well as you might guess though not everyone was into melodrama and specifically a bunch of better educated well more educated um theater goers who said you know um we don't need special effects and scantily clad uh foreign ladies to be able to enjoy an evening of theater and because of that we developed this the last this last of our genres which is realism and realism to this day is probably the most significant development in theater since shakespeare um reason being we still acting still subscribes to the kind of acting that was created during this time period and that's today true today on film on tv and in theater so realism if you look at this picture you're looking at a picture of henry gibson's the doll's house you can see that again the women with those dresses i was talking about completely caging in their body but very typical of the time period this is taking place in the 1870s and we're in the inside of a living room the inside of a house and you can see there's very specific details but very realistic items that would be inside the house chairs that the characters can sit on and notice the chairs are all different they're they're very realistic to what would actually be in a house rugs on the stage floor we are looking at a stage but this looks like you're looking into an actual living room curtains on the windows books on the bookshelf and my favorite actual light fixtures that aren't going to provide much stage lighting we all i hope you all know that there's a lot of different lighting instruments that have to light a stage but these are realistic and actually working lighting instruments that they've installed on the set again to help make this a realistic feel here's a similar photo from a different production of hada gabler another henrik hibson play again you can see a functional light fixture a chandelier even though we can see that these are all the stage lights that are actually the ones on top are the ones actually lighting the stage another rug or carpet or two on the stage floor which is painted a wood wood grain to look like an actual floor curtains that work lighting fixtures up there books and knick-knacks on the shelves actual wings cutting the detail is so precise and those costumes again very very very precise but detailed but accurate for the time period so remember that science and darwinism the evolution of the species were also very important during this time period and this notion of incorporating science and um [Music] all of those improvements are actually going on to the stage as well and realism is really the movement in arts and literature to portray the drama or beauty of realistic everyday life men and women husbands and wives children existing in their living rooms inside of their own houses have drama every day why shouldn't we portray that on the stage it doesn't have to be pirates going out and having adventures or quasimodo um you know running around the the cathed the um cathedral of deutsche dam and it doesn't have to be in the jungles of of africa that we're having some adventure or melodrama we can have just as engaging material and just as meaningful and powerful material happening within our own homes many of the set pieces for realism are many of the locations are set inside their interior locations but this is very important you will probably be asked this on a quiz what was the purpose or what what what is the purpose of um realism and the answer is to portray the drama and beauty of real of everyday life please please please asterisk that and star it um often this is called psychological drama because we get into the psychology that goes on in these characters realistic drama examines human behavior how we interact with one another whether it's within a marriage within a father-son or a mother-daughter relationship um as a society etc but it's all about the way humans work with each other um and the sort of forefather for this kind of these kind of plays was henrik ibsen a norwegian playwright he was from norway uh three of his very famous plays were a doll's house had a gabler and the master builder each of these plays dealt with a different social issue a doll's house was about a woman who is confined to just being a mother and a housewife and once more for herself had a gabbler uh you can actually see in this picture she actually um is in an abusive marriage and she tries to kill her husband uh at the end she's holding the gun there and the master builder about an architect who is obsessed with fame and glory and financial uh success and realism really took off in russia so what uh constantine stanislavski who was a an actor and a director um he realized that as these new types of plays are being written by henrik ibsen or the russian playwright anton chekhov who you see listed here um we need a new acting style that can accurately work convey this type of work because previously the melodramatic acting style where you relied on poses or sounding of your voice to sound like you're upset was very indicating was very fake and silly so that the masses could understand so that um people without a lot of education or focus would understand what was going on it was very surface level and cartoonish and yet with these much more subtle plays we need a more realistic acting style so stanislavski was working at a theater in moscow called the moscow art theater or emcat and again working with anton chekhov the playwright whose most famous plays were the seagull uncle vanya the three sisters and the cherry orchard stanislavski created through experimentation a scientific method a way to create realistic acting every day right part of the problem was that actors until now had relied on sort of inspiration from the muses or being touched by the gods of theater i'm i'm purposely exaggerating maybe tonight i'll turn in a good performance but maybe tomorrow i won't and stanislavski said this is a business we need to just like sports just like athleticism uh or medicine we need to create a scientific approach where i can recreate a believable in a real and good performance every night as an actor and that's what he did and he created a technique um that to this day is utilized by actors in hollywood in tv and in theater so we owe a lot to stanislavski what you recognize as acting today is all thanks to constantine stanislavski you'll notice here is a picture of a production of the three sisters by anton chekhov again notice all the realistic details the furniture that they're sitting on or standing uh standing near we have portraits on the wall this is in it takes place in russia so you see there's icons which is part of russian orthodoxy you see the drinking glasses and the wine goblets on the table actually filled with drinkable wine that the characters can drink from very detailed costume many of the male characters are in the military here uh flowers in the vases that are real flowers are meant to look like real flowers which would be decorating um the area at the time um it's it's it's extremely detailed but also it is meant to look like real life and that is about as uh characteristic of this genre as you can get all right so that is our exploration of romanticism melodrama and realism and uh you will be looking at we're gonna look at either anton chekhov's um [Music] uh excuse me anton chekhov's um why am i blanking the cherry orchard thank you the cherry orchard or henrik ibsen's a doll's house and you're gonna be comparing that with an american naturalist writer uh who we'll talk about soon named zora neale hurston okay thank you