'Experimentalism' Rejecting Traditional Form and Content
Based on your understanding of the plays, why do you suppose their authors decided to write in experimental forms? Were they simply bored with traditional notions of form, structure, and character development? In your view, where does the seed of modern dramatic experimentalism lie?
For the sake of argument, let’s define ‘experimental’ as rejecting traditional form and content in search of a deeper meaning somewhere else.
‘Experimentalism’ as rejecting traditional form and content in search of a deeper meaning somewhere else is one of the main characteristics of ‘modern drama.’ Playwrights ‘experimented’ with their texts for several reasons and did so on different levels as will be shown through the analysis of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth, and Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author. Their ‘experimentalism’ lies in creating contradictions that lead to the destruction of meaning where each of the plays takes this notion to a deeper, and thus, more apparent level.
One of the themes Russian playwright Anton Chekov is primarily concerned with is that of the downfall of the land-owning class especially in the sense of having mundane lives; Uncle Vanya is an example of such a play set in an isolated country-side mansion. The interesting element about this play is that it does not appear to be as ‘experimental’ as the others in terms of its form, structure, and character development, which are rather close to traditionality. This is precisely the ‘interesting’ element; they are close to traditionality but not ‘traditional’ per se. That is to say, the play approaches traditional theatrical attributes of the time that are subverted:
As the play’s title character, Ivan Petrovich Voinitsky is supposedly the ‘hero’ who would traditionally be defined as action-driven. Vanya, however, is passive and lacks the ability to take action. He is, primarily, obsessed with what he could have made of his life if he was not tied to Professor Serebryakov having to attend to the estate to finance Serebryakov’s life in the city and later his research. Although he is upset with missing his chances, he never identifies what he really would have done if given the chance; he just broods rather than take action towards changing his situation.
The pairing of Elena and Serebryakov with Vanya as a younger man interested in her reflects a typical pairing evident in Roman comedies and Moliere’s work (for example, The School for Wives). Chekov is most definitely aware of that and uses it to subvert traditionality as the conflict that should have occurred between Serebryakov and Vanya could no longer take place as Vanya is not the young, handsome lover but rather he is a middle-aged, wasted man.
Vanya’s attempted shooting of Serebryakov is another example of Chekov subverting traditionality. In a tragic scenario, Vanya would succeed in murdering Serebryakov and eventually, commit suicide. In a melodramatic scenario, he would have missed and shot Elena instead and possibly commit suicide as well or simply live with the guilt for the rest of his life. Yet, Vanya shoots twice and misses, which is rather comic in a cruel fashion taking into consideration his wasted life and that Serebryakov, according to Vanya, is the main antagonist behind the ‘waste.’
On the surface, Uncle Vanya appears as a traditional play with a realistic setting, clear relationships drawn amongst its characters, and a plot with a beginning; middle; and end. However, Chekov’s constant subversion of traditional theatrical attributes raises contradictions that destruct the play’s meaning: as the title character, Vanya does not develop due to his lack of action and passivism; the main conflict of the play between Vanya and Serebryakov is never manifested, and the climactic moment - that of the shooting - is lost with Vanya missing. With such contradictions, one wonders ‘what is the meaning behind Uncle Vanya?’ and is left with no concrete answer as the ending shows that the characters will simply go on to waste their lives. This is especially evident as Astrov, the character who has potential of bringing about ‘life’ with his ‘plantation’ interests, outlines the ending where they will just sit around working at their accounts while dabbling away and only achieve rest in death. Thus, there is no ‘change’ in the situation from beginning to end. It is important to note that Chekov ‘experiments’ with this text subtly as opposed to Thornton Wilder and Luigi Pirandello who will further destruct meaning in their plays The Skin of Our Teeth and Six Characters in Search of an Author respectively.
Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth was first performed (1942) in a time where America was still in crisis following The Great Depression and fighting in the Second World War. The play’s content and themes address this crisis clearly:
The family upon which the play’s action is centered, the Antrobus family, symbolizes first, the Biblical Family and second, the typical American family. The son, Henry, resembles Cain as that was his original name that changed after murdering his brother. The family as a whole and especially the father, Mr. Antrobus, hold humanity together as they save mankind during crisis after crisis. The crises themselves resemble Biblical events; in Act I, humanity is faced with the threat of the Ice Age and in Act II, humanity is faced with the threat of the Great Flood. It is important to note here that with each crisis, man is more responsible for its happening especially as the threat of Act III is that of war, which is strictly man-made.
The depiction of the Antrobus family as the typical American family lies firstly in the choice of location; Atlantic City and New Jersey. It lies further in the depiction of Mrs. Antrobus herself as a conventional, traditional house-wife. In contrast to Mrs. Antrobus is Sabina who seeks breaking away from family bounds only to be bounded by another invisible, social jail as in Act II during the Beauty Pageant shows. The importance of showing this family as the central family upon which humanity depends or the American society depends for survival is in how they survive. They survive through depending on classic art, literature, and philosophy; which is an extremely conservative notion as opposed to the contrasting notion that would call for modernizing.
In contrast to the contextual, thematic, conventional, and traditional aspect of The Skin of Our Teeth, Wilder raises a contradiction through the play’s structure and form. The play includes a phenomenon, a play within a play, associated with Modern Drama as it was first introduced in it. This phenomenon breaks the frame of the play as characters step-out of the overall structure. An example of that is the character of Sabina being broken where the actress, Miss Somerset, reacts to what she is saying as Sabina. Yet, Miss Somerset herself is another character and not the actress who in reality is playing Sabina. Thus, Wilder creates concentric levels of reality rather than entirely breaking the structure. With such a phenomenon, characters are ‘presented’ rather than ‘represented’ as the fourth wall is broken creating a theatrical inside joke where actors are subject to losing themselves in their characters.
The contradiction Wilder creates between the content and structure of The Skin of Our Teeth, therefore, destructs the meaning as the phenomenon of a play within a play reduces the seriousness of the issues at hand.
Luigi Pirandello takes the phenomenon of a play within a play further in Six Characters in Search of an Author and destructs the meaning by proving that his main characters are impossible to represent and are indeed incompatible:
A company of actors rehearsing a Pirandello play are presented with the arrival of six characters who would like to stage their story. It is important to note here that in performing this play, there is an option of choosing to have the company as the actors themselves rehearsing a play that is not necessarily Pirandello’s but rather one that they are apt to perform. Therefore, Pirandello poses a stronger break of the overall structure than Wilder in The Skin of Our Teeth.
In Act II, following the character’s ‘telling’ of their stories, the company of actors attempt to rehearse the play, which starts one of Six Characters in Search of an Author’s central arguments. On one hand, the characters want to play themselves while on the other hand, the actors believe that it is their job. After the characters ‘show’ the actors how it is to be done, the actors begin the scene. The problem rises from the fact that the actors are simply playing types proving that actors are incapable of realistically depicting a character other than their own. Through this argument, Pirandello destructs theatrical meaning for all time proving to audience members that the reality they ‘get sucked into’ is an illusion and that they are simply fooled, which is in line with Plato’s beliefs about art as an imperfect representation of life.
The nature of the relationship between the Father and the Step-Daughter rules out the possibility of staging their story as they are incompatible characters. On one hand, she views him as a pervert and stalker as he was the stranger who used to watch/follow her to school and give her candy as a young girl, which is an image she is unable to let go of. On the other hand, he does not see himself as an intruder as he believes that he sacrificed his wife and family for the possibility of the building of a new family, and thus, has a right to be certain of their happiness. Staging their story would, hence, call for making a choice between him being a tragic hero and her being a victim of his crudeness. Making this choice is practically impossible as both options will be unfair to one of the parties involved, which is precisely why the six characters’ author abandons them. Similarly, Cubists believe that the depiction of a three-dimensional object on a two-dimensional surface is unrealistic if depicted from a single angle, and therefore, they show the object from several perspectives on the same canvas, however, this would be impossible in theatrically staging a play in the traditional sense.
Pirandello succeeds in destructing the meaning by his immediate and constant challenge of traditional theatrical attributes by deepening the level of the phenomenon of a play within a play, disproving actors’ abilities in representing characters, and proving that theatre is an unrealistic depiction of reality.
The plays Uncle Vanya, The Skin of Our Teeth, and Six Characters in Search of an Author are examples of pieces that ‘experimented’ in rejecting traditional form and content in search of a deeper meaning somewhere else. Anton Chekov, Thorton Wilder, and Luigi Pirandello ‘experimented’ on different levels as each of them destructed the meaning further and further making the theatrical experience one where audience members are not simply ‘sucked into’ the reality playwrights create, but are rather, presented with ‘food for thought.’
