Applying Acting Styles: The use of Naturalism

The Use of Naturalism

 

Naturalism is a movement in drama and theatre that developed in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It attempts to create an illusion of reality to the audience using a variety of dramatic and theatrical strategies;

·         Everyday speech forms – prose over poetry.

·         A secular world-view – no ghosts, spirits or gods intervening in the human action.

·         Detailed three-dimensional settings

·         An exclusive focus on subjects that are contemporary and indigenous - so nothing that is fantasy or overdramatic.

·         An extension of the social range of characters portrayed - so the audience can relate to the characters.

·         A style of acting that attempts to recreate the impression of reality - often by researching the role and understand the character's ‘given circumstances'.

Some of the stylistic elements of Naturalism include the fourth wall effect which a character comes out of the play and interacts with the audience, a sense of reality on stage and no cross gender casting. Naturalism is very similar to Realism, they share many stylistic features including, everyday drama, ordinary speech and dull settings. Naturalism believes in the overall strength of external forces over internal decisions. It can be quite difficult to work out the difference between naturalism and realism. But there are features which can help you understand both styles. Naturalism is often used to refer to the same things but it can also mean the belief that a human character is formed by what they’ve inherited from their family and environment - linking with a character's 'given circumstances'. It is used in theatre performances to portray to the audience how the context of the performance would appear realistically and as Stanislavski once quoted; "A slice of life on stage". Naturalism writers were influenced by the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin. For example, Stanislavski; he believed that heredity and social experiment determined a character. He had a desire for wanting audiences to connect with the characters on stage and gain a new theatrical experience. For actors there is a system named the 'Stanislavski System' which refers to the methods Stanislavski used to help an actor recall the emotion for their role to portray a great performance.

 

• Emotion memory - this technique is when an actor uses a past experience in their life were they have felt a similar emotion to the role they are playing and they use that emotion to help portray a more believable performance.
• Method of physical actions - a simple illustration of how a physical action can be performed during the necessary emotions.
• Subtext - the script of the play is called the text. The subtext is the meaning behind the lines in the play so an actor would have to looking into this and pick out lines were emotions and actions can be portrayed.
• Given circumstances - the information about the character so basically a character profile. An actor would need to look into information such as, the age of the character, the setting of the play, how the character relates to other characters in the play and their main points within the play.
• "If" aka Magic If - if an actor is unable to use emotion memory, this technique gives the actor a question, "what would I do in this situation?" which helps the actor put themselves in the same situation as their character giving them motivation to play the role.
• Objective - the objective the character is trying to achieve in a specific scene and the objectives are stages of a character's journey to accomplish their super objective.
• Super objective - the objective the character is trying to achieve through the full outcome of the play.
• Through line - when the journey of stages of objectives is a clear path for their super objective, e.g. at the end of All My Sons, Ann Deever manages to prove to Kate Keller that her son Larry is dead so she can marry her other son, Chris. 

Naturalistic works show the harshness of life including, racism, poverty, sex and prejudice. The staging is performed in a tableau approach assuring that performers were always shown to their best advantage.

There are five types of staging used in Naturalistic theatre:

Proscenuim arch                                                                                             Thrust

In the round                                                                                                   Traverse

Promenade 

"When we are on stage, we are in the here and now." - Stanislavski

'A Night at the Asylum'

This was our first show we performed together as a class for our spooky stimulus unit. The story is based around a haunted mental asylum which is split into sections  showing different varieties of acting, dancing, singing and magic. It was wrote by one of my fellow classmates, Jack Waterman who also starred in the show as Ringo, the comedic caretaker who links the sections together to make them work with the main storyline. I performed my section with Courtney Hogbin and our storyline for our performance was about a little girl who gets possessed by her toy puppet. Throughout rehearsals, we changed parts we thought wouldn't work and added and developed parts what would make it a workable idea for Jack's script and also to make it understandable and appealing to the audience. We managed to keep the theme of possessed puppet/doll from the start of the process.

Another section I was involved in this performance was 'Thriller' which was an upbeat dance piece to end the show. I've had experience of dance in my childhood but quit a long time before starting the performing arts course so it was nice to be up and dancing again. This was the first dance performance I performed with my classmates and since this, my skills have improved and they are continuing to do so.

A recording of the show is split into two parts and is currently on the college YouTube which I will place below: