Student created presentation on Expressionism for the theatre history unit in Ms. Hymer's Drama 1/2 class

1. EXPRESSIONISM
~Kenzie Perdue

2. WHAT IS EXPRESSIONISM?
 Expressionism is the imposition on the outside
world of the describer’s concept of it.
 Reality, in general, has no meaning for an
expressionist.
 Everything is brought forth from within one’s self.
 Everything is deliberately and purposefully distorted
since it comes from one’s point of view.

3. EXPRESSIONISM

4. TWO CHIEF CHARACTERISTICS
 Intense Subjectivism—the externalization of the
writer’s inner feelings
 Atmosphere of violence directed largely against the
family as the basis of society

5. EXPRESSIONISM
 “Aesthetic movement in which the artist expresses
his inner experience through the free representation
of objective facts.”
 Individual intellectual conceptions—originated in
European painting and brought to US by painters
(the term and culture).

6. STARRYNIGHT

7. EXPRESSIONISM +
 Most expressionists were also poets and these
people could transfer (or hope to) transfer their
ideas from poetry to the people through theater.
 Confusion about the term, ‘expressionism,’ arose
because it could be used in literature, music,
architecture, and art, along with drama.
 The term was first used by French painter, Julien-
Aguuste Herve in 2901, but it didn’t achieve general
acceptance/usage until later.

8. GOALS OF EXPRESSIONISM
 Expressionism was characterized by intense
subjectivism, a violent antipathy to society and to
families.
 Criticism of society by means of an analysis of its
hypocritical attitudes towards sex as well.
 To emote the broadest range of feelings, to express
the ecstasy of the playwright.

9. GOALS OF EXPRESSIONISM CONT.
 Young men rebelling wrote of the conflicts between
generations, sexes, and classes.
 They wrote about taboo subjects, such as incest
and patricide.

10. STYLE OF EXPRESSIONISM
 A strong directional hand would control lights for the
atmosphere
 Crowded stage scenes: Block actors in jagged
patterns, rather than expected diagonals

11. EXPRESSIONISM

12. STYLE OF EXPRESSIONISM CONT.
 Costumes are colored garishly
 Distorted architecture
 Staircases (see The Labyrinth)
 Revolving set pieces
 Treadmills
 Traps
 Bridges extend across the domain of the stage

13. EXPRESSIONISTS
 The most triumphant American playwright: Eugene
O’Neill
 Sophie Treadwell
 Elmer Rice

14. EUGENE O’NEILL
 Between 1920 and 1943, he completed 20 long
plays.
 He would write many of his plays (manuscripts) half
a dozen times before he was satisfied with them.
 His plays were written from his personal point of
view

15. EUGENEO’NEILL

16. EUGENE O’NEILL CONT.
 His plays were derived directly from the scarring
effects of his family’s tragic relationships.
 Parents that both loved and tormented each other
 Older brother that loved yet corrupted him and died of
alcoholism, middle aged
 Caught between love and rage for all 3

17. EUGENE O’NEILL
 Tragic view on life based on family and ‘bad’
relationships.
 3 wives, 2 of whom divorced.
 Eldest son (from first wife) committed suicide.
 Youngest son (from second wife) lived a life of
emotional instability.
 Daughter (from second wife) infuriated him by marrying
a man his age at age 18.

18. EUGENE O’NEILL CONT.
 First American to regard the stage as a literary
medium.
 The only American playwright to ever receive the
Nobel Prize for literature.
 Distinguished short plays: Band East for Cardiff, In
the Zone, The Long Voyage Home, and The Man of
the Caribbees.

19. SOPHIE TREADWELL
 Playwright, journalist, women’s rights advocate, and
novelist.
 Wrote 40 plays.
 Best-known play—1928 expressionist drama—
”Machinal.”
 Oct 3. 1885 – Feb 20. 1970.
 “Intimations for Saxophone”

20. SOPHIETREADWELL

21. ELMER RICE
 “The Adding Machine” (1923) which satired the
growing regimentation of man in the machine age.
 “Street Scene” (1929) received the Pulitzer Prize for
drama.

22. ELMERRICE

23. SHORT EXPRESSIONIST TEXTS
 Sphinx and Strawman
 Sancta Susanna
 From Morn to Midnight

24. EXPRESSIONISM’S FALL
 Language of the drama is also responsible for its
demise.
 The intensely personal and lyric quality can no
longer find a place in our time/society.
 The language of expressionism, because of its
older origin/usage and lyrical composition (because
it was transferred from poetry and complex
expressionists’ minds) is almost/impossible to
translate easily for peoples’ satisfaction.

25. EXPRESSIONISM’S FALL CONT.
 Expressionist drama is overall pretty untheatrical.
 There are long, lyrical monologues and are
subjective in feeling, so they are almost
incomprehensible, thus the end of the appeal as
times wore on.
 Primacy of language over plot and action even
furthered the loss of interest or feeling in the plays.

26. CONSULTED~
 “Expressionism.” The Reader‘s Encyclopedia of
World Drama. John Gassner and Edward Quinn.
New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1969.
Print.
 “Expressionism.” The Oxford Companion to
American Literature sixth edition. Phillip W.
Leininger. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Print.
 Oskar Kokoschka. Expressionist Texts. New York:
PAJ Publisher, 1986. Print.
 “Expressionism.” The Cambridge Guide to Theater.
Professor James Brandon. New York. Cambridge
University Press. 1995. Print.