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Futurism Emerges
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti launched futurism hailing his dogmatic beliefs relevant to the superiority of machines in the modern world. He captained the futurist bandwagon, advocating for the removal of libraries, ancient art forms, and more historically relevant sites. As Smithsonian's "Futurism Is Still Influential, Despite Its Dark Side" states, Futurists "performed" readings of their manifesto. Futurist music concepts like bruitisme (noise music) brought upon new musical theatre advancements. -
Expressionism's Fruition
Expressionism was founded in defiance of materialism and industrialism (alongside futurism, which followed closely behind the aforementioned concepts), notions which expressionists believed tarnished the human spirit (Brockett et al. 175). Die Brücke was a notable artist group founded in the guise of expressionism, founded by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner alongside Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Expressionist art drew inspiration from previous alternative artists such as van Gogh. -
Rise of American "Little Theatre"
"Little theatres" were derivative theatres founded mostly by American students and travelers who aspired to integrate European drama styles into American ones. Stage design was a critical aspect of little theatre, and the "first important professional work" of a little theatre was a production of Anatole France's The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife (Brockett et al. 181). As Mambrol explains in their article "Little Theater Movement", little theatres had their own purpose that was individual to them. -
Invention of Spotlights
After their initial invention in 1879, incandescent electric lamps rapidly grew in popularity because of their lack of an open flame, which solidified them as a very safe lighting option. However, it took 32 years until their wattage was strong enough to serve as widespread theatrical lighting tools. As detailed in PORT's “The Evolution of the Spotlight”, Boston Bijou's theatre was the esteemed home of America's first electric spotlight, installed in 1882. By 1915, spotlights were in common use. -
Introduction of Dada
Although dada was first conceptionalized in 1913 by Hugo Ball and Richard Heulsenbeck, it was greatly popularized by Tristan Tzara in 1916. Dadaism was made to counteract all values that contributed to World War I, along with fighting against the modern depictions of art that Ball believed were tarnishing true creativity (Lesso). and contained recurring patterns of nonsense and uncertainty; even the name "dada" is illogical, with various meanings irrelevant to each other in many languages. -
Development of Epic Theatre
Brought upon with expressionism, epic theatre was most popularized by the work of Bertolt Brecht. Placing his faith in Karl Marx's concepts of socialist society, Brecht sought to create a theatrical environment wherein immersion was consistently shattered during the performance to make way for intense social commentary. Brecht captained the notion of alienating the audience rather than involving them within it -- "they were to be observers, not participants", as put by Justin Cash (source 8). -
Establishment of the Group Theatre
Founded by former students of New York's American Laboratory Theatre Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford and Lee Strasberg and modeled after Stanislavsky's Moscow Art Theatre (Brockett et al. 182), including popularizing Stanislavsky's acting method considerably, the Group Theatre was an extremely respected U.S. theatre that produced plays relevant to present-time social and economic issues. Due to an imbalance of fame between members that sparked adversity, the theatre disbanded after ten years. -
The Theatre of Cruelty's Creation
Surrealist dramatist and writer Antonin Artaud's published essays titled The Theatre and Its Double consisted of his philosophies of theatre. He christened the concept of narratively baiting out the audience and emotionally provoking them as a "theatre of cruelty", and believed that by using symbolism, theatre developed a unique purpose. His work was not widely known in Europe until 1963 when Peter Brook employed Artaud's theories in a production of a "Collage Hamlet". (Brockett et al., 188-189) -
Berliner Ensemble Founded
Bertolt Brecht, father of epic theatre and socialist playwright, founded the Berliner Ensemble alongside his wife to further spread Brecht's views and directorial approach to theatre (Brockett et al. 189). Still active today, Culture Trip explains that the Ensemble primarily "focuses on contemporary theatre" in their performances; however, the Ensemble still supports Brecht's political stances that they were founded upon, including Brecht's beliefs of socialism and Marxism. -
Absurdist Drama's Creation
As Robin Reynolds writes in "Decoding the Theater of the Absurd", absurdists view the world as pointless, and humans haplessly attempt to invent meaning for their lives. Absurdist drama is often affiliated with the "Theatre of the Absurd," the title of critic Martin Esslin's book about absurdist theatre. Absurdist drama consists of chaotic cause-and-effect and a constant lack of rational thought. A notable absurdist play is Waiting for Godot, which popularized playwright Samuel Beckett's works.