1920 Bernard Shaw: Heartbreak House staged by the Theatre Guild; Eugene O’Neill: Beyond the Horizon staged on Broadway; Eugene O’Neill: The Emperor Jones. Vsevolod Meyerhold is appointed head of Theatre Section, Narkompros; Erwin Piscator founds the Proletarian Theatre in Berlin. Irish Civil War; Treaty of Versailles; League of Nations is established; Poland invades Russia.
3
CONTEMPORARY THEORIES OF NATURALISM
The documentation in this section focuses on the theoretical basis for Naturalism in dramatic writing and on the stage. It traces the development of each of the major playwrights, covering both the intellectual and political impetus expressed in the movement, as well as aspects of performance and theatrical presentation.
1 GEORG BRANDES AND HENRIK IBSEN
Georg Brandes’ polemic 1871 lecture emphasized the need for social relevance in contemporary literature. Demanding political involvement – and citing Ibsen’s Brand as an example of the abstract idealism to be avoided – it acted as a clarion call for the new naturalistic drama. The opening lecture in a series delivered at the University of Copenhagen, which aroused violent controversy, it was published a year later in the first of his influential six-volume study of Main Currents in Nineteenth-Century Literature. This made him a dominant figure in the intellectual world of the time, even if it was almost 30 years before he gained a university appointment. Although focussed almost entirely on Danish writing, given the political (and linguistic) history of Scandinavia, Brandes’ arguments were equally applicable to the other countries, particularly Norway. And while dealing with literature in general rather than drama, this in itself foreshadowed the link between drama and the novel, which was one of the most productive aspects of the naturalistic movement.
To a significant degree, this inaugural lecture forms part of an ongoing argument between Brandes and Ibsen, who was already in the habit of sending his scripts to Brandes for commentary, and had been following Brandes’ lectures closely since 1866. Indeed some of the points are a rebuttal of a letter by Ibsen from ten months before, in which Ibsen had asserted his principle of individualism, dismissing Brandes’ call for national independence:
As to liberty, I take it that our dispute is a mere dispute about words. I shall never agree to making liberty synonymous with political liberty. What you call liberty, I call liberties; and what I call the struggle for liberty is nothing but the constant, living assimilation of the idea of freedom. He who possesses liberty otherwise than as a thing to be striven for, possesses it dead and soulless; for the idea of liberty has undoubtedly this characteristic, that it develops steadily during its assimilation. So that a man who stops in the midst of the struggle and says: ‘Now I have it’ – thereby shows he has lost it. It is, however, exactly this dead maintenance of a certain given standpoint of liberty that is characteristic of communities which go by the name of states – and this it is that I have called worthless. Yes, to be sure, it is a benefit to possess the franchise, the right of self-taxation, etc., but for whom is it a benefit? For the citizen, not for the individual. Now there is absolutely no reasonable necessity for the individual to be a citizen. On the contrary – the state is the curse of the individual… The state must be abolished! In that revolution I will take part.
(17 February 1871)
On publication Brandes’ first volume was immediately read by Ibsen, who responded:
I must turn to what has lately been constantly in my thoughts and has even disturbed my sleep. I have read your Lectures.
No more dangerous book could fall into the hands of a pregnant poet. It is one of those works which place a yawning gulf between yesterday and today. After I had been in Italy, I could not understand how I had been able to exist before I had been there. In twenty years, one will not be able to comprehend how spiritual existence at home was possible before these lectures.
(4 April 1872)
It became one of the major factors leading to the sharp switch in Ibsen’s work from his early poetic and philosophical plays (The Vikings at Helgeland, or Emperor and Galilean) to his first naturalistic play, The Pillars of Society, which was completed just five years later and staged in 1877.
3.1.1 Georg Brandes, Inaugural Lecture, November 1871 (Extracts)
Translated by Evert Sprinchon
What keeps a literature alive in our days is that it submits problems to debate. Thus, for example, George Sand debates the problem of the relations between the sexes. Byron and Feuerbach religion, John Stuart Mill and Prudhon property, Turgenev, Spielhagen and Emile Augier social conditions. A literature that does not submit problems to debate loses all meaning. The people who produce such a literature may long believe that the redemption of the world will ensue, but they will eventually see their expectations disappointed. Such people have as little to do with development and progress as the fly that thought it was driving the wagon forward because it occasionally gave the four horses some harmless stings […]
If such a society produces any kind of serious literature, one should not be very surprised if its essential aim is to cast scorn on the present and put it to shame. This literature will repeatedly call the people of its time miserable wretches, and one may even find that the works which are most highly praised and most widely sold (Ibsen’s Brand, for example) are those in which the reader may discover first with horror and then with delight what a worm he is, how pitiful he is, and how cowardly! One may also notice that Will becomes the watchword of such people, and that everywhere plays about Will and philosophies of Will are being peddled. One demands what one does not possess. One calls for what one misses most bitterly. And one peddles what is most called for […]
Higher and higher mounts the enthusiasm for asceticism and positive religion. One writer outdoes the other in piling up ideals, from the top of which pile reality appears only as a distant black dot.
Where does this current finally emerge? In such figures as Paludan-Müller’s Kalanus [1854], who ecstatically commits himself to the stake, and Ibsen’s Brand, whose moral principles if realized would cause half of mankind to starve to death for the sake of an ideal.
This is where we have ended. Nowhere in all of Europe can one find more exalted ideals and only on a few places a duller intellectual life. For one would be extremely naive to believe that these heroes have their counterparts in our actual life. So strong has the current been that even a spirit as revolutionary as Ibsen’s has been seized by it. Does Brand stand for revolution or reaction? I cannot tell, there is so much of both in it.
The main principles of the previous century were freedom of research in science and the unimpeded development of humanity in literature. Whatever does not hold with this current flows down into decadence and takes the way to Byzantium. For all other movements are Byzantine: in science, Byzantine scholasticism, and in poetry, bodies and soul that do not resemble bodies and souls, but are abstract and all alike […]
Oehenschläger emancipated our poetry from the ethics of utilitarianism. Heiberg [banished from Denmark in 1799 for his republican views] freed criticism from the subjective school, gained for logic a position as honourable as that of creative literature, and won new territory for philosophy. Then came the first demands for political freedom. But the standard- bearers in literature asked, ‘Why on earth do you want political freedom when the true freedom is the inner freedom of the Will? It is always permissible to gain this and, once gained, the other freedom is absolutely without significance […]’ But these arguments did not appease the public, and we won our political freedom.
Now if once again the slogan for further progress were, ‘Freedom, the freedom of the spirit’, I think a chorus of voices would cry out in unison, ‘We mean freedom of thought and the freedom of mankind.’ These voices would not be silenced by being asked, ‘Why on earth call for freedom when you already have all you could wish for?’ – political freedom being understood. The people would be satisfied with that. For it is not so much our laws that need changing as it is
our whole conception of society. The younger generation must plough it up and replant it before a new literature can bloom and flourish. Their chief task will be to channel into our country those currents that have their origin in the revolution and in the belief in progress, and to halt the reaction at all points where its historic mission has been fulfilled.
2 ÉMILE ZOLA AND ANDRÉ ANTOINE
Written between 1875 and 1880 for Le Bien Public then Le Voltaire, Emile Zola’s dramatic criticism was collected into two volumes in 1881. Together with the chapter on theatre in his book The Experimental Novel and his Preface to Thérèse Raquin these formed a manifesto for naturalistic drama. In addition to Zola’s attack on artificial conventions and demand for realism, his crucial contribution (from the extract selected here) was to promote the integration of naturalistic plays with the revolutionary scientific approach that had emerged in the nineteenth century. The argument for moral experiment and scientific analysis, together with his practical awareness of the necessity for a coherent form of stage presentation appropriate to the new style of dramatic writing provided the basis for Naturalism in the theatre. His ideas directly influenced the French actor/ director, André Antoine, the founder of the Théâtre Libre, whose first production in 1887 was an adaptation of a short story by Zola. Zola’s critical writings provided the theory; and the extent to which it was given concrete realization in Antoine’s productions is indicated by his “Commentary on mise en scene” written for La Revue de Paris in 1903, shortly before he was appointed to head the Comedie Franchise.
The new dramatist Zola was calling for had already appeared in Ibsen, whose plays together with Strindberg’s were introduced to France by André Antoine. Strindberg consciously followed Zola in plays written after 1887; and Chekhov also admired Zola, taking a close interest in his writings about the Dreyfus affair. In addition to spreading the example of Ibsen and Strindberg through his productions of their plays, the realistic style of staging Antoine evolved encouraged a new generation of young French dramatists. Antoine’s wider influence was spread by both tours of the Théâtre Libre and by journal articles in England and elsewhere. For instance, an early description of Antoine’s work by Marie Belloc covered his first performances, critical response and commentary by leading French writers (such as Edmond de Goncourt – “Antoine’s valiant efforts in the cause of literary and dramatic truth … has profoundly modified the drama of today”). It pointed to Antoine’s effect on French acting as well as the new type of realistic detail in settings of other theatres (including the Comédie Française), and emphasized that
it is the younger French writers and foreign dramatists who owe a sincere debt of gratitude to the Théâtre Libre. To name but a few of the many who owe at least their first successes in literature to M. Antoine’s venture are Henri Lavedan, Paul Marguerite, Henri Céard, Francois de Curel, Georges Ancey, Oscar Mètènier, Count Rzewuskei (Balzac’s nephew), Paul Alexis and Michel Carré. Most of these have now taken a leading place among the French playwrights of today….
(The New Review, 1894)
3.2.1 Émile Zola, Naturalism in the Theatre, 1881
Translated by Albert Bermel
1
Each winter at the beginning of the theatre season I fall prey to the same thoughts. A hope springs up in me, and I tell myself that before the first warmth of summer empties the playhouses, a dramatist of genius will be discovered. Our theatre desperately needs a new man who will scour the debased boards and bring about a rebirth in an art degraded by its practitioners to the simple-minded requirements of the crowd. Yes, it would take a powerful personality, an innovator’s mind, to overthrow the accepted conventions and finally install the real human drama in place of the ridiculous untruths that are on display today. I picture this creator scorning the tricks of the clever hack, smashing the imposed patterns, remaking the stage until it is continuous with the auditorium, giving a shiver of life to the painted trees, letting in through the backcloth the great, free air of reality.
Unfortunately, this dream I have every October has not yet been fulfilled, and is not likely to be for some time. I wait in vain, I go from failure to failure. Is this, then, merely the naive wish of a poet? Are we trapped in today’s dramatic art, which is so confining, like a cave that lacks air and light? Certainly, if dramatic art by its nature forbids this escape into less restricted forms, it would indeed be vain to delude ourselves and to expect a renaissance at any moment. But despite the stubborn assertions of certain critics who do not like to have their standards threatened, it is obvious that dramatic art, like all the arts, has before it an unlimited domain, without barriers of any kind to left or right.
[…]
2
It seems impossible that the movement of inquiry and analysis, which is precisely the movement of the nineteenth century, can have revolutionized all the sciences and arts and left dramatic art to one side, as if isolated. The natural sciences date from the end of the last century; chemistry and physics are less than a hundred years old; history and criticism have been renovated, virtually re-created since the Revolution; an entire world has arisen; it has sent us back to the study of documents, to experience, made us realize that to start afresh we must first take things back to the beginning, become familiar with man and nature, verify what is. Thenceforward, the great naturalistic school, which has spread secredy, irrevocably, often making its way in darkness but always advancing, can finally come out triumphandy into the light of day. To trace the history of this movement, with the misunderstandings that might have impeded it and the multiple causes that have thrust it forward or slowed it down, would be to trace the history of the century itself. An irresistible current carries our society towards the study of reality. In the novel Balzac has been the bold and mighty innovator who has replaced the observation of the scholar with the imagination of the poet. But in the theatre the evolution seems slower. No eminent writer has yet formulated the idea with any clarity.
[…]
Certain things have come to pass and I point them out. Can we believe that UAmi Fritz would have been applauded at the Gomédie-Fran^aise twenty years ago? Definitely not! This play, in which people eat all the time and the lover talks in such homely language, would have disgusted both the classicists and the romantics. To explain its success we must concede that as the years have gone by a secret fermentation has been at work. Lifelike paintings, which used to repel the public, today attract them. The majority has been won over and the stage is open to every experiment. This is the only conclusion to draw.
So that is where we stand. […] I maintain that Romanticism in the theatre was an uncomplicated revolt, the invasion by a victorious group who took over the stage violendy with drums beating and flags flying. In these early moments the combatants dreamed of making their imprint with a new form; to one rhetoric they opposed another: the Middle Ages to Antiquity, the exalting of passion to the exalting of duty. And that was all, for only the conventions were altered. The characters remained marionettes in new clothing. Only the exterior aspect and the language were modified. But for the period that was enough. Romanticism had taken possession of the theatre in the name of literary freedom and it carried out its revolutionary task with incomparable bravura. But who does not see today that its role could extend no farther than that? Does romanticism have anything whatever to say about our present society? Does it meet one of our requirements? Obviously not. It is as outmoded as a jargon we no longer follow. […] It provided the occasion for a magnificent flowering of lyricism; that will be its eternal glory. Today, with the evolution accomplished, it is plain that romanticism was no more than the necessary link between classicism and naturalism. The struggle is over; now we must found a secure state. Naturalism flows out of classical art, just as our present society has arisen from the wreckage of the old society. Naturalism alone corresponds to our social needs; it alone has deep roots in the spirit of our times; and it alone can provide a living, durable formula for our art, because
this formula will express the nature of our contemporary intelligence. There may be fashions and passing fantasies that exist outside naturalism but they will not survive for long. I say again, naturalism is the expression of our century and it will not die until a new upheaval transforms our democratic world.
Only one thing is needed now: men of genius who can fix the naturalistic formula. Balzac has done it for the novel and the novel is established. When will our Corneilles, Molières and Racines appear to establish our new theatre?
[…]
Take our present environment, then, and try to make men live in it: you will write great works. It will undoubtedly call for some effort; it means sifting out of the confusion of life the simple formula of naturalism. Therein lies the difficulty: to do great things with the subjects and characters that our eyes, accustomed to the spectacle of the daily round, have come to see as small. I am aware that it is more convenient to present a marionette to the public and name it Charlemagne and puff it up with such tirades that the public believes it is watching a colossus; it is more convenient than taking a bourgeois of our time, a grotesque, unsightly man, and drawing sublime poetry out of him, making him, for example, Père Goriot, the father who gives his guts for his daughters, a figure so gigantic with truth and love that no other literature can offer his equal.
[…]
The future is with naturalism. The formula will be found; it will be proved that there is more poetry in the little apartment of a bourgeois than in all the empty, worm-eaten palaces of history; in the end we will see that everything meets in the real: lovely fantasies that are free of capriciousness and whimsy, and idylls, and comedies, and dramas. Once the soil has been turned over, the task that seems alarming and unfeasible today will become easy.
A Sourcebook on Naturalist Theatre Page 7