Initial Ideas

Arranged marriage Idea:
with our arranged marriage idea we have decided to use naturalism.
 This would make the piece hard hitting but without loosing any of the interesting elements of a performance so we didn't want to use realism. Before this piece I didn't understand the difference between realism and naturalism so I did some research.

Realism

·         characters are believable, everyday types

·         costumes are authentic

·         the realist movement in the theatre and subsequent performance style have greatly influenced 20th century theatre and cinema and its effects are still being felt today

·         triggered by Stanislavski’s system of realistic acting at the turn of the 20th century, America grabbed hold of its own brand of this performance style (American realism) and acting (method acting) in the 1930s, 40s and 50s (The Group Theatre, The Actors Studio)

·         stage settings (locations) and props are often indoors and believable

·         the ‘box set’ is normally used for realistic dramas on stage, consisting of three walls and an invisible ‘fourth wall’ facing the audience

·         settings for realistic plays are often bland (deliberately ordinary), dialogue is not heightened for effect, but that of everyday speech (vernacular)

·         The drama is typically psychologically driven, where the plot is secondary and primary focus is placed on the interior lives of characters, their motives, the reactions of others etc.

·         Realistic plays often see the protagonist (main character) rise up against the odds to assert him/herself against an injustice of some kind (eg. Nora in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House)

·         realistic dramas quickly gained popularity because the everyday person in the audience could identify with the situations and characters on stage

·         Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (A Doll’s House, Hedda Gabler) is considered the father of modern realism in the theatre

Naturalism

·         in terms of style, naturalism is an extreme or heightened form of realism

·         as a theatrical movement and performance style, naturalism was short-lived

·         Stage time equals real time – eg. three hours in the theatre equals three hours for the characters in the world of the play

·         costumes, sets and props are historically accurate and very detailed, attempting to offer a photographic reproduction of reality (‘slice of life’)

·         as with realism, settings for naturalistic dramas are often bland and ordinary

·         naturalistic dramas normally follow rules set out by the Greek philosopher Aristotle, known as ‘the three unities’ (of time, place and action)

·         the action of the play takes place in a single location over the time frame of a single day

·         jumps in time and/or place between acts or scenes is not allowed

·         playwrights were influenced by naturalist manifestos written by French novelist and playwright Emile Zola in the preface to Therese Raquin (1867 novel, 1873 play) and Swedish playwright August Strindberg in the preface to Miss Julie (1888)

·         naturalism explores the concept of scientific determinism (spawning from Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution) – characters in the play are shaped by their circumstances and controlled by external forces such as hereditary or their social and economic environment

·         often characters in naturalistic plays are considered victims of their own circumstance and this is why they behave in certain ways (they are seen as helpless products of their environment)

·         characters are often working class/lower class (as opposed to the mostly middle class characters of realistic dramas)

·         naturalistic plays regularly explore sordid subject matter previously considered taboo on the stage in any serious manner (eg suicide, poverty, prostitution)

Sources:
Burton, B., Living Drama 4E
Crawford, J., L., Acting in Person and in Style
Dobson, W., and Neelands, J., Theatre Directions
Styan, J., L., Modern Drama in Theory and Practice 1: Realism and Naturalism

Source: http://www.thedramateacher.com/realism-and-naturalism-theatre-conventions/

This shows that realism is the practice of making a piece as real as possible, meaning everything is as it would be in real life, Dialogue is real vernacular and costumes are as real as possible.

Where as naturalism is about enhancing the real style to make it more entertaining but still believable.

Mr Webb said " realism is like watching big brother, whereas naturalism is like watching a good film."