empathy does not simply mean the recognition of social fact. Thus, for reasonable watching of theatre, the subjectivity of the audience is necessary. But it is up to their mind. (Even if a drama is realistic, and brings empathy, the audience who have critical view can get to know the meaning of it reasonably) So the audience who are familiar with Aristotelian theatre can emotionally appreciate the epic theatre with ease. That's why Brecht's theatre fails as the epic theatre.
Then, what does Brecht's theatre mean? Though his technical trial proved to be failure in this effect, his theatre has an important status in modern drama because his socialistic play is really artistic --especially contrary to some typical and inartistic socialistic realists'. Namely, his theatre shows us the variety of artistic techniques because he makes us know that we cannot only find beauty in emotional theatre but also in reasonable theatre. In addition, even if Brecht's theatre only can bring the emotional reaction, it is surely valuable because the real knowledge comes from experience (emotional experience also can bring reasonable experience!). Finally, Brecht confessed that he failed in clarifying that the epic theatre is not the category of aesthetical form but social category. His word means the importance of humanism and possibility of technical variety. In conclusion, though the epic theatre failed, Brecht is the best model of experimental, progressive, and humanistic artist. His theatre itself never failed but succeeds.

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THE THEATRE OF THE ABSURD

                

Synopsis:

The Theatre of the Absurd departs from realistic characters, situations and all of the associated theatrical conventions. Time, place and identity are ambiguous and fluid, and even basic causality frequently breaks down. Meaningless plots, repetitive or nonsensical dialogue and dramatic non-sepultures are often used to create dream-like, or even nightmare-like moods. There is a fine line, however, between the careful and artful use of chaos and non-realistic elements and true, meaningless chaos. While many of the plays described by this title seem to be quite random and meaningless on the surface, an underlying structure and meaning is usually found in the midst of the chaos.

 Absurdity is the condition or state in which human beings exist in a meaningless, irrational universe wherein people's lives have no purpose or meaning. An alternative reaction against drawing-room naturalism came from the Theatre of the Absurd. Whereas traditional theatre attempts to create a photographic representation of life as we see it, the Theatre of the Absurd aims to create a ritual-like, mythological, archetypal, allegorical vision, closely related to the world of dreams. The focal point of these dreams is often man's fundamental bewilderment and confusion, stemming from the fact that he has no answers to the basic existential questions: why we are alive, why we have to die, why there is injustice and suffering.

(Theatre of Absurd – as a new mode of expression):  When new modes of expression leads new conventions of art arise. When the plays of Ionesco, Beckett, Genet, and Adamov first appeared on the stage they puzzled and outraged most critics as well audiences. And no wonder. These plays flout all the standards by which drama has been judged for many centuries; they must therefore appear as a provocation to people who have come into the theatre expecting to find what they would recognize as a well-made play. A well-made play is expected to present characters that are well-observed and convincingly motivated: these plays often contain hardly any recognizable human beings and present completely unmotivated actions. A well-made play is expected to entertain by the ding-dong of witty and logically built-up dialogue: in some of these plays dialogue seems to have degenerated into meaningless babble. A well-made play is expected to have a beginning, a middle, and a neatly tied-up ending: these plays often start at an arbitrary point and seem to end just as arbitrarily. By all the traditional standards of critical appreciation of the drama, these plays are not only abominably bad, they do not even deserve the name drama.

Origin:

The term ‘absurd’ derives from the latin ‘absurdum’, which means ‘discordant’ or ‘contradictory’. The term was coined by Hungarian-born critic Martin Esslin, who made it the title of his 1962 book on the subject. The term refers to a particular type of play which first became popular during the European and American drama of the 1950’s and 60’s, and which presented on stage the philosophy articulated by French philosopher Albert Camus in his 1942 essay ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’, in which he defines the human condition as basically meaningless. Camus argued that humanity had to resign itself to recognizing that a fully satisfying rational explanation of the universe was beyond its reach; in that sense, the world must ultimately be seen as absurd.

The first absurd play written in 1948 and performed in 1950 was Ionesco’s ‘The Bald Soprano’. It was labeled an ‘anti-play’. It is a one act parody of the bourgeois theatre. Its dialogue consists entirely of nonsense phrases, pun and cliché, all uttered with great sincerity by a pair of couples. As Ionesco has pointed out, “It is a criticism of anything, it must be of all societies, of language itself and of clichés. It is a parody of theater too.” If man is not tragic he is ridiculous. In fact by revealing his absurdity one can achieve a sort of tragedy.

Product of post world disillusionment(WWI – surrealism); avant garde : against imitation of reality in art

Characteristic Features:

(i)    The traditional theatre attempts to create a photographic representation of life, but the theatre of the absurd aims to create a ritual-like, mythological, archetypal, allegorical vision, closely related to the world of dreams.                                                                                                                                                                The focal point of these dreams is often man’s fundamental bewilderment and confusion, stemming from the fact that he has no answers to the basic existential questions: why we are alive, why we have to die, why there is injustice and suffering.                                                                                                           Ionesco defined the absurdist Everyman as “Absurd is that which is devoid of purpose. ...Cut off from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless.”

(ii) The Theatre of Absurd in a sense, attempts to reestablish man’s communion with the universe. “Absurd Theatre can be seen as an attempt to restore the importance of myth and ritual to our age, by making man aware of the ultimate realities of his condition, by instilling in him again the lost sense of cosmic wonder and primeval anguish. The Absurd Theatre hopes to achieve this by shocking man out of an existence that has become trite, mechanical and complacent. It is felt that there is mystical experience in confronting the limits of human condition.” – Dr. Jan Culik

(iii) One of the most important aspect of absurd drama is its distrust of language as a means of communication. Language, it seems to say has become nothing but a vehicle for conventionalized, stereotyped, meaningless exchanges.

“Words failed to express the essence of human experience, not being able to penetrate beyond its surface. The Theatre of Absurd constituted first and foremost an onslaught on language, showing it as a very unreliable and insufficient tool of communication. Absurd drama uses conventionalized speech, clichés, slogans and technical jargon, which it distorts, parodies and breaks down. By ridiculing conventionalized and stereotyped speech patterns, the Theatre of the Absurd tries to make people aware of the possibility of going beyond everyday speech conventions and communicating more authentically.” – Dr. Culik

One of the most important aspects of absurd drama was its distrust of language as a means of communication. Language had become a vehicle of conventionalised, stereotyped, meaningless exchanges. Words failed to express the essence of human experience, not being able to penetrate beyond its surface. The Theatre of the Absurd constituted first and foremost an onslaught on language, showing it as a very unreliable and insufficient tool of communication. Absurd drama uses conventionalised speech, clichés, slogans and technical jargon, which is distorts, parodies and breaks down. By ridiculing conventionalised and stereotyped speech patterns, the Theatre of the Absurd tries to make people aware of the possibility of going beyond everyday speech conventions and communicating more authentically. Conventionalised speech acts as a barrier between ourselves and what the world is really about: in order to come into direct contact with natural reality, it is necessary to discredit and discard the false crutches of conventionalised language. Objects are much more important than language in absurd theatre: what happens transcends what is being said about it. It is the hidden, implied meaning of words that assume primary importance in absurd theatre, over an above what is being actually said. The Theatre of the Absurd strove to communicate an undissolved totality of perception - hence it had to go beyond language.

(iv) Absurd drama subverts logic. It relishes the unexpected and the logically impossible. According to Sigmund Freud, there is a feeling of freedom we can enjoy when we are able to abandon the strait jacket of logic.

“Rationalist thought, like language, only deals with the superficial aspects of things. Nonsense, on the other hand, opens up a glimpse of the infinite.” – Dr. Culik

In trying to burst the bounds of logic and language the absurd theatre is trying to shatter the enclosing walls of the human condition itself. Our individual identity is defined by language, having a name is the source of our separateness - the loss of logical language brings us towards a unity with living things. In being illogical, the absurd theatre is anti-rationalist: it negates rationalism because it feels that rationalist thought, like language, only deals with the superficial aspects of things. Nonsense, on the other hand, opens up a glimpse of the infinite. It offers intoxicating freedom, brings one into contact with the essence of life and is a source of marvellous comedy.

(v) They jettison all standards of naturalistic conventions of plot, characterization and thematic structure, and distort them for expressive, ideational or aesthetic reasons.

(vi) Like the mystical Sisyphus for ever rolling a stone towards the top of a mountain, aware that it will roll down again each time, the dramatists of the absurd create plays that end where they begins, without any progressive development of plot or psychological interest.

Drama in the play is often derived solely from the intensification of the initial situation.

There is classicality about its circular structure which provides a representative image of man’s absurd existence beginning nowhere and going nowhere, but proceeding on and on.

(vii) Characters of the play likewise act with neither will nor psychological motivations. Their words, and deeds, if any are merely reflex actions that are immediately cancelled by other reflex actions.

The ‘dialogue’ is equally futile. Often it consists of little more than baby-talk and clichés repeated over and over again. The nonsensical and mechanical nature of human communication is underlined by carrying it to tragic comic extremes.

(viii) Reaction against middle-class values which it mock and parodied. In it we feel bourgeois emphasis on security and stability as futile and ridiculous in the face of the inescapable meaninglessness of human existence – a product of post-war disillusionment (WW II).

(ix) “If a good play must have a cleverly constructed story, the absurd plays have no story or plot to speak of. If a good play is judged by the subtlety of characterization and motivation, these plays are without recognizable characters; they present the audience almost with mechanical puppets. If a good play has to have a fully explained theme which is neatly exposed and finally solved, these plays have neither a beginning nor an end. If a good play is to hold the mirror up to nature and portray the manners and mannerisms of the age in finely observed sketches, these plays are reflections of dreams and nightmares. If a good play relies on witty repartee and pointed dialogues, these plays consist of incoherent babblings.” – Martin Esslin

(x) For each of the playwrights concerned seeks to express no more and no less his own personal vision of the world.

The author's personal experience and intimate feelings are the central inspirational sources of all their theatrical images reflecting both their state of mind and their spirit. The feelings of Absurdity as a literary-creative motivation, connects a number of literary artists and philosophers.

The Theatre of the Absurd does not show man in a historical, social, or cultural context, it does not communicate any general views of human life. It is not concerned with conveying information or presenting the problems or destinies of characters that exist outside the author's world (they are created by author, but have their own created life). It is not concerned with the representation of events, the narration of fates, or the adventures of characters. It is instead interested in the presentation of an individual's basic situation. "It presents individual human being's intuition of his basic situation as he experiences it".

(xi) Characterized by fantasy sequences, disjointed dialogue, and illogical or nearly nonexistent plots, their plays are concerned primarily with presenting a situation that illustrates the fundamental helplessness of humanity. Absurdist drama is sometimes comic on the surface, but the humor is infused with an underlying pessimism about the human condition.

(xii) Realism in the Theater of Absurd: The realism of these plays is a psychological, and inner realism; they explore the human sub-conscious in depth rather than trying to describe the outward appearance of human existence.

Nor is it quite correct that these plays, deeply pessimistic as they are, are nothing but an expression of utter despair. It is true that basically the Theatre of the Absurd attacks the comfortable certainties of religious or political orthodoxy. It aims to shock its audience out of complacency, to bring it face to face with the harsh facts of the human situation as these writers see it. But the challenge behind this message is anything but one of despair. It is a challenge to accept the human condition as it is, in all its mystery and absurdity, and to bear it with dignity, nobly, responsibly; precisely because there are no easy solutions to the mysteries of existence, because ultimately man is alone in a meaningless world. The shedding of easy solutions, of comforting illusions, may be painful, but it leaves behind it a sense of freedom and relief. And that is why, in the last resort, the Theatre of the Absurd does not provoke tears of despair but the laughter of liberation.

(xiii) Poetic Image , dream like situations:

Absurd dramas are lyrical statements, very much like music: they communicate an atmosphere, an experience of archetypal human situations. The Absurd Theatre is a theatre of situation, as against the more conventional theatre of sequential events. It presents a pattern of poetic images. In doing this, it uses visual elements, movement, light. Unlike conventional theatre, where language rules supreme, in the Absurd Theatre language is only one of many components of its multidimensional poetic imagery.

Ionesco's Amédée. A middle-aged husband and wife are shown in a situation which is clearly not taken from real life. They have not left their flat for years. The wife earns her living by operating some sort of telephone switchboard; the husband is writing a play, but has never got beyond the first few lines. In the bedroom is a corpse. It has been there for many years. It may be the corpse of the wife's lover whom the husband killed when he found them together, but this is by no means certain; it may also have been a burglar, or a stray visitor. But the oddest thing about it is that it keeps growing larger and larger; it is suffering from 'geometric progression, the incurable disease of the dead'. And in the course of the play it grows so large that eventually an enormous foot bursts from the bedroom into the living-room, threatening to drive Amédée and his wife out of their home. All this is wildly fantastic, yet it is not altogether unfamiliar, for it is not unlike situations most of us have experienced at one time or another in dreams and nightmares.

Ionesco has in fact put a dream situation onto the stage, and in a dream quite clearly the rules of realistic theatre no longer apply. Dreams do not develop logically; they develop by association. Dreams do not communicate ideas; they communicate images. And inded the growing corpse in Amédée can best be understood as a poetic image. It is in the nature both of dreams and poetic imagery that they are ambiguous and carry a multitude of meanings at one and the same time, so that it is futile to ask what the image of the growing corpse stands for. On the other hand one can say that the corpse might evoke the growing power of past mistakes or past guilt, perhaps the waning of love or the death of affection - some evil in any case that festers and grows worse with time. The image can stand for any and all of these ideas, and its ability to embrace them all gives it the poetic power it undoubtedly posseses.

while most plays in the traditional convention are primarily concerned to tell a story or elucidate an intellectual problem, and can thus be seen as a narrative or discursive form of communication, the plays of the Theatre of the Absurd are primarily intended to convey a poetic image or a complex pattern of poetic images; they are above all a poetical form. Narrative or discursive thought proceeds in a dialectical manner and must lead to a result or final message; it is therefore dynamic and moves along a definite line of development. Poetry is above all concerned to convey its central idea, or atmosphere, or mode of being; it is essentially static.

This does not mean, however, that these plays lack movement: the movement in Amédée, for instance, is relentless, lying as it does in the pressure of the ever-growing corpse. But the situation of the play remains static; the movement we see is the unfolding of the poetic image. The more ambiguous and complex that image, the more intricate and intriguing will be the process of revealing it. That is why a play like Waiting for Godot can generate considerable suspense and dramatic tension in spite of being a play in which literally nothing happens, a play designed to show that nothing can ever happen in human life. It is only when the last lines have been spoken and the curtain has fallen that we are in a position to grasp the total pattern of the complex poetic image we have been confronted with. If, in the traditional play, the action goes from point A to point B, and we constantly ask, 'what's going to happen next?', here we have an action that consists in the gradual unfolding of a complex pattern, and instead we ask, 'what is it that we are seeking? What will the completed image be when we have grasped the nature of the pattern?'

How does Theater of Absurd Work or Express?

(i) Drama is composed of two different spaces, which are in a mutual relationship - the stage and the auditorium. Both components, being in mutual polarity (the audience watches and the actors are watched), can exist only through communication with each other. This communication can only work if both sides are aware of their roles.
The actors can move and speak in different ways, tragic, comic, etc.; but always with the necessary precondition that nothing they speak about and do is really true. Their acts and speeches are mere fiction, and that is the main actor's activity - to play fiction. The spectators' passivity consists of accepting the fiction, in leaving real life and entering the world of fiction. Theatre becomes theatre only if both sides (actors and spectators) play their roles, which makes the fundamental principle of theatre in general.
If the general form of theatre is a fictive picture, the Theatre of the Absurd is a "picture in a picture", because its content is, at the same time, also a picture - an image, the author' subjective vision. He transforms his vision through the symbolic language of theatre (dramatic pictures) into the symbolic life situation of fictional characters. Therefore, a "picture in picture" is a picture of the author's vision, this is content, expressed in a dramatic picture, as a formal component of a dramatic play.

(ii) In times when dramatic art has shown man as protected, guided, and sometimes punished by superhuman powers, theatre held a basic religious function: the confrontation of man with the spheres of myth and religious reality, which reflected some generally known and universally accepted cosmic system. The Theatre of the Absurd has a similar function; it makes man aware of his position in the Universe, which although precarious and mysterious, expresses the absence of any such generally accepted cosmic system of values. While the previous attempts to confront man with the world reflected a coherent and generally familiar version of truth, the absurd theatre communicates and offers, as  already sketched, the author's most intimate vision of the human situation, the meaning of existence itself, the author's own vision of the world. This is the proper subject of absurd theatre, determining its specific form, which is naturally different from the epic theatre form.

Major Practitioners – Samuel Beckett:

(i)                 He has an eye not only on the movements and words of the characters he introduces, but also on the sound, light and stage props, all of which help for his meaning to emerge.

(ii)               Beckett has indeed worked his revolutionary art form to the extreme. When questioned about his technique, he is said to have declared: “There is nothing to express, nothing from which to express, no desire to express, together with no obligation to express.” His bold, bare dramatic form is peculiarly suited to express modern man’s fundamental drama – an undefined sense of guilt, the feeling of helplessness and anguish resulting from a loss of identity and purpose.

(iii)             By using imagery, rhythm, suggestion, pauses and finally the sound of silence itself, Beckett appeals directly to our senses and emotion with the result that his message is often felt without being completely understood.   

Background Information:

Camus' Sisyphus is a typical absurd hero personifying the real quality of an absurd life, he is absurd through his passion and suffering, through his eternal fate, work that can never be finished: "The Gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labour." We see the great effort in him, recurring again and again; he tries to move the boulder and push it up the hill thousands of times. Finally, at the end of his long, exhausting effort, he reaches his aim. However, at the same moment, he sees the boulder rolling down back to the lower world from where it will have to be lifted again. And so he returns back to the bottom. "It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour...is the hour of consciousness." These moments of consciousness open up the world of the absurdity, the world of never-ending effort to go on, the world from which it is impossible to escape, the world of estrangement, loneliness, waiting, and continual endurance. Martin Esslin mentions Ionesco's parallel concept of the absurdity: "Absurd is that which is devoid of purpose. ...Cut off from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless".
Albert Camus (1913-1960), a French novelist and essayist, who worked out the theory of absurdity and who also applied this thesis in his literary writing, deals with the absurd fate of man and literally demonstrates it with the legendary ancient myth of Sisyphus in his stimulating analysis The Myth of Sisyphus. Camus goes into the problem what the absurdity is and how it arises. He also gives the characteristics of human basic ontological categories as the feelings of "denseness" and "the strangeness of the world" , which are the feelings of the Absurdity of man in a world where the decline of religious belief has deprived man of his certainties.
Camus sees absurdity in a bilateral relationship between the human being and the world he lives in. Absurdity does not reside in the world itself, or in a human being, but in a tension which is produced by their mutual indifference

Difference between Absurd and epic theatre:

The epic character remains in the centre of the active, forming world; the absurd one stays in centre of the world picture he creates himself.  In other words: the world exists according to man. "It means that the existence of man is not determined by anything external, lying outside of him, e.g. surroundings, history, God's order, etc.; but he is only himself, he is exclusively his own work, the result of his own decisions and behaviour".
In this sense, it is possible to understand the Theatre of the Absurd as a return to what was, for the first time in Greek philosophy formulated by the Sophists. They diverted human interest from nature and directed it at man and his thinking. This interest in a subject, individual human thinking, and the individual's situation corresponds with the philosophy of existentialism (Heidegger, Jaspers, Camus, Sartre...), which is focused on the subjective, individual's experience in a concrete fatal situation. While the philosophers deal with the absurdity of human existence rationally, using philosophical language; the absurd dramatists express it in concrete dramatic pictures. They offer us the opportunity to not only think about absurdity, but to feel it and experience it simultaneously with the actors and the author, who transforms his mind into a symbolic dramatic language.

THE PROBLEM PLAYS \ DRAMA OF IDEAS

                                                                                                                       

Origin:

The problem play is a form of drama that emerged during the 19th century as part of the wider movement of ‘realism’ in the arts. It deals with contentious social issues through debates between the characters on stage, who typically represent conflicting points of view within a realistic social context.
While social debates in drama were nothing new, the problem play of the 19th century was distinguished by its intent to confront the spectator with the dilemmas experienced by the characters. The earliest forms of the problem play are to be found in the work of French writers such as Alexandre Dumas, foils, who dealt with the subject of prostitution in The Lady of the Camellias (1852). Other French playwrights followed suit with dramas about a range of social issues, sometimes approaching the subject in a moralistic, sometimes in a sentimental manner.

Development:

The critic F. S. Boas adapted the term to characterize certain plays by Shakespeare that he considered to have characteristics similar to Ibsen's 19th-century problem plays. Boas's term caught on, and Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice, Timon of Athens, Troilus and Cressida, and All's Well That Ends Well are still referred to as "Shakespeare's problem plays". As a result, the term is used more broadly and retrospectively to describe pre-19th-century, tragicomic dramas that do not fit easily into the classical generic distinction between comedy and tragedy.
The concept of problem plays arose in the 19th century, as part of an overall movement known as Realism. Prior to the 19th century, many people turned to art as a mode of escape which allowed them to look outside the world they lived in. In the 19th century, however, art began to take on a more introspective, realistic air, with a conscious focus on ongoing issues such as the social inequalities exacerbated by the Industrial Revolution.
Although the idea of creating problem plays was popularized in the 19th century, numerous works have been retroactively termed problem plays. Several Greek playwrights, for example, addressed ongoing social issues like war, in the case of Lysistrata, by Aristophanes. Several works of Shakespeare are also considered to be problem plays, like Measure for Measure, which has very Biblical themes of justice and truth, or Troilus and Cressida, which confronts viewers with infidelity, sexuality, and betrayal.
Many people regard Henrik Ibsen as a master of the problem play, along with authors like George Bernard Shaw and some 19th century French playwrights, many of whom were also authors. Problem plays can cover a wide variety of topics, ranging from women's rights to greed and inequality, and they can tell their stories in a wide variety of ways. For example, it is common to have a tragic protagonist who ultimately suffers as a result of his or her refusal to confront social problems.
The most important exponent of the problem play, the Norwegian writer Henrik Ibsen, whose work combined penetrating characterization with emphasis on topical social issues, usually concentrated on the moral dilemmas of a central character. In a series of plays Ibsen addressed a range of problems, most notably the restriction of women's lives in A Doll's House (1879), sexually-transmitted disease in Ghosts (1882) and provincial greed in An Enemy of the People (1882). Ibsen's dramas proved immensely influential, spawning variants of the problem play in works by George Bernard Shaw and other later dramatists.

Most philosophy has rejected the theater, denouncing it as a place of illusion or moral decay; the theater in turn has rejected philosophy, insisting that drama deals in actions, not ideas. Challenging both views, The Drama of Ideas shows that theater and philosophy have been crucially intertwined from the start. Plato is the presiding genius of this alternative history. The Drama of Ideas presents Plato not only as a theorist of drama, but also as a dramatist himself, one who developed a dialogue-based dramaturgy that differs markedly from the standard, Aristotelian view of theater. Puchner discovers scores of dramatic adaptations of Platonic dialogues, the most immediate proof of Plato's hitherto unrecognized influence on theater history. Drawing on these adaptations, Puchner shows that Plato was central to modern drama as well, with figures such as Wilde, Shaw, Pirandello, Brecht, and Stoppard using Plato to create a new drama of ideas. Puchner then considers complementary developments in philosophy, offering a theatrical history of philosophy that includes Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Burke, Sartre, Camus, and Deleuze. These philosophers proceed with constant reference to theater, using theatrical terms, concepts, and even dramatic techniques in their writings. The Drama of Ideas mobilizes this double history of philosophical theater and theatrical philosophy to subject current habits of thought to critical scrutiny. In dialogue with contemporary thinkers such as Martha Nussbaum, Iris Murdoch, and Alain Badiou, Puchner formulates the contours of a "dramatic Platonism." This new Platonism does not seek to return to an idealist theory of forms, but it does point beyond the reigning philosophies of the body, of materialism and of cultural relativism.

Characteristic Features of Problem Plays:

  The problem play or play of ideas usually has a tragic ending. The driving force behind the play is the exploration of some social problem, like alcoholism or prostitution; the characters are used as examples of the general problem. Frequently the playwright views the problem and its solution in a way that defies or rejects the conventional view; not surprisingly, some problem plays have aroused anger and controversy in audiences and critics. Henrik Ibsen, who helped to revive tragedy from its artistic decline in the nineteenth century, wrote problem plays. A Doll's House, for example, shows the exploitation and denigration of middle class women by society and in marriage. The tragedy frequently springs from the individual's conflict with the laws, values, traditions, and representatives of society.

Far from being plays with fatal flaws, as one might imagine from the name, problem plays are actually plays which are designed to confront viewers with modern social problems. Typically, the theme of the play is socially relevant, and the characters confront the issue in a variety of ways, presenting viewers with different approaches and opinions. After seeing a problem play, one is supposed to be filled with interest in the topic at hand, and hopefully inspired to enact social change.

Essentially, problem plays are a form of commentary on the societies they are performed in. Because social problems are often universal across cultures and eras, many people find something to appreciate in problem plays, whether they are contemporary or not, and such plays tend to be popular in performance. They can also be difficult to watch, as many people find something of themselves in the characters, and struggle with this revelation.

 REALISM IN EUROPEAN FICTION

Realism is the creation of the effect of the representation of the concrete, historical nature of human life. It is a pervasive rationalist epistemology that turned its back on the fantasies of Romanticism and was shaped instead by the impact of the political and social changes as well as the scientific and industrial advances of its day. In Realism, the details of environment, of motivation, of circumstances, and of temporality with its cause and effect, becomes the context for the exploration of human values and fate. The emphasis of Realism tends to be on the individual, in their social environment.

The Marxist critic George Lukacs, who have held that through the methodology of realism, literature reflects a social reality whose phenomena serve as a model for the work of art – the realist gives a complete and correct account of observed social reality, and thus is able to uncover the driving forces of history, the principles governing social change.

The realist attempted to represent the ‘real world’ in art, that all they could represent was what structuralist theories call a ‘reality effect’: that they were using language, i.e., a symbol system, and that they were placing humans in complex systems of social relations and of material conditions which could be represented only by signs, and then only briefly and selectively (“Select the facts and you manipulate the truth”).

Any representation is a selection, and to narrate everything would be impossible for it would require at least a volume per day to enumerate the multitude of insignificant incidents which fill our existence. That is why, the artist having chosen his theme, will take from this life encumbered with chance and futility only the characteristic details useful to his subject, and will reject all the rest, all the peripheral incidentals.

The reality effect of realism is apparent objectivity, concretion and neutral view point, makes it dangerous, as the ‘objective’ distanced voice of the realist narrator is ultimately a dishonesty which masks the ideological commitments of the text.

The concretion of realism also militates against the expression of the hidden forces in the human psyche, a power that Romance possesses.

Realism brings us close to the physical, to our material existence, and so is less likely than other forms of representation to be distorted by ideology or mystification.

Gustave Flaubert is regarded by many critics as representing the zenith of the realist style with his unadorned prose and attention to the details of everyday life: “the truthful treatment of material” – William Dean Howells

Summary of Realism:

(i)                 Reaction against Romanticism – depicts contemporary life and society, as it is, instead of romanticized presentation – “the truthful treatment of material”by William Dean Howell

(ii)               Pragmatism : truth is expressed as relativistic truth, associated with discernible consequences and verifiable by experience.

(iii)             Selection of material : common, the everyday life and manners of bourgeoius, the here and now of the specific action and the verifiable consequences.

(iv)             Life lacks symmetry and plot, and so fiction which truthfully reflects life should avoid symmetry and plot.

(v)               Characterization is centre in the novel- concerned over the effect of action upon characters and explores the psychology of the character.

(vi)             No tragic situations, only common actions and minor catastrophes of the middle class societies.

(vii)           The emphasis is on the individual, in their social environment.

Realistic Fiction by definition encompasses writing that represents life as it really exists. In ‘Madame Bovary’, Flaubert gives the reader a glance into the reality of mid nineteenth century provincial life in France. The descriptions of the mannerisms and customs of small-town people are vivid and life-like. Emma’s wedding party, the Yonville Fair and Emma’s disillusionment are the stuff of which life is made.

Flaubert makes his protagonist suffer from middle class background. When Emma attempts to live in a world of romantic fantasy and fails, she takes her own life. It is therefore ‘common place reality’ and ‘middle class morality’ that triumphs in the end. In fact, ‘Madame Bovary’ could be looked upon as a subtle satire on romanticism and sentimentalism.

Setting of ‘Madame Bovary’ is crucial to the novel for several reasons. (i) It is important as it applies to Flaubert’s realist style and social commentary. (ii) the setting is important in how it relates to the protagonist Emma. Flaubert also deliberately used his setting to contrast with his protagonist. Emma’s romantic fantasies are strikingly foiled by the practicalities of the common life around her. Flab uses this juxtaposition to reflect on both subjects. Emma becomes more capricious and ludicrous in the harsh light of everyday reality. By the same token, however, the self-important banality of the local people is magnified in comparison to Emma, who, though impractical, still reflects an appreciation of beauty and greatness that seems entirely absent in the bourgeois class.

 Style: Flaubert as the author of the story, does not comment directly on the moral character of Emma Bovary and abstains from explicitly condemning her adultery. This decision caused some to accuse of glorifying adultery and creating a scandal, a rather groundless charge considering Emma’s perpetual disappointment and grim fate.

Realism aims for verisimilitude through a focus on character development. The movement was a reaction to the idealism of romanticism, a mode of thought which rules Emma’s actions. She becomes increasingly dissatisfied since her larger than-life fantasies are, by definition not able to be realized.

Definition:

Broadly defined as "the faithful representation of reality" or "verisimilitude," realism is a literary technique practiced by many schools of writing. Although strictly speaking, realism is a technique, it also denotes a particular kind of subject matter, especially the representation of middle-class life. A reaction against romanticism, an interest in scientific method, the systematizing of the study of documentary history, and the influence of rational philosophy all affected the rise of realism. According to William Harmon and Hugh Holman, "Where romanticists transcend the immediate to find the ideal, and naturalists plumb the actual or superficial to find the scientific laws that control its actions, realists center their attention to a remarkable degree on the immediate, the here and now, the specific action, and the verifiable consequence" (A Handbook to Literature 428).

Many critics have suggested that there is no clear distinction between realism and its related late nineteenth-century movement, naturalism. Put rather too simplistically, one rough distinction made by critics is that realism espousing a deterministic philosophy and focusing on the lower classes is considered naturalism.

In American literature, the term "realism" encompasses the period of time from the Civil War to the turn of the century during which William Dean Howells, Rebecca Harding Davis, Henry James, Mark Twain, and others wrote fiction devoted to accurate representation and an exploration of American lives in various contexts. As the United States grew rapidly after the Civil War, the increasing rates of democracy and literacy, the rapid growth in industrialism and urbanization, an expanding population base due to immigration, and a relative rise in middle-class affluence provided a fertile literary environment for readers interested in understanding these rapid shifts in culture. In drawing attention to this connection, Amy Kaplan has called realism a "strategy for imagining and managing the threats of social change" (Social Construction of American Realism ix).

Characteristics(from Richard Chase, The American Novel and Its Tradition):

Renders reality closely and in comprehensive detail. Selective presentation of reality with an emphasis on verisimilitude, even at the expense of a well-made plot

Character is more important than action and plot; complex ethical choices are often the subject.

Characters appear in their real complexity of temperament and motive; they are in explicable relation to nature, to each other, to their social class, to their own past.

Class is important; the novel has traditionally served the interests and aspirations of an insurgent middle class. ( Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel)

Events will usually be plausible. Realistic novels avoid the sensational, dramatic elements of naturalistic novels and romances.

Diction is natural vernacular, not heightened or poetic; tone may be comic, satiric, or matter-of-fact.

Objectivity in presentation becomes increasingly important: overt authorial comments or intrusions diminish as the century progresses.

Interior or psychological realism a variant form.

In Black and White Strangers, Kenneth Warren suggests that a basic difference between realism and sentimentalism is that in realism, "the redemption of the individual lay within the social world," but in sentimental fiction, "the redemption of the social world lay with the individual".

"Realism sets itself at work to consider characters and events which are apparently the most ordinary and uninteresting, in order to extract from these their full value and true meaning. It would apprehend in all particulars the connection between the familiar and the extraordinary, and the seen and unseen of human nature. Beneath the deceptive cloak of outwardly uneventful days, it detects and endeavors to trace the outlines of the spirits that are hidden there; the measure the changes in their growth, to watch the symptoms of moral decay or regeneration, to fathom their histories of passionate or intellectual problems. In short, realism reveals. Where we thought nothing worth of notice, it shows everything to be rife with significance."

-- George Parsons Lathrop, 'The Novel and its Future," Atlantic Monthly 34 (September 1874):313 24.