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Theatre's grows as Population doubles in London
Between 1800 and 1850 London's population doubled and the numbers of theatres grew from 2-3 to more than 20. -
Edmund Kean first performs
In England, after a triumphant debut at Drury Lane in 1814 as Shylock in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, Edmund Kean went on to become the greatest actor of the age, specializing in classic villain roles. -
Karl Friedrich Schinkel introduces diorama
Karl Friedrich Schinkel had been trained in both Italy and Germany. He introduced the diorama in Berlin in 1827. According to Brittanica.com, "By the middle 1820s, after the defeat of Napoleon, the political turbulence in Germany led to municipal control over the theatre and strict censorship. Repertoires consisted of “safe” classics and insipid new plays, resulting in competent but uninspired theatre. This competence was reflected in the staging." -
Joseph Grimaldi Retires
Joseph Grimaldi created the much loved clown character in the harlequinade section of the English pantomime, appearing annually at Covent Garden until his retirement in 1823. -
Romanticism debuting
The dramatic debut of Romanticism is dated 1830, when the public pressured the Comedie-Francaise to produce Victor Hugo's Hernani. According to Brittanica.com, "Romanticism was victorious and ruled the Parisian stage for 50 years. The grandiose bombast of Romanticism did not overturn the Baroque, it merely diluted it; the formal artificial structure was broken into sentimental, melodramatic episodes depicting the distraught hero buffeted by an unfeeling world and the awesome elements." -
Realism in domestic dramas
An early innovation being the backset replaced the backcloth and wings. This is backed by a statement by Brittanica.com, ". Realism found its way into domestic dramas, too, one of the earliest innovations being the box set that replaced the perspective backcloth and wings depiction of a room with three solid walls and a ceiling. This feature was introduced to the English stage in 1832 by the actress-manager Madame Vestris at the Olympic Theatre" -
Russian Theatre began taking on Romanticism
It was at this time that the Russian theatre began to take on new life in Nikolay Gogol’s biting satire Revizor and with more delicate comic realism in the plays of Aleksandr Nikolayevich Ostrovsky and Ivan Turgenev. According to Brittanica.com, "The main trend in Europe around the middle of the century was toward Romantic realism and the development of a theatre of ideas. It was at this time that the Russian theatre began to take on new life." -
One of the first English plays is written
According to Brittanica.com, "Edward George Bulwer-Lytton wrote one of the first English plays on a contemporary theme (Money [1840]), and the Irish-born writer and actor Dion Boucicault, best known for London Assurance (1841), had great success in both London and New York City with his melodramas." -
Actors dominate the French stage
Brittanica.com states, "Eugène Scribe dominated the French stage with his 400 “well-made plays,” through which he developed a formula for creating highly commercial theatre wherein plot rather than character was the main concern. Eugène-Marin Labiche carried such techniques into farce, and another Scribe disciple, Victorien Sardou, became the leading French dramatist of the second half of the century." -
Two Types of Romanticism
Richard Wagner explained that Romanticism was broke up into two cramps. The first said that history is continuous and the second which Wagner was more apart of, only used history for absolute truths. Brittanica.com backs up this statement "Romanticism later broke into two camps. The first of these, called historical Romanticism, held that history is continuous. The second Romantic group, with which Wagner was associated, was concerned only with the use of history to reach absolute truths."
