[A tiny caveat- I wrote this, it seems, exactly 2 years ago, and I've just found it again. Clearly I'm trying to provoke discussion. As I write it up, I'm sure I'll think of reasons why my thinking's flawed. Perhaps you'd like to join in?]
As far as I know, naturalism doesn’t have a definition, in critical terms. I’m not talking about Emile Zola and his ilk- I’m thinking of the mode of theatre that’s often classed as naturalistic. If you’ve ever taken part in a theatre-writing workshop, or been taught ‘how to write’, then you’re bound to have come across the term. It appears to be one of those words that, because they are used so commonly, enter into the critical vocabulary without any concerted effort to define exactly what it is we’re talking about.
In short, it’s used to describe a form of theatrical presentation that attempts to mimic reality; almost analogous to photorealistic paintings, there’s never any suggestion that what you’re looking at is, in reality, the thing it’s pretending to be. A spectator is never asked to believe that a painting is a photograph, or to believe that a play is reality; instead, the audience is asked to believe that what they’re seeing is an accurate representation of what might, or could, happen.
Elements that might be present in a naturalistic play include:
- an attempt, by the writer, to capture nuances of dialect, pronunciation, stress and rhythms of speech, culled from observation of the real world.
- an attempt, on the part of the actors, to portray a Stanislavskyan, well-rounded, believable character.
- a realistic set, resembling objects and setting as close to a convincing version of reality as possible.
- sound effects, to mimic the sounds of occurrences on, or off, stage.
- an emphasis on believability of character action and plot progression.
So far, so obvious. The first (and perhaps most obvious) problem with naturalism as a dramatic mode is that an accurate representation of real, actual life, as lived every day is not at all dramatic, in the textbook definition of the term. Dramatic events are rare, and life-altering when they occur in real life, and yet they must happen frequently onstage in order, so we are told, to engage an audience. This is precisely the reason why watching Big Brother Live is not interesting in the slightest: it’s non-event after non-event.
So, of course, in order to make something ‘interesting’ to an audience, dramatic situations have to be created: someone’s brother returns home after many years of absence, Big Brother turns off the water supply. What we end up with is not all natural, but is naturalistic- it’s an awkward mode, balanced between wanting to seem real and wanting to be ‘dramatic’, and rarely succeeding at either. An audience is presented with something that isn’t itself believable, but with something that they can imagine could be believable. It’s an attempt to achieve a compromise between two modes that are basically incompatible.
Naturalism is, at the moment, the dominant mode of English-language-based theatre, for a number of reasons too many and various ever to know entirely, I suspect; one can make some sort of educated guess. though. It is, of course, much easier to use an existing form of language than to attempt to define and use a new one, and it is much easier to find an audience for something that’s performed in an easily-recognised dialect or language. From this (or, perhaps, in parallel with this), runs the concept of the realistic character who uses a familiar language, and behaves in a believable way. The exact reasons why he does something may not be overtly stated, but they are present in some way.
So, we also come across the methods of acting currently en vogue and propagated by the various mainstream theatre schools. These methods are all based on the same principles as the dominant thinking behind the writing of plays: the creation of believable characters who have reasons and motivations for their actions, and whose every statement is a result of his/her wanting something. One feeds the other- writers create plays that actors will be trained appropriately enough to perform, and actors continue to be trained to perform the existing canon of plays.
It is only natural and perfectly ordinary that there should be a dominant mode of expression in any art form; it seems impossible to imagine a situation where all modes are equally present in the world. It’s when a mode becomes ubiquitous to the point of monopoly that the art becomes stagnant and cloying. As people, we have a subconscious tendency to view the passage of time as an improving and refining force and thus, in this situation, that we’ve been honing our approach to making theatre for thousands of years. By extension, what’s happening now must be the best theatre that’s ever been made. Looking around, though, that seems very unlikely, doesn’t it…?
The notion that naturalism and our current concept of dramatic action are what constitutes theatre itself is a dangerous one. The end result can only be the circle of writers’ and actors’ intentions becoming tighter and tighter, smaller and smaller, until there is no looseness, no movement, no play in the play. It will be a solidification and codification of an art form, based on the false idea that one mode of expression is that art form. It’s a little like the idea that all songs should be in 4/4- it is the most commonly recognised time signature, but that doesn’t mean that an audience can’t understand others. When Take 5 reached number 1 in the US, people were dancing to it quite happily, blissfully unaware that they were dancing to an unusual beat.
The dominance of naturalism can only be a bad thing. It’s perpetuated by theatre producers, afraid that their imagined audience will be unwilling to watch something that differs from what they’ve seen before. Writers are afraid (and justifiably so) that their work won’t be produced unless they write in this naturalistic mode that a producer will recognise. Actors are afraid that they won’t be employable unless they know how to act in a particular way. All of these are guilty of the horrific crime of underestimating their audience. Once you start defining ‘audience’ as a single entity, interested solely in instant entertainment, with a short attention span, uninterested in anything more complex than surface glamour, then you’re not only patronising and underestimating the group of people you’re in the business of entertaining, but you’re also damning yourself to the role of a production line, reproducing work in the template of artworks that have come before.
I reject this naturalism, with this caveat- only an idiot discards a tool he may one day need. Here, and now, I reject it. The language of naturalism (by which I mean the entire construct by which theatre is produced, not only the written word) is inappropriate for contemporary theatre, as it has an inherent acceptance, on a basic linguistic level, of how the world is. An acceptance of everyday language use implies an acceptance of everyday meaning, values, morality, and the status quo- in other words, the very things that a contemporary theatrical aesthetic should be challenging.
I reject naturalism because I don’t believe that entrenched values and concepts can be opposed solely by using the language that defines them and because, if there is one thing theatre should be doing, it is challenging these entrenched values.
