Drama 6 Spring Lecture 7

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MELODRAMA

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19thcen. French mélodrame from Greek melos, “song” + French drame, “drama”)

Overdramatic emotion or behavior.

•A new theatrical genre introduced by Guilbertde Pixérécourt

•Mixed music (melos)and spectacle with spoken dialogueto tell simple, emotionally touching and morally uplifting stories

•Little character development or poetic elaboration

•Treated serious situations with a light touch and usedfamiliar (nonliterary) dialogue

•Ended happily with a reconfirmation of the moralintegrity of the world

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Melodramas of de Pixérécourt

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Victor, or the Child of theForest(1797)

Coelina, or theChild of Mystery(1800)

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Elements of Melodrama

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Adramatic subject within a universe polarized between good and evil

Simplelanguage enhancedby music and spectacle

Aplot that treats serious situations with life-affirming comedy

Injuredvirtue is recompensed and crime is punished in the final scene

Utilizesall the resources of the mise-en-scène toinsurethe emotional engagement of the audience

Cleartaxonomy of familiar character-types: innocent victim, villain, hero

Simpleepisodic plot and uncomplicated characters

Justand providential conclusion that confirms the moral order as rewards andpunishments are handed out

Useof tableaux and elaborate spectacle

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Coelina, orthe Child of Mystery (1800)

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Noble orphan wronged

Ruthless villain after her estate

Naïve hero

Mute beggar (who is revealed as herfather)

Comic villager

Politically conservative andsentimental image of country life in Pre-Revolutionary France

Belief in the moral goodness of thesimple life supported by a belief in patriarchal stability and providentialcare

Individual villainy (greed or lust)disrupts the communal bond between people bringing suffering down on others

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Melodramas of Providence

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Those who accept the status quo andtheir lot in life are shown as morally good; those who desire something moreare represented as villainous, disrupting the communal bound and bringsuffering down on others

A universe based on a belief in thegoodness of “natural [paternal] authority” and moral obligation

The notion of “moral obligation” first appears as anidentifiable sense during the 18th-century when notions of responsibilitybecame associated with morality and morally correct behavior. During the Frenchcounter-revolution of the early 19th century, the term noblesseoblige was used to express the belief that noblerank and ancestry entails parental or paternal responsibility toward others

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Melodrama, Spectacle, and Emotion

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A sincereform filled with sincere humor

Adichotomized universe of general good and personal evil

Alonging to return to the paternal protection and patriarchal authority of thedays before the Revolution of 1789form that both dignified and rewarded sincerity

Performedfor a new audience that mixed members of the middle class and the working class

Provideda heady emotional experience without social pretensions or intellectual demands

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Pixérécourt's View of Melodrama

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Saw his plays as providing moral sustenancefor a troubled world bydemonstrating onstage that only virtue will bring happiness and that those who exploit othersare doomed to be tormented by an uneasy conscience.

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Melo + Drame

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Melodramastraded “emotional urgency” for Steele’s “moral urgency” while echoing thesentiments voiced by Steele.Acommodifying of the emotions thatfocused on the consumption of feelings rather than encouraging an openness tofeelings

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Difference between Melodrama and Drame

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LikeDiderot’s drame, melodrama focusedon the lives and problems of ordinary people, but here the problems wereextraordinary ones. IfDiderotpromoted “knowledge through feeling, the melodrama promoted a return to moralequilibrium through suffering.

UnlikeDiderot, the melodramatists were less interestedin social improvement through knowledge or proposing new truths than inconfirming old truths and providing escapist entertainment.

Diderot’stheater encouraged audiencesto rediscover through contemplation a lost sense of coherence in their lives.Themelodramatists provided a chance tosuspend thought and become absorbed in the excitement of the story

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Melos (Music)

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Frenchmelodrama underscored scenes with music to complement the narrative andestablish atmosphere and tone, offering visceral support to both the visual andtextual development of the story.

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Romanticism and Melodrama

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“Hernani isessentially a melodrama with an unhappy ending” —Oscar Brockett

“Romanticism is melodrama disguised asliterature.”—Felicia Harrison Londré

Romanticdrama favored character over plot; the melodrama favored action over bothcharacter and plot. As a short form based on a rapid accumulation of scenes,melodrama avoidedintrospection.

Itwas not concerned with the divided consciousness of modern man nor did itexamine “the agony of self-conscious existence.”

Melodramaswere stripped of grand themes, philosophical quandries, and poetic meditationson the human condition.

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Tableaux

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Tableaux were “stopped-action” arrangement ofcharacters in a particular summarizing configuration that crystallizedrelationships, desires or intentions at the end of an act or important scene.

Tableaux served as a kind of “snapshot” that could beheld in memoryand heightening the emotional engagement and response of the audience, while also reminding them of their position asspectators.

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Melodrama and Scenic Illusionism

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Melodramamay have tended toward scenic illusionism, but the use of incidental music, themorally heightened dialogue, the artificial poses and tableaux at the end ofeach act, and the simplified plots and characters confirm the performance as afictional construct, though one built on sincerity not irony.

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Plays by Dion Boucicault

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ThePoor of New York (1857)

TheOctoroon (1859)

Ripvan Winkle (1866)

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Dion Boucicault (1820-1890)

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Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the most successful actor-playwright-managers then in the English-speaking theatre. The New York Times heralded him in his obituary as "the most conspicuous English dramatist of the 19th century.

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Wallack’s Lyceum on Broadway

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Wallack’s Lyceum, in Broadway, is an exceedingly elegant little house, the style of the interior decoration is in excellent taste, and the effect of a full house is light, cheerful, exhilarating, and brilliant.…Great attention is always paid to the production of pieces at this brilliant little house, and the costumes and scenery form an important part of the attraction. English comedy and domestic dramas form the chief attractions at Wallack’s, and the house is generally full. The utmost order and decorum are maintained…and everything offensive to the most delicate taste carefully excluded from the stage."

The performances at the new theater were principally burlesques and farces.

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Five Points

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Five Points in lowerManhattan gained international notoriety during the 19th century as adisease-ridden, crime-infested slum that sustained thehighest murder rate of any place in the world.

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Panic of 1857

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Caused by declines in the international economyand over-expansion of the domestic economy, wasthe first world-wide economic crisis, resulting in wide-spread unemployment and lossof accumulated wealth as banks failed.

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William Wells Brown

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Fugitive slave, abolitionist lecturer, historian, playwright, novelist,man of letters, barber, doctor, and conductor on the underground railroad

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Augustvon Kotzebue

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1761-1819

German playwright, wrote "The Stranger" one of the first melodramas to gain a wide audience.

Combined sensational subjectsand striking spectacle with comfortably familiar sentiments, blending patheticsituations, comic relief, romantic love and moral didacticism into a singlefast-paced whole.

Kotzebue’splays included moments of introspection and moral debate absent in themelodrama and they didn’t rely on musical underscoring as French melodramasdid.

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“SensationScene”

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“The theatrical function of melodrama’s big sensation scenes was to be able to put forth a moral truth in gesture and to picture what could not be fully spoken in words. [Peter] Brooks shows that the rise of melodrama was linked to the ban on speech in unlicensed French theatres. Usually, the unspeakable truth revealed in the sensation scene is the revelation of who is the true villain, who the innocent victim.