THEA 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 22: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Industrial Revolution, Overacting
Document Summary
The most popular form of theater in the late 19th century: melodrama was the most popular theater of the industrial revolution. Was an age where much of the population worked 6-7 days a week, 12 hours a day: in horrible conditions. All of the conditions above for 10-12 hours a day: age of child labor. Crippling people for life, if not slowly/rapidly killing them: important to keep in mind the context of the time when reviewing the elements of the style. This is because the style of acting in melodrama is being over the top: what we would call chewing the scenery or overacting . Delsarte: delsarte pre-scribed acting poses that were used in melodrama so the audience always knew exactly what the character was feeling. The plays: there are some distinctive elements to melodramatic plays, melodrama arose in europe (speci cally popular in france) in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, then moved to america.
