Naturalism

The term used by Emile Zola in the late nineteenth century to describe a new, scientific method of novel-writing and playwriting. Influenced by medical science—and a few naturalist playwrights were actually doctors—Naturalism aimed to diagnose human crimes and evils as dispassionately as a doctor would a disease. Like specimens in an experiment, Naturalist characters are placed within specific biological, political, and social conditions, conditions that are often referred to collectively as "heredity" and "environment." The goal is to observe, as objectively and unmoralistically as possible, what kind of behaviour results (see determinism). Naturalist works can be grim in tone and detailed in their realism, often focusing on the ugly or "pathological" side of life (suicide, infanticide, poverty, venereal disease, prostitution).

Neoclassical Dramaturgy

The principles, rules, and conventions of writing plays according to the precepts and ideals of neoclassicism. Often based on the so-called unities of time, place, and action.

Neoclassicism

Literally the "new classicism," the aesthetic style in drama and other art forms that dominated high culture in Europe through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and in some places into the nineteenth century, or until it was swept away by Romanticism. Its subject matter was often taken from Greek and Roman myth and history; but more important than its subject matter was its style , which was based on a selective and often downright false image of the ancient world. It valued order, reason, clarity, and moderation; it rejected strong contrasts in tone, as well as, usually, the supernatural and anything that cannot be rationally motivated within the plot of a play (such as the appearance of gods, witches, or a dancing chorus). Racine's Phèdre is considered one of the most perfectly realized neoclassical dramas. See also unities.

New Comedy

A type of comic play that flourished in ancient Greece from the fourth century b.c.e., particularly under such playwrights as Menander. It was later imported into Rome, where its plots and characters were reworked in Latin. Replacing Old Comedy after Athens' defeat in the Peloponnesian War, it focused on private, everyday domestic situations involving parent-child disharmony, money, neighbours, and parental obstacles to love and marriage. Its young lovers, bad-tempered parents, scheming slaves, and golden-hearted prostitutes quickly achieved the status of stock characters. Also known as situation comedy.

Old Comedy

The type of dramatic satire practiced in fifth-century Athens and equated today with the works of Aristophanes (see Frogs in this volume). The genre is known for its fantastical and unrealistic episodic plots, its frequent use of animal choruses (frogs, birds, wasps, horse-mounted knights), and particularly for its brilliant verbal wit, free obscenity, and fearless attacks on living Athenian politicians and other public figures (e.g., Euripides and Socrates). See also chorus.

Operetta

Also known as "light opera." A theatrical work that is mostly sung and intended to be performed by professional singers. Associated with the works of Franz Lehar and Johann Strauss II, operetta differs from opera in three ways: it features longer unsung spoken scenes, tends to treat lighter, frothier subjects, and uses less challenging and more popular musical idioms. See also musical theatre.

Orchestra

Literally, "the dancing place." In the ancient world it was the lower, flat, circular surface-area of the outdoor theatre where the chorus danced and sang. It was also used by fifty­member choirs in the performance of dithyrambs, which were danced in a circular formation. As the dancing chorus disappeared from drama, the orchestra shrank to a semi-circle below a raised stage; over the centuries, it was eventually given over to musicians. The term is mainly used in the theatre today to refer to this orchestra-pit, or to the ground-floor seats of the auditorium, also called the parterre or stalls.


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