Is naturalism better or non-naturalism?
In this
essay, I will be writing about naturalism and non-naturalism in drama and what
they mean.
Naturalism was developed in the late 19th
and early 20th centuries. It is a movement that is believed that a
play should create an illusion of reality as closely as possible. This is
achieved through a range of dramatic and theatrical strategies. In theatre,
naturalism is the stage time reflecting on real time, costumes and settings
portray lots of details of the time the play is set, the play takes place in
one location over the course of a day and characters are either working class
or lower class.
The
developer of naturalism was Konstantin Stanislavski; a Russian stage actor and
director. The naturalistic performance technique is known as the “Stanislavsky
method” or method acting. He is one of
the greatest and most influential practitioners of modern theatre. Born in 1836
to a family who loved the theatre, he died in 1938 at the age of 75. After his
father approved of his theatrical work, he eventually became an established
figure and wrote major texts on the art of performance: My Life in Art, An
Actor Prepares, Building a Character and Creating a Role. In June 1897, he and
Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko who is a playwright/director decided to open the
Moscow Art Theatre and during those early years, Stanislavski worked on adding
a guiding structure for actors to achieve deep, meaningful and disciplined
performances consistently. He believed that in order to draw upon feelings
actors have experienced in their own lives, the actors needed to inhabit real
emotion while being on stage. The Stanislavski method is a set of technique
used by actors to portray emotions on stage by putting themselves in the shoes
of their character. This helps actors create believable emotions and actions
for the characters. There are seven steps to his technique that every actor
should use to build believable characters: who am I?, where am
I?, when is It?, what do I want?, why do I want it?, how
will I get it? and what do I need to do to overcome it?. An actor must
believe in unbelievable surroundings and in order to help achieve this
Stanislavski created the ‘Magic If’. The ‘Magic If’ requires an actor to put themselves
in the character’s shoes and ask the questions, “What would I do if I found
myself in this circumstance that my character is in?” and “How would I react if
this happened to me?”. By asking yourself these questions, an actor can be
aware of the thoughts and feelings that they need to interpret into each scene they
are in. Stanislavski believed that the set of a realistic production is solid
and three-dimensional in order to enhance the sense of ‘the fourth wall’. The
actors present the action realistically, without using the technique of
addressing the audience that shatters the illusion of real life.
A list of Stanislavski’s techniques that are used
throughout theatre:
-
Emotional memory is finding a real experience where
the actor felt a similar emotion to that demanded by the role they are playing.
The actor does not “act” an emotion.
-
Method acting is giving full dedication to a role
by inhabiting their actions and thoughts into your daily life
-
Subtext is the actual meaning and
motivation behind the lines of a text.
-
Given circumstances is the facts that influences a
person’s behaviour
-
‘Magic if’ is when an actor puts themselves in
their character’s shoes. Asking themselves questions such as “how would I feel
knowing that…” and “how would I react to that…”. Stanislavski created this
method because he believed that an actor could not truly immerse themselves
into their character.
-
Objective is the goal that the character would
like to see happen at the end.
-
Super-objective is the main goal/task that a
character is trying to accomplish through the course of the play.
-
Through line is the spine that connects all the
character’s objectives in a scene
-
Inner monologue is the character’s trail of thought,
what is going on inside the character’s head during a scene?
Stanislavski’s
approach to naturalistic theatre is really inhabiting a role that you are
playing, the actor shouldn’t just know their lines and say those lines, but the
actor should know every detail of their character’s life offstage as well as on
stage. Dramatic naturalists believe that the characters are heavily influenced
by their social and economical environment as well as heredity. One criticism
given of naturalistic plays is that characters portrayed in a naturalistic play
are not able to change socially which leads to characters being seen as victims
because they have no control. However, some critics argue that it makes the
play unnatural.
Some people
may agree that naturalism is better than non-naturalism because it is more
real. Watching a naturalistic play is more believable to watch whereas for a
non-naturalistic play, you can be anything you want to be by just using
physical imagery for example a tree swaying in the wind. Recently, I went to
see Shakespeare’s trilogy at the Donmar Theatre; the Tempest, Julius Caesar and
Henry IV. In my opinion, I believe that it was the best theatre I have seen so
far, the reason for that is it was so original and comedic at times. All three
plays were set in a prison, which made it naturalistic because it takes place
in one location over the course of the day and all the characters were lower
class; the prisoners. However, it was a play within a play that was original,
as I had never seen it before. The actors gave the illusion of rehearsing a
play in a prison and there were times when they would sound the alarm like in a
prison to separate the two different time eras; reality and Shakespearean
times. They all had one costume on throughout which were grey sweats, black
trainers and a yellow polo shirt. However, costumes were only changed to make
it easier for the audience to identify who each actor was playing for example, the
woman playing Julius Caesar wore a long leather jacket throughout the play. The
prison theme reminded me of the American TV-show, Orange is the New Black.
I had the
experience to perform as the main character, Maisie, in a non-naturalistic play
called Last Summer which was a first draft written by Heather Speake. The whole
play was very naturalistic which made it easy to perform and simple for the
audience to understand. Personally, I would have preferred a more challenging play
to perform to do with more abstract work.
Remember: there are no small parts, only small
actors.
Konstantin Stanislavski
Non-naturalism is a way of
describing and portraying something that isn’t actually there. The actor
wouldn’t act as they would do in real life. It allows an actor to explore
stories made from imagination and present ideas. An example of a playwright
whose work is based on non-naturalism is Bertolt Brecht.
Bertolt Brecht was born in
1898 in Augsburg, Germany. He was a German poet, playwright and theatrical
performer in the 20th century. Before pursuing a career in theatre,
he was serving as a medical orderly in the First World War. His career in
theatre came to an end when the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933. At the
age of 58, Brecht died of a heart attack. In the 1920’s, Brecht created a new
form of theatre, it was designed to make the audience question and think about
what they were watching. He called this Epic Theatre. This new form of theatre
came about when Melodrama, Realism and Naturalism were popular as theatre
forms. Theatres aimed to be escapism which is for the audience to seek
distraction and relief from realities. The audience could forget about their
own lives for a while however, Brecht hated this. He saw this as a huge waste
of an audience, he wanted for people to question and challenge themselves
rather than simply accepting and enjoying the performance.
Verfremdungseffekt (V-effect)
or alienated effects (a-effect) were used to direct the audience’s attention to
something new. This could be done by getting the scene started and then doing
something unexpected. Once the rhythm is interrupted, the audience stops
getting lost in the emotion, story and characters. Because of this, they were
then able to think and question. The V-effect was used to get the audience to
forget the performance and re-focus on the message. We are constantly reminded that these are actors
communicating rather than getting lost in the story or the character. Here are
a few examples:
-
Plays were performed
with the house lights on so that audience members remain aware of each other
-
Music and dancing
were used to break up the action of the play/ scenes were sung instead of
spoken
-
All the characters
were dressed in black rather than in their individual costumes
Opposite to Stanislavski’s
purpose, Brecht didn’t want the actors to identify with the characters or to
play the role realistically. He simply believed that the actor’s job was to
show what happened.
Brecht believed that the
actor should:
-
Move as if blocking
movements on stage for the first time or in a robotic way
-
Treat voice and
movement so that they do not match
-
Speak as if quoting
someone else rather than speaking dialogue
-
Speak the stage
directions aloud
-
Remain physically
emotionally detached from the other actors
-
Play scenes with
mismatched emotions e.g. humour in a sad scene
-
Perform directly to
the audience
-
Exchange roles with
the other actors
Examples of non-naturalistic techniques:
Still
Image, a form of tableau where actors invent body shapes or postures to portray
something, soundscape, using voices or body percussion, create a ‘soundscape’, slow
motion, exaggeration, mime, soliloquy, narration, split scene, breaking the
fourth wall, flashback, marking the moment, stagecraft.
Some
people may disagree that naturalism is better than non-naturalism. This is
because some people like to see abstract and more original work. Also, the
actors are able to interact with the audience which breaks the fourth wall in
naturalistic plays. Again, in the Shakespeare Trilogy’s I watched there was one
non-naturalistic movement I noticed in the play Henry IV that was an actor
portraying a dog; she was on her two feet and made realistic barking noises. I
thought that was really interesting because she did it so perfectly it was
believable to watch. It gave the illusion that she is actually a dog and not an
actress playing the role of a dog.
From
my experience, I performed a non-naturalistic play from Medea. As a class, we
were given a paragraph each which we had to learn in our groups and we had to
perform it however we wanted to. For example, we could either say a line each;
we could each say a paragraph or we can give each other specific lines and
actions to go with it. In the end, once the whole class had learnt all their
lines, we put it all together and created a non-naturalistic movement. Our task
was to balance the space between each other and in order to do that, those who
were saying their lines had to exit out of the ensemble and walk over to their
designated space. Although we didn’t really have much time to perfect it all
considering some people were still reading from their paragraph, we managed to
remember everything when we were assessed. From performing a non-naturalistic
play, I found it quite abstract. I thought the audience would think it’s odd
because at first it was quite confusing as we were all just changing places
most of the time. As a group, we had to work hard to balance each side of the
stage so that everyone is seen and heard. However, it was a challenge that I
looked forward to accepting considering I was so use to just doing naturalistic
acting. It opened up a new side to theatre in my eyes.
Overall,
to conclude my essay, in my experience, I agree that naturalism is better than
non-naturalism. This is because when watching a naturalistic play, it is easier
to understand because you know what is going on however, if it was
non-naturalistic it will seem as if it’s fake. I believe naturalism flows
better than non-naturalism. When performing a naturalistic play, you are
thinking about everything you know about your character and their actions, what
their characteristics are and more. You use Stanislavski’s method of method
acting and you tend to live as your character and inhabit their actions into
your daily life however, if for example, you were playing a dog in a
non-naturalistic play, you wouldn’t be able to go out in public and act as a
dog because people would think you’re crazy which proves that it is
uncomfortable for everyone to see and no one would understand it. I feel like
if I was playing a dog I wouldn’t do that either. Although non-naturalism helps
you explore more in your actions and movements; you are able to adapt the
movements of any role such as a bird or simply a table which is what makes
non-naturalism very believable. This helps you step out of your comfort zone
and become more abstract in your work. In order to do so, a lot of research is
needed to be able to portray a non-naturalistic role. For example, when I
performed Peter Pan which was a non-naturalistic play that I had the most fun
rehearsing and performing, there were some parts of the play which we as actors
had to make believable. Flying was one of them, although we couldn’t have a
harness to lift us up, we had to create the illusion that we were flying by
standing on our toes when Peter Pan blows fairy dust on us to make us fly.
Another non-naturalistic part of the play was the dog and the crocodile. An
actor had to play the part of those two characters and to make the dog more
realistic, she wore a dog onesie and did dog-like actions and sounds. For the
crocodile, she wore a green dress and a big crocodile head that was crafted and
designed for us. In conclusion, naturalism is simply just researching
characteristics and embedding them into the play and it’s easy to perform. I
hope that in the future, I will be able to do more non-naturalistic plays that
will change my opinion on which is better considering I’m quite biased as I
have performed mostly naturalistic plays.
Art is not a mirror with
which to reflect reality but a hammer with which to shape it.
Bertolt Brecht
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