Naturalism: Showing It Like It Is

THE PLAYWRITING SEMINARS > STRUCTURE > STYLE > NATURALISM

'What [Grotowski, Kantor, Brook, and Bausch] did is they created a world on the stage. They didn't pretend to imitate reality. When I saw my first naturalistic play, I was shocked. I thought: This is like a movie or TV show. This is not what theatre is supposed to do.'

-- Moisés Kaufman

U.S. Literary Managers and playwrights toss around "Naturalism" as a contemporary playwriting style, but what they mean has almost nothing to do with the movement Émile Zola hatched over 100 years ago. While these folks may seem to have their theatre history mixed up, they know what they mean. And it's usually not a compliment . . .

In current usage on Broadway and the regional theatre circuit, Naturalism is applied to playwrights who write as though they'd rather be in movies or TV.

This is not completely fair to the best of those working in the style -- Marsha Norman [sometimes], Beth Henley, Terrence McNally [sometimes], and August Wilson among them. Naturalism may be a bit of a dirty word in this business today, but a noticeable number of these plays are produced by regional theatres for a disarmingly simple reason: Audiences like them.

Contemporary Naturalism assumes that the best way to show us the reality of life is to literally show us something very close to the appearance of real life . If this slice-of-life idea appeals to you, here are a few rules, all of which have reams of exceptions . . .

Put your characters in very realistic interior Settings
With everything including the kitchen sink. And running water. We used to call these "Kitchen Sink" plays. Keep the same setting for each act -- it's too expensive for most theatres to build two or three of these things for one play.
Use continuous Time structure
The style doesn't work well with Flashbacks.
Rely on a two- or three-act structure
With the only breaks at Intermissions. Short formal scenes undercut the slice-of-life feeling of the style.
Focus on personal relationships
The more dysfunctional the better.
Stress personal Themes
With a focus on interpersonal relationships. Think of these as Family-problems-in-[fill in the country] plays. Larger political, social, or economic issues add clutter to what the style does best.

Some great contemporary plays have been written by showing us something that sounds like -- and looks like -- real life. [The folks who've done this are nearly always from the U.S.] But . . .

Most contemporary playwrights have come to the conclusion that this sort of duplication of reality works best in film and television. For the theatre, they're after that real reality beneath the surface reality of everyday life.

This business allows you -- even encourages you -- to create highly theatrical realities through the use of stylistic devices that audiences accept as "real" -- even when they're clearly not. In a way, what you're doing is using obviously unreal techniques to show us the reality of life.

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