Lessons_20thc_Presentations

Lessons from
20th Century Presentations

Diane Howard, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2002

At the turn of the twentieth century, stage productions were often marked by the development of realism and then naturalism with sad or tragic themes. New experimental forms emerged after WWI, which were commonly marked by chance, fragmentation, and hopelessness. There was little appeal to reason and logic, but rather to non-reason and non-rationality.

On the other hand, twentieth-century, one-person productions were more frequently characterized by positive, redemptive, and celebratory elements. Early in the century, platform performance developed into solo theatre, after the decline of Tent Chautauqua and Lyceum Circuits. An outstanding solo performer in the early twentieth century was Ruth Draper. She was a multilingual character actress who broke all records for solo performances in her vast array of characterizations. Ruth Draper was popular with common people and government leaders in the United States and in Great Britain for nearly three decades. Other popular performers from 1920-1950 were Cissie Loftus, Dorothy Sands, Cornelia Otis Skinner and Charles Laughton.

After WWII some American playwrights developed psychologically realistic plays with penetrating analyses of human characters in simplified settings and in compressed time. However, sadness, tragedy, cynicism, pessimism, and/or hopelessness often pervaded these plays. New theater forms emerged after WWII, which were often marked by desire for escapism. After WWII Theater of the Absurd became influential. Since Absurdists thought there was little hope in reason or in the emotions, they tended to emphasize the illogical, confusing, and hostile elements in life. Their plays put strange people, in strange episodes, in strange relationships. Examples were Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Edward Albee’s Zoo Story. For modern, twentieth-century, humanistic man, there was commonly little reference to universal absolutes. For many there was little hope except in existentialism and non-reason.

A refreshing renaissance in one-person shows emerged in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Emlyn Williams portrayed Charles Dickens. Hal Holbrook presented Mark Twain. One-person biographical shows were prolific in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Julie Harris portrayed Emily Dickinson and Charlotte Bronte; James Whitmore, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Will Rogers; Alec McCowen, Rudyard Kipling; Henry Fonda, Clarence Darrow; Ben Kingsley, Edmund Kean; and James Earl Jones, Paul Robeson and so forth.

In the 1980’s one-person performances of Shakespeare and the Bible emerged. John Gielgud performed the Ages of Man. Ian McKellen presented Acting Shakespeare. Alec McCowen presented St. Mark’s Gospel. Ben Kingsley won an Oscar for his film portrayal of Gandhi. Lily Tomlin, Whoopi Goldberg, and Eric Bogosian were famed monologists. Dylan Thomas was popular as a writer/performer. Eventually there was a performance shift from biography to subjective autobiography and to autoperformance. In the 1980’s-1990’s, Spalding Gray captivated audiences with autoperformative storytelling. He was followed by other autobiographical monologists, who performed in a storytelling style similar to that of Gray.

In the 1990’s, Anna Deveare Smith promoted social awareness and facilitated social understanding, as she remarkably performed a host of African American and Jewish individuals in her one-woman show, Fires in the Mirror. Concerned with individual voices within conflicting racial groups, Smith immersed herself in the inner-city, minority cultures in Crown Heights in Brooklyn, New York. Her intervention involved listening to and then performing individuals, who normally would not be heard, from the conflicting, racial groups. She conducted lengthy personal interviews of key individuals from the Black and Jewish communities. These individuals had been involved with the tragic death of a young African American boy. The boy was playing on a sidewalk, when the car of a rabbi went over the curb and killed the child. This incident touched off intense racial hostilities.

Smith transcribed with great precision the voices of those she interviewed. She established the identity of those she performed by listening to, transcribing, and replicating their speech. She then mirrored many of these individuals as she portrayed them. Through Fires in the Mirror, she performed individuals from both groups by using their own words. (Reinelt 1996:609-617) She used the process she developed in Crown Heights in Los Angles following the Rodney King verdict to produce her one-woman production, Twilight. She built bridges of understanding. Her research and subsequent powerful performances were novel. Her approach was others-based. Her research and performances brought compassionate insight into racial tensions in inner cities.

In the late 1990’s, autobiographical performers were more self-reflexive in light of heightened awareness of issues of identity in social, cultural, and political life and due to the desire to give voice to marginalized groups. Performers from marginalized groups, in the late 1990’s, sought to establish specific, authentic identities and to disengage themselves from false stereotypes

The late twentiethcentury was filled with creative and fascinating performance experimentation. Marked by significant social activism, late twentieth century performance promoted awareness of the need for truthful identity in marginalized groups who had struggled to free themselves of stereotypical, and/or false identities. Diversity in performance was encouraged. University performance studies departments expanded theater, dance, literature and other related studies to include performance issues from cultures around the world. Multi-media technologies enriched visual and auditory production elements. Video, computer, television, and film technologies facilitated access to performances. American and international musical theatre richly developed. Theater pieces, which expounded biblical truth and which provided hope, emerged. Revivals of romantic, classic tales and early American musicals provided refreshment in an era often characterized by escapism and non-reason (reflected even in Seinfeld’s situational comedy-about nothing).

It was also a period of post-modern thinking commonly characterized by little belief in absolutes or universals. Ambiguity and uncertainty was often dominant. The twentieth century was a marked throughout by pessimism, cynicism, and hope only in existentialism. In the twentieth century, the comic-tragedy genre developed; laughter was stimulated by slapstick activities of pathetic people in pathetic situations. Almost anything was accepted for comic relief. Often visual spectacle superceded substance in performance. Drama became increasingly coarse, erotic, and violent. At the end of the twentieth century, artistic performances frequently reflected elements at the bottom of the downward aesthetic spiral, which were evident in earlier periods of dramatic history.

In order to produce stories in the twenty-first century, which are more edifying, it is instructive to reflect on historical elements, which have strengthened enduring, redeeming stories, often rendering them classics. Central to good stories are intriguing and colorful characters. When stories are about characters who display fascinating personalities and engaging use of language, the tales are more insured of aesthetic and lasting impact. Classic stories, which survive the test of time from generation to generation, seem to be about characters who are larger-than-life and whose lives reflect universal truths. These characters often overcome significant physical, personal, social, or cultural barriers. Having complex, multi-dimensional personalities, they are often paradoxical. They are usually intense, passionate, or energetic. They are frequently unique, colorful, reflective, and insightful. Through their responses to life events, they commonly teach and inspire. As they develop over time, they are often role models.