Twentieth-century theatre

Influenced by the dismantling of empires and the continuing development of post-colonial theory, many new artists used elements of their own cultures and societies to create a diversified theatre.

Realism focuses on the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions or implausible, exotic and supernatural elements.

Influenced by the ideas of Sigmund Freud, Charles Darwin and others, many artists began to find a psychological approach to theatre that emphasized the inner dimensions of the characters onstage.

[2] Together they would forge a professional company with an ensemble ethos that discouraged individual vanity, selecting actors from Nemirovich's class at the Philharmonic school and Stanislavsky's amateur Society of Art and Literature group, along with other professional actors; they would create a realistic theatre of international renown, with popular prices for seats, whose organically unified aesthetic would bring together the techniques of the Meiningen Ensemble and those of André Antoine's Théâtre Libre (which Stanislavsky had seen during trips to Paris).

"[4] Nemirovich described the applause, which came after a prolonged silence, as bursting from the audience like a dam breaking and the production received unanimous praise from the press.

[5] Later analysts attribute the production's success to the fidelity of its delicate representation of everyday life, its intimate, ensemble playing, and the resonance of its mood of despondent uncertainty with the psychological disposition of the Russian intelligentsia of the time.

The Stanislavsky system was widely practiced in the Soviet Union and in the United States, where experiments in its use began in the 1920s and continued in many schools and professional workshops.

While there were a number of actress-managers in St. Petersburg and Moscow like Vera Komissarzhevskaya and Ida Rubinstein, the course of Russian theatre in the Silver Age was largely dominated by men.

Other key playwrights signaling the move to realism in the beginning of the century include Edward Sheldon, Charles Rann Kennedy and Rachel Crothers.

After his death, his magnum opus and masterwork Long Day's Journey into Night was published and is often regarded to be one of the finest American plays of the 20th century.

[10] At first, the modernist theatre was in large part an attempt to realize the reformed stage on naturalistic principles as advocated by Émile Zola in the 1880s.

"[13] Frequently, the true reformers of the early part of the century called for increasingly smaller theatres, where their techniques could register on a select audience.

Inspired by an understanding of the Greek theatre and heavily influenced by Nietzsche, they sought a profound or ecstatic ritual event that involved music and movement, in a space without a proscenium arch.

This led to many Western practitioners interpreting and incorporating these styles into their own theatres: most notably Bertolt Brecht's adaptation of Chinese opera to support his 'Alienation' effect.