Realism in Theatre

493 Words2 Pages
Realism, which began in the last half of the 19th century (and has remained dominant in theatre for the last 120 years), started as a tool to make theatre more useful in society. The emergence of realism in theatre encouraged playwrights to write realistically with faithfulness to situations from real life without adding any color or embellishments to it. The language used and events that occurred in these literary works highlighted the reality of life and were never out of the ordinary. The predecessor to realism was romanticism, a theatrical movement that left hardly any room for imperfections. The worlds and events portrayed in romantic plays were perfect, surreal and beautiful. The characters in romantic literary works were always extreme, either completely good or completely bad. Some of the biggest differences between realism and romanticism are the themes and ideas in each. In romanticism, the focus was generally placed upon idealistic views of life, and no matter how thrilling the work was, it would always have a happy ending. In realism, the playwrights tried to be as objective as possible whilst focusing on the mundane issues in everyday life, such as politics and economics or, with playwrights like Henrik Ibsen, the role of women in society. Henrik Ibsen was a Norwegian playwright who is considered the father of realistic drama. His plays, all of which attacked society’s values, dealt with unconventional and shocking subject matter. However, he perfected the well-made play formula, which was developed by Eugene Scribe, and thereby made his shocking plays relatively acceptable. Some other subject Ibsen addressed included euthanasia (In the play “Ghosts”), war and business and the reality of STD’s like syphilis (“Ghosts”). In his play, A Doll’s House, Ibsen challenges the role and value of women in society by writing about a woman named Nora
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