Dumbshow

Dumb game referred to passages in the play that are performed without narration. Often the silent game in the form of stage directions is required, sometimes it is accompanied by music. In contrast to the silent pantomime game need not be an art, but part of the normal drama practice.

History

Dumbshow comes in English Renaissance Drama frequently, the most famous place is the drama in theater, Shakespeare's Hamlet ( 1603) in III. Act in front of his parents lists. In the 18th century the dumb game is connected with the notion that the innermost undisguised get expressed in it, in contrast to spoken text (such as Johann Jakob Engel: Ideas for a facial 1786). Therefore, in many dramas that time central silent passages, such as in the final tableau at the end of Act IV of Kotzebue people hate and remorse (1789 ).

A larger silent role, as it was customary in the melodrama of the 19th century, about Yelva in Yelva, the Russian orphan, Victorin in The Orphan and the murderer or Fenella in La Muette de Portici gives the silent game special attention. The idea that this game was undisguised as opposed to the dialogues, is also relevant here. In naturalism towards the end of the century, such as Johannes Schlaf, the realistic running silent game has been touted.

By vaudeville and silent film as a proletarian forms of entertainment in the early 20th century lost the dumb play on stage considerable prestige, and also the modern pantomime tried to distance themselves from him. The absurd theater around 1950 and similar trends, with which the spoken language has been questioned, the dumb game evaluated on though. Famous examples can be found for example in Beckett's Waiting for Godot (1953), another important passages of a literarized dumb game are Eugène Ionesco ( The Rhinoceros, 1960) or Thomas Bernhard found ( Force of habit, 1974). At the end of the 20th century since the dramatic text in the theater no longer has absolute priority (which means " performative turn" or similarly named ), the silent game comes from this other reason again of particular importance -. Because screenplays are generally less wordy as dramatic texts, the dumb game is self-evident integrated into the film as the theater.