Theatrical Realism Theatrical Realism is the attempt of playwrights to mirror reality on the stage. That is to say, these playwrights intend for the audience to see themselves on the stage without fanfare – a stripped-down form of theatrical arts. Realistic theatre does not possess the magical elements of theatre that preceded it, but this is the strength of realism. Anton Chekhov echoes this point, “I wanted to tell people honestly: ‘Look at yourselves. See how badly you live and how tiresome you are.’ The main thing is that people should understand this. When they do, they will surely create a new and better life for themselves”. Realistic playwrights stood on the shoulders of the giants of theatre who preceded them by continuing to look at their times and people, but shattered new earth by asking audiences to look in to themselves. Realism is theatre in which people move and talk in a similar manner to that of our everyday behavior. The style has been dominant for the last 120 years. It holds the idea of the stage as an environment, and not just an acting platform. Some of the ideas flourishing in realism’s formative years were Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species and Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto. Both of these works profoundly impacted the intelligentsia. They called into question the foundations on which the people of the world had built their truths. Marx, especially, can be seen as an important figure of the realistic movement as he sought to awaken the working class to the squalor of their condition and the power that they possessed to lift themselves from that condition. As the world began to awaken to new ideas, playwrights began to look for a new way to ask the question. As British philosopher Bertrand Russell once said “The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow for an answer.” Thus, the art of realism was born to pose the questions to the people in a new way. Realism came to the fore in the late nineteenth century with Henrik Ibsen as its progenitor. Ibsen is often referred to as the father of modern drama. His realistic plays introduced us to a critical eye and unrestricted examination of life and the issues of morality. The middle class was the focus of realism and they are omnipresent on the realist stage. In A Doll’s House, Ibsen takes on the subject of duty and domestic relations. The play follows the awakening of Nora Helmer, an average wife and stay at home mother, from her unexamined life of servitude. All of her life, she has been ruled by a man – her father and then her husband, Torvald. Nora slowly begins to question the foundations on which she has built her reality. She slowly evolves from being a childlike play doll to a woman who is determined to know not only what her place in the world is but also what it could be. The play ends with Nora leaving her dollhouse for the uncertainties of the real world. The characters of A Doll’s House are everyday folks and their speech is just like our own. There are no soliloquies, no exaggerated rapid-fire dialog or anything else that would disrupt the feeling of the audience that they are eavesdropping in on people’s lives. This trend toward a greater fidelity in the text can also be attributed to the Russian director Constantin Stanislavski. Stanislavski developed the system that bears his name around the idea of the actor living a part. Stanislavski’s system focused on the actor connecting with a part. Stanislavski believed that acting could be learned and could be learned step by step. The system places a great emphasis on an actor visualizing a person for their character. For instance, the actor is instructed to hear the character’s voice, see his walk, and even know how the character would react to certain situations. He believed that if an actor knew her characters thoughts, the proper vocal and bodily expressions would naturally follow. This all leads to a more fleshed out character that the audience can more easily relate with. As Stanislavski himself said, “All action on the stage must have an inner justification, be logical, coherent, and real” (Benedetti: 62). Realism also stresses the importance of the text being in the vernacular of the people it is portraying. Ibsen uses common language to convey the story. Ibsen writes the way that the characters would talk in relation to each other. Torvald repeatedly condescends to his wife Nora referring to her as various “simple” animals and often as a child. A marriage based on male dominance and female subservience was typical of the era and thus, must be depicted on the stage. At times throughout the play, one can almost hear oneself speaking the very words of the characters. In some of the most important and tense exchanges, the words are simplest and most accessible. When Nora confronts Torvald about being treated as a doll, she uses words that a person today might use to describe their dissatisfaction with a relationship. She says, “You never loved me. You’ve thought it fun to be in love with me”. This emphasis on normal speaking epitomizes realism at its core of translating everyday situations in to universal themes. While prior theatrical epochs often relied on the supernatural to tell a story or to tie loose ends, realistic playwrights distance themselves from the fantastical. The playwrights consider it unsophisticated and unnecessary for they see themselves as replicating the world of normalcy. It is evident from the outset of A Doll’s House that there will be no apparitions of any kind as the drama of the play is too close to home to use artificial devices. Realistic playwrights sought to make another connection with audiences by putting them in their proverbial own backyards. Many plays of the period were centered in the homes of the characters and other common and comfortable locales. It is not by accident that the entire play of A Doll’s House takes place in the Helmer’s own living room. The implication is that our own lives must be examined and inspected just as Nora discovered. Some playwrights took the extreme of this and offered an experience that was much more rigid called naturalism. Naturalists called for the theatre to become a world of its own. Naturalism is the attempt to create a perfect illusion and environment of a dramatic piece. To achieve this, playwrights such as Swedish playwright August Strindberg, sometimes directed that there not be so much as an intermission so the audience could become fully immersed in the actions of the players and the atmosphere of the play. This has serious limitations of course and thus, is less prominent than realism. The signature of the realist theatre is how conflicts are resolved. By the end of the play, Nora has decided that she must leave her husband. Nora has been crushed by the fact that her husband would not protect her against the world. She saw herself as being his property but also, as his pride. When Nora realizes that Torvald will not sacrifice himself for her sake, her world crumbles. She gives him her wedding ring back and leaves the keys. Torvald begs her to stay. At first glance, this seems reasonable. Nora has sacrificed her whole life for Torvald and realizes that he would not have done the same thing for her. In this moment, we step back and congratulate Nora for being the kind of woman that people view as the idealized strong woman our society wants to create. Then, we look a little closer. Nora has left her husband who didn’t know any better than to treat his wife as a doll. More importantly, she has left her kids without giving any explanation to them and here’s the rub. We ask how it is that any adult could abandon their children through no fault of their own. Yet, it seems that Ibsen is content with her decision. Nora, of course, is the heroin and it follows that she should be liberated but not at the expense of her innocent children. To counterbalance this, Ibsen uses Nora’s friend, Kristine, as her foil. Kristine is introduced to us as world weary and jaded. She is highly critical of Nora’s naïveté. Though she does seem to be in a state of misery, she maintains an air of dignity for being on her own in a cold world. Kristine’s been to the bottom, has rebounded, and asks for nothing but the chance to prove her worth. By the conclusion of the play, Kristine however is back in the safety of a marriage. She and Krogstad, the relative villain of the play, decide that it would be best for both of them to work together as husband and wife. Kristine offers to take care of his children and be the wife that he needs her to be. Kristine finds her salvation in the life that Nora must leave to find her own salvation. Thus, we are left with the stark realization that there simply isn’t one path for everyone to follow to happiness. We are left with a blurred idea of what is right and wrong – just as right and wrong is circumstantial in our real lives. As evidenced in A Doll’s House, realism is a powerful and informing kind of theatre. It derives its power from the truth of the characters that populate its stage. Some critics of realism claim that it is too restricting in its structure, but this structure forces the playwright to strip down life to its core and put it on a stage. As Yale Professor Raymond Tallis quotes Harold Bloom, “the critical event is as poetically compelling as the poetic event” (32). While the drama may be in a sense, less dramatized, it is still a powerful tool that infiltrates our own consciousness and conceptions of our world.

Theatrical Realism

Jerome Sampson
THR 159

December 2, 2008

Works Cited

Benedetti, Jean. 1999. Stanislavski: His Life and Art. London: Meuthen, 1988.

Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll’s House. 1879. New York: New American Library, 2006.

Tallis, Raymond. In Defence of Realism. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998.