Expressionism is an artistic movement focused on intense subjectivism and the externalization of personal feelings, often criticizing societal norms. It is characterized by vivid distortions in style and dramatic structure, frequently addressing themes of familial conflict and taboo subjects. Prominent American playwrights like Eugene O'Neill and Sophie Treadwell explored these themes, but the movement declined due to its complex and subjective language becoming less relatable in modern society.

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.