Realism

Plays Genre: The plays genre is dramatic realism and Ibsen was known to be one of the four fathers of realism within theatre although most theatre productions in the 19th century were melodramas, spectacle plays (disasters) comic operas, and vaudevilles. Theatrical realism was overall a  movement that began in the 1870s up until slowly becoming less popular within the 20th century. Realism developed conventions of theatre and drama to create more real life based plays and stories to help make the audience feel as though they can relate. Furthermore naturalism was also becoming popular which included a focus in everyday middle class lives. Realism and naturalism complimented each other, whilst realism focussed on the choices characters have where as neutralism views the influence of decisions made. Realism emerged from three main causes:

Development of Positivism (cause and effect from observation) — August Comte (1798-1857)

Understanding of “Survival of the fittest” Charles Darwin (1809-1882)- life develops gradually, he introduced the main points that:
1. People were controlled by heredity and environment
2. Behaviours were beyond our control
3. Humanity is a natural object, rather than being above all else Equal distribution for everyone

(Karl Marx 1818-1883): Arguing against urbanization and believed that everyone should be equal. These three causes helped develop theatre as a response to these new social / artistic conditions as it opened up to the ideas that:
1. Truth resides in material objects we perceived to all five senses; truth is verified through science
2. The scientific method—observation—would solve everything
3. Human problems were the highest were home of science