Melodrama as a voice of society

Table of contents

Introduction

I The Melodrama

II Function and Structure
a) Methods of the authors
b) Aims of a melodrama
c) Social class problems

III The author Augustin Daly

IV Under the Gaslight: A typical Melodrama
a) A brief summary
b) A critical analysis of Under the Gaslight

V Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Melodrama was already successfully performed in France, Germany and especially in England. When the Melodrama came to the United States it first had to be Americanized. So the American authors had to invent a new kind of Melodrama which had an American spirit. What they did first was to copy successful European plays and rewrite them for American conditions. By the late 19th century real American melodramas were written including a lot of action, violence and often the use of huge machinery. “Melodrama became a direct expression of American society and national character”^[1] as well as technological progress and its dangers.

What I am going to do now is to deal with the intentions of the Americanized Melodrama. I think a brief definition of what a melodrama is should be enough because so many others have already taken its definition into pieces. Of more importance is the way the American society is shaped at that time and the way the Melodrama influences and criticises society. I will try to explain the function of a melodrama and how it is used as a voice of society. The example of Under the Gaslight by Augustin Daly will help us to understand the functions of the melodrama and how they are implemented.

I The Melodrama

The Melodrama is one form of the Drama, and it is typical of the romantic period. It is concerned with the habits of man (and things) and prevents the audience from thinking logically by providing many unreal highlight scenes and allows the audience to become sentimental^[2]. Often the plays end with a clear-cut offering “the audience an emotional pleasure”^[3]. The world in the Melodrama is polarized and it is not unnatural that it swings

quickly from one extreme to the other. The characters are simple so that the audience can easily identify with them. The stage plays are highly spectacular and the sensational climax is the most important point in the stage play.

That should be enough as a brief definition, and I think we should turn our attention to the function of the Melodrama.

II Function and Structure

a) Methods of the authors

The bounds of the Melodrama are clearly defined and in total they are actually really simple. That’s why almost everybody was able to write a Melodrama and the skilled authors only needed a few weeks to finish a Melodrama with all stage directions and so on. Belasco and Boucicault wrote about a hundred and Augustin Daly almost caught up to that huge number. The stories of these mass products were not really creative and were not overflowed by the cleverness of the author. But this did not count. A mediocre script was often saved by a good train crash or snowstorm. In the first place the audience wanted to be entertained by the story and admired the spectacular scenes on the stage. Action and violence pleased them more than a complicated story. “They wanted more than custard pies and spangles, farce and pantomime. They wanted to forget the drudgery and drabness of everyday life and escape into a more colourful, less complex and plainly perfect world”(4). “For a pragmatic nation that preferred action to contemplation” the authors had to put more and more dramatic and huge machinery and powerful effects on the stage. Not even an uneducated audience was willing to pay several times for the same play and the same let me say ´special effects’. Concentrating on the stage directions it became almost impossible for the authors to create literarily good plays. Garaff B. Wilson complains about the lack of literary quality in his monograph Three Hundred Years of American Dream and Theatre. “Quantity not quality was the measure of success” as Daniel C. Gerould describes this situation.

The two dimensional characters that were used were simple to understand and the audience was taught by them in an emotional way. Plot and situation were used to emphasize the relationship between good and evil (or the other opponents of the polarized world).

Melodramas did not live because of the inner conflict translated into action by story, plot, situation and characters but the conflict was alienated (5).

“There is a simple formula for making a play which will give its audience the easy pleasures of vicarious triumph”(6). The most simple way is taking two sympathetic characters both of them admirable and free from fault so that “the audience will identify with them and share their hopes. And then set against them every obstacle you can devise”(6). Present the play in a spectacular way, and the audience will be pleased.

b) Aims of a melodrama

Melodramas were mainly produced and performed for the middle class. The story that was played on the stage included the upper class and the lower class. Like it is said in the definition of a Melodrama it only deals with the extreme opponents of the world. Either good or evil, rich or poor, and what became more and more important: educated or non-educated. So on the one hand there was the snobby and rich upper class society which had hard rules of behaviour and the big parties. Running a factory or managing another big business was all they did the whole day. Behaviour and prestige among each other was one of the most important aspects in their class. But the rules were made by themselves, and if anyone failed to manage these rules he or she lost all respect of all the others. Some even argued that there is “a polarization of mental activity around the ruling class. So that if the ruling class is ´bourgeois’ that all the mental activity is ´bourgeois’”(7).

[...]

^[1]Daniel C. Gerould, American Melodrama, (New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1995) 7

^[2]Taken from an Internet essay (http://www.cmn.hs.h.kyoto-u.ac.jp/text4.html ) written and translated by Yamashina Yumi. Book used: Jean-Marie Thomasseau, Le Melodrame, Transl. Sinobu, (Tokyo : Syoubun-Sha, 1991) 210.

^[3]James, Smith, Melodrama, Ed. John D Jump. (London: Methuen, 1973) 9

^[4]Smith, Melodrama, 15