MODERN THEATRE

Click on player above to see a clip from Mother Courage.

Click on player above to see a clip from Sweeney Todd. Notice how the audience members are reminded that they are in a theatre—backdrop represents London; actors act as stage hands turning the set around; the set itself acts as a barber shop, home and pie shop. Sweeney Todd is not a musical by Brecht, but the alienation aspects are clearly Brechtian.

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)

Brecht is noted for his "Epic Theatre" & the "alienation" effect (Sweeney Todd used as an example). Brecht's plays were theme or idea-centered, as opposed to the plot or conflict-centered nature of the "well-made" play. Brecht wanted neither actor nor audience to lose themselves, to escape, to forget that the events on stage were not real. He wanted audiences to confront, consciously and rationally, both themselves and the stage, so that they might learn what needed to be done in society. Emotional sympathy or empathy with characters and situations interfered with the actors' and audience's ability to remain critical. Instead of leaving the theatre in tears, the objective was to send the audience into the streets to take action. Brecht was the first to mention the alienation effect in acting. The actors were to play directly to the audience as a way of reminding them that they were in a theatre and to keep them from losing themselves in the characters and action. "I wanted to apply to the theatre the saying that one should not only interpret but change the world. Good Woman of Setzan, Mother Courage, Caucasian Chalk Circle, & Three Penny Opera.

Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) (Scene from Happy Days)

Click on player above to see a scene from Happy Days. Irene Worth, stars as Winnie, an optimist who deep down senses she has little to feel "happy" about. On a literal level the burden of "Happy Days" is soon told. As the curtain goes up, Winnie, a woman no longer young, is embedded up to her bosom in a mound of earth in an expanse of scorched grass. She chatters incessantly to Willie, presumably her mate, who is all but unseen. She seeks to fill the hours. She reminisces, comments, laughs, grumbles. She assures herself that this is one of her happy days, when in fact she is on the verge of tears.

In the second act she has sunk into the mound so that only her head is visible, and now she cannot move it. Despite the desperation of her predicament, this is another of her happy days. For at the end Willie, dressed formally as if for a diplomatic function or a funeral, crawls out and strives to reach her. Fruitlessly, of course. Mr. Beckett knows that Winnie's hopes are false--and so does she.

Mr. Beckett's objective is anything but literal. "Happy Days" is surely his allegory of the human condition. Poor Winnie babbling away pretends that she has created order out of her odd incarceration. She is aware that Willie's "marvelous gift" is to sleep. She calls to him anyhow: "Just to know that in theory you hear me even though in fact you don't is all I need." This is the mercy for which she pleads.

Existentialism and Samuel Beckett's Theatre of the Absurd.  "As I get it, The Theatre of the Absurd is an absorption-in-art of certain existentialist and post-existentialist philosophical concepts having to do, in the main, with man's attempts to make sense for himself out of his senseless position in a world which makes no sense--which makes no sense because the moral, religious, political, and social structures man has erected to 'illusion' himself have collapsed." Edward Albee . Happy Days, Waiting for Godot, & Endgame.

Waiting for Godot

Click on player above to see a scene from Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett.

Waiting for Godot, by the Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, was first produced at the Theatre de Babylone, Paris, in 1953. On a country road in a deserted landscape marked by a single leafless tree, Estragon and Vladimir are waiting for someone named Godot. To pass the time, they play games, quarrel, make up, fall asleep. In comes Pozzo, leading Lucky by a rope tied around his neck. Pozzo demonstrates that Lucky is his obedient servant, and Lucky entertains them with a monologue that is a jumble of politics and theology. They disappear into the darkness, and Godot's messenger (a boy) announces that Mr. Godot will not come today but will definitely come tomorrow.

Since "Waiting for Godot" is an allegory written in a heartless modern tone, a theatre-goer naturally rummages through the performance in search of a meaning. It seems fairly certain that Godot stands for God. Those who are loitering by the withered tree are waiting for salvation, which never comes.

The rest of the symbolism is more elusive. But it is not a pose. For Mr. Beckett's drama adumbrates--rather than expresses--an attitude toward man's experience on earth; the pathos, cruelty, comradeship, hope, corruption, filthiness and wonder of human existence. Faith in God has almost vanished. But there is still an illusion of faith flickering around the edges of the drama. It is as though Mr. Beckett sees very little reason for clutching at faith, but is unable to relinquish it entirely.

Two paragraphs above taken from a review entitled Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot' By BROOKS ATKINSON April 20, 1956

Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

In the world of Jean Paul Sartre existence precedes essence. That is, first one must exist, then project a self-image or define oneself through actions taken and works of art created. Human beings are condemned to be free; the only limit to their freedom is freedom itself. If there is no God, the individual is free to create their own happiness or hell. In No Exit, "Hell is other people."

No Exit

One-act philosophical drama by Jean-Paul Sartre, performed in 1944 and published in 1945. It is titled in French Huis clos, sometimes also translated as In Camera or Dead End. The play proposes that "hell is other people" rather than a state created by God.

The play begins with a bellman ushering three recently deceased people into a room. They are Garcin, a revolutionary who betrayed his own cause and wants to be reassured that he is not a coward; Estelle, a nymphomaniac who has killed her illegitimate child; and Inez, a predatory lesbian. (The latter two have driven people they loved to suicide.) Each of the three requires another person for self-definition, yet is most attracted to the person who is most likely to cause great distress. Their inability to escape from each other guarantees their eternal torture.

Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) (Six Characters in Search of an Author)

Click on player above to see a scene from Six Characters in Search of an Author.

Luigi Pirandello wrote realistic plays that questioned the very fact of reality. In many of his plays, the given circumstances are hidden throughout the play. The truth of the dramatic situation, like the truth of life, can never be known. Pirandello saw existence as a confused layering of masks and faces-one internal, others external, some self-made, others demanded by society. Where could one find reality, truth or even identity? Because layers of illusion and numerous masks are stripped away to no avail, the truth remains just beyond the next layer or mask.

Short Summary

A group of actors are preparing to rehearse for a Pirandello play. While starting the rehearsal, they are interrupted by the arrival of six characters. The leader of the characters, the father, informs the manager that they are looking for an author. He explains that the author who created them did not finish their story, and that they therefore are unrealized characters who have not been fully brought to life. The manager tries to throw them out of the theater, but becomes more intrigued when they start to describe their story.

The father is an intellectual who married a peasant woman (the mother). Things went well until she fell in love with his male secretary. Having become bored with her over the years, the father encouraged her to leave with his secretary. She departs from him, leaving behind the eldest son who becomes bitter for having been abandoned.

The mother starts a new family with the other man and has three children. The father starts to miss her, and actively seeks out the other children in order to watch them grow up. The step-daughter recalls that he used to wait for her after school in order to give her presents. The other man eventually moves away from the city with the family and the father loses track of them.

After the other man dies, the mother and her children return to the city. She gets a job in Madame Pace's dress shop, unaware that Madame Pace is more interested in using her daughter as a prostitute. One day the father arrives and Madame Pace sets him up with the daughter. He starts to seduce her but they are interrupted when the mother sees him and screams out. Embarrassed, he allows the step-daughter and the entire family to move in with him, causing his son to resent them for intruding in his life.

The manager agrees to become the author for them and has them start to play the scene where the father is in the dress shop meeting the step-daughter for the first time. He soon stops the plot and has his actors attempt to mimic it, but both the father and the step-daughter protest that it is terrible and not at all realistic. He finally stops the actors and allows the father and step-daughter to finish the scene.

The manager changes the setting for the second scene and forces the characters to perform it in the garden of the father's house. The mother approaches the son and tries to talk to him, but he refuses and leaves her. Entering the garden, he sees the youngest daughter drowned in the fountain and rushes over to pull her out. In the process, he spots the step-son with a revolver. The young boy shoots himself, causing the mother to scream out for him while running over to him.

The manager, watching this entire scene, is unable to tell if it is still acting or if it is reality. Fed up with the whole thing, he calls for the end of the rehearsal.

Summary taken from Gradesaver.com.