The prevailing atmosphere of a good portion of the nineteenth century theatre in Europe was the light of Romanticism. Extravagance was the watchword. Extravagant entertainment, extravagantly contrived plots and characters, extravagant displays in acting and personality traits took the new audiences to a never-never land of make believe. Plays ostensibly founded on historical fact bent those facts to a thesis or a point of view; plays ostensibly rooted in contemporary life generally carried both situation and character to the extremes of virtue and vice. Even the so-called well-made play was a Romantic effusion. Theatre architecture remained largely rooted in the past; stage decoration was intricate and often unrealistic.
Yet the period did develop some practices that were important to aftertimes. The audience was almost completely democratized, hitherto unreached segments of the population being brought into the theatre for the first time. Non-acting managers and producers were established as the rule rather than the exception. There was some experimentation in theatre architecture, notably at Bayreuth, with its rejection of boxes and galleries and incorporation of banked seats. Gas and then electricity initiated experimentation and advance in the separate area of lighting. Historical accuracy in costuming developed to the point of complete acceptance and, indeed, there was often an overemphasis upon antiquarianism. Modern methods of makeup came into existence. The cult of the individual star triumphed. It was an active, almost a hectic, period which brought us to the doorway of today.
The rise of the Romantic drama brought in a whole new school of actors and acting styles. The struggles of a unique individual, heroically at odds with conventions and his environment, absorbed the attention of playwrights. As for dramatic form, the rule of the unities was challenged, and plays became as unlimited in time, place, and action as their characters were free from the demands of “decorum.” Nature, wild and untamed, came to be represented in stage settings, although these did not differ radically from those in vogue since the Renaissance. The stage set still consisted of painted flats arranged in perspective and closed at the back of the stage by a painted backdrop.
Nature in man, equally wild and untamed, was represented in the dramatic conflicts of the plays. Since observation of men in orderly contemporary society, moreover, was apt to be tame and, above all, since it was not likely to fill the spectator with a sense of wonder, the dramatists turned to situations of social disorder and to the romantic past. The acting styles varied from Classical to Romantic (exaggerated movements, speech, etc.)…
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