The Melodrama Fad

Like our fluctuating interests in reality shows now,  from Survivor to Top Model to The Bachilor, so was the changing interests in types of Melodrama of the 19th Century. The style always the same, as is the formula for reality shows, but the details changed to match the fickle audience and change in trends.

Thomas Holcrofts A Tale of Mystery was the first labeled melodrama, an English Translation of Pixerecourt's Coelina. In Coelina the heiress Coelina is kept apart from her lover by a scheming uncle who wants to marry her for her money, and a dumb beggar with his tongue cut out holds the secret to her birth. The play climaxes in a chase scene with the beggars, who is caught and the truth found out. Everything ends happily, and the young lovers get to marry. (Coelina)

The faithful dog jumping in to save a person
something seen at Sadler's Wells Theatre
http://www.dogdrama.com/ddhistory.html

Pretty basic melodrama set up?
This sensational form attracted large audiences, many who probably read Gothic novels, which was picked up by minor and major theatres alike. And with this stiff competition, new gimmicks and spectacle had to be found.

At the Astley Theatre and the Royal Circus (before it became The Surrey) melodrama with feats of horsemanship (the taking of the citadel) and dog drama, which were melodrama tales with canine hero's incorporated into the action.

At the Sandler's Well's Theatre a water tank was installed in 1804, and aquatic melodramas then became the rage. Melodramas at this time were moving towards more contemporary stories.  With Douglas William Jerrold's Black-Eyed Susan (1829) and many of Edward Fitzball's melodramas at the time, nautical melodrama became the fad.

Fitzballs is given credit for initiating the trend in melodrama's based off of real crimes of the time with his play Murder at the Roadside Inn (1833).

John Buckstone, with Luke the Laborer (1826) began the growing interest in domestic drama.
Then followed "gentlemanly" melodrama, which brought more uppercrust audience approval of melodrama.  (Brockett, pg. 299)


So, rather than thinking of The Inchcape Bell, which is a blend of nautical, Gothic, and domestic melodrama (Thanks Fitzballs), as being outdated and the style old fashioned, many conventions of the story can be applied to appeal to modern audiences. Melodrama has not died away. It's in Indian Bollywood stories, filled with good guys and bad guys and song and dance numbers. Its in our reality shows, with heighten emotions and incidental music (common for most movies).

My suggestion to the director thinking of doing this piece; honor it's history, know that people WILL enjoy this, but also make it apply to today's audience. Following trends and making the audience happy is what melodrama does best.



Resources Used:

"Coelina (Coelina, ou L'Enfant du mystère)." Net Industries. N.p., 2011. Web. 11 Mar. 2011. <http://www.jrank.org/literature/pages/10536/Coelina-(Coelina-ou-L'Enfant-du-mystère).html>.


Brockett, Oscar G., and Franklin J. Hildy. History of the Theatre. Foundation ed. N.p.: Pearson Education, Inc,, 2007. 296-97. Print.




RECOMMENDED VIEWING:

View Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Beginning of movie shows an accurate protrayl of what 19^th century would have been like. 

And if you are curious about what nautical melodrama is:

"Nautical Drama"  The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. Ed. Phyllis Hartnoll and Peter Found. Oxford University Press, 1996. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.  Central Washington University.  8 March 2011  http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t79.e2179