Distortion of Feeling:
Expressionism on Stage
British & American Drama and Performance 08
ROUND 1
Madness
1890s: Symptom of Millennium
World’s Depression
Big disparity in wealth
Industry mogul’s unfairness
Rise of Labor Unions
Anger & strikes of the masses
1901: New Century Comes
World is left in confusion
Where Madness Come From?
Rockefeller
the King of Industry Rockefeller Standard Oil monopoly ‘octopus’
Depression & Disparity
R ock ef el le r Cente r
Depression & Disparity
1915~45: World Wars
Mechanized, cold, inhuman war
Technology surpasses the capacity of human beings
Horror of real war surpasses the ability of humanity to cope with it
Time of unrest for the world
Even today we are in the same situation in different shape:
Nuclear Weapon, Mad Cow Disease, Avian Influenza…
Where Madness Come From?
ROUND 2
World Wars
Death
Resulted in 8.5 million deaths
Economy (1920s)
Destruction of European economy
Depression to rampant inflation
Devaluation of monetary systems
Politics
Economic unrest led to…
Russian Revolution (1917)…
Establishment of the Soviet Union
Inflation 1923-24: A German woman feeding a stove with currency notes
World War I
Totalitarianism
Economic /political unrest led to…
Rise of totalitarianism in Europe
Individual is subservient to the state and controlled by dictators
Nation and Race are more important than the individual
Adolf Hitler’s Nazis (Germany)
Benito Mussolini’s Fascists (Italy)
Mussolini & Hitler during the visit to occupied Yugoslavia
World War I
Nazi Germany (1933-45)
Extreme of totalitarianism
Suppressed of political
opposition & individual liberties
Imprisoned dissenters, Jews, gypsies, homosexuals in
concentration camps
Exalted Aryan Race…
unscientific concept grouping non-Jewish, Nordic Europeans
Persecuted Non-Aryans as racial inferiors
Hitler & Aryan Swastika
World War I
Reich Party Day (1937)
Nazi Party Day, Nuremberg (1934) Hitler at the center gives the straight- armed salute
World War I
‘Nordic Ideal’:
The German Bearing the German Performance
Display
the Nordic Racial Heritage!
World War I
Nazis’ image of the ‘ideal’
Aryan, the blond ‘pure’ German worthy to be a citizen of the German nation
World War I
Nazis used public displays to spread the
ideas of race. The chart titled "The Biology of Growth" and labeled "Stages of Growth for Members of the Nordic Race"
World War I
Establishing racial descent by measuring
World War I
"So Very Nazi“ Sisters: Unity Mitford (left) and Lady Diana Mosley (right) at the 1937 Nazi Party rally.
Hitler called the tall beautiful enthusiastic fascist blond Diana ‘the perfect Aryan woman’
World War I
Beginning
Nazis took over Austria,
Czechoslovakia, finally invaded Poland on Sept 1, 1939
Outbreak of WWII
Middle
Operated concentration camps in Poland as extermination centers
Auschwitz, for instance
Murdered 6 million Jews
End
Lasted 6 years (1939-1945)
Over 35 million deaths
Atomic bomb ended the war German Poster WWII
World War II
German troops march in Warsaw, Poland (Sept 1, 1939)
World War II
Warsaw at WWII
World War II
Prisoners at the Auschwitz
World War II
'Arbeit Macht Frei' (Work Brings Freedom):
the message that greeted the millions of people brought to the gates of Auschwitz
World War II
Auschwitz, today
World War II
Corpses in mass grave in Auschwitz
World War II
Atomic bomb on Nagasaki (9 August 1945)
World War II
Lesson WWII left behind
Humanity is now capable of annihilating itself
Questions WWII left behind
How could rational societies do such irrational destruction?
How could genocide be explained or justified?
Who will be responsible?
World War II
ROUND 3
Expressionism on Stage
Arts, the Societal Mirror
World War period was a time of global unrest for the world
Artists mirrored the unrest in peculiar style
Artistic Movements
Showed their relationship to emerging political, social, and economic ideologies;
Also rebelled against realism
Bread and Puppet Theatre
Artistic Mirror to Unrest
Origin & Term
Appeared as painting style
Developed into art movement
Many art forms, including painting, literature, film, architecture, music
Tendency of distorting reality to
‘express’ emotional fury and angst
“Scream” by Edvard Munch
Artistic Mirror: Expressionism
Example
Walls or rooms lean in threateningly
Color reflects emotion
Robot-like movement & speech
German film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Artistic Mirror: Expressionism
Expressionist Drama
Focus on how human spirit is distorted by false values
Presents nightmarish vision of human condition
Action seems dreamlike
Characters are representative
types given titles (Man, Woman) rather than names
Telegraphic language, mostly consisting of one or two lines
Politically motivated, supporting socialist & pacifist causes
Expressionistic post for ‘anti-war’ campaign
Artistic Mirror: Expressionism
Ernst Toller (1893-1939)
Representative German expressionist playwright
Depicted the descent from optimism to disillusionment
Transfiguration (1918)…
protagonist begins as an innocent, patriotic soldier and ends as a
militant antiwar activist
Man and the Masses (1921)…
woman struggles to aid oppressed workers, but the play ends on a note of despair
Artistic Mirror: Expressionism
“Dance of the Skeletons”
scene from Transfiguration
Scene from Man and Masses
Expressionism
Nosferatu (1921) German Expressionist film
Expressionism
Expressionism
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) German expressionistic film
Metropolis (1926) Poster of German Film
Expressionism
Expressionism
The Adding Machine (1923): Elmer Rice’s Expressionistic Play Lee Simonson’s set design for the 1923 premiere production
Expressionism
The Adding Machine (1923): Elmer Rice’s Expressionistic Play Mr. Zero ruled by numbers
(2012 production)
Expressionism
Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape (1922) Expressionistic set for
1986 production
