Theatre History - Naturalism Trivia Quiz

Answer: False

Realism started in the 1850s in France. Naturalism began in the 1870s and was an extreme extension of Realism, but its absolutism contributed to its short life span.

Answer: Theatre is a petrie dish for humanity.

Naturalists thought that theatre should examine life scientifically. They were interested in the details, including the sordid, crude aspects. What's more, the Naturalists didn't believe in selectivity, so all details were included, just as in life.

This was in contrast to other approaches to theatre, wherein the process of creating theatre included deciding what should and shouldn't be included; in Naturalism, everything was included!

Answer: France

Zola was a French novelist who advocated objectivity in writing and theatre. He thought that a novel (or work of theatre) should observe and represent life as it really is.

Answer: Theatre Libre

The Theatre Libre was founded in 1887 and was organized around the ideals of Naturalism. Antoine used many amateur actors because he could train them specifically for the Naturalist style.

Answer: a barrel of real fish

A Naturalist production would want real fish for the actors and audience. The smell, in particular, would contribute to the environment being created onstage. The other answers are all examples of theatrical artifice, which would have been shunned by Naturalists.

Answer: False

A Naturalist playwright would use unstructured, unedited language in order to best craft a bit of reality for the stage. Naturalist plays frequently use dialects and embrace frank, colloquial speech with vulgarities when necessary.

Answer: Miss Julie

"The Robbers" was from Strindberg's early career, and was a social satire. "A Dream Play" came later and was a surrealist work. "The Ghost Sonata" was from Strindberg's last writing phase, when he was creating for his Intimate Theatre, which mixed realism and non-realism. "Miss Julie" and Strindberg's "The Father" were both written during his Naturalist phase, when he was working with unaffected dialogue and psychological complexity coupled with stark physical settings.

Answer: Konstantin Stanislavsky

It was under Stanislavsky's direction that the MAT produced a number of Chekhov's plays, including "The Seagull" and "The Cherry Orchard". Though written in a stylized manner, the plays were produced in the vein of Naturalism, which caused some friction between Chekhov and Stanislavsky.

Answer: Maxim Gorky

Gorky's plays often revolved around class struggles, and "The Lower Depths" was no exception. It was set in a flophouse where a number of lower class outcasts struggled with the state of their lives. Apparently, the production was so effectively designed that a number of audience members feared getting lice!

Answer: actors face front

Actors positioning themselves open to the audience had been a convention long before Naturalism, and the movement actually tried to minimize use of the position. Naturalism instead favored stage-focused acting rather than audience-focused acting. This ties into the idea of the fourth wall, wherein there is an invisible wall between the stage and audience, that the audience can see into but the actors don't see out of. Naturalism embraced real-life style in line interpretation, which meant that many regional dialects and colloquialisms would find their way into productions. Finally, Naturalist actors tried to subjectively embody the characters, rather than to stand outside them and objectively present them to the audience.