Until relatively recently, melodrama has been an unfairly maligned genre of theatre history; its pejorative associations based on the prejudiced assumptions that its aesthetics of excess (in terms of its extravagant emotion, sensationalism and popularity amongst predominantly working class audiences) meant, therefore, that it was for simpletons. What Walter Benjamin excoriated as the “ancient lament that the masses seek distraction whereas art demands concentration from the spectator” fuelled bourgeois disdain for this theatrical form and the derision of the Theatrical Inquisitor’s dismissal of melodrama as “aris[ing] from an inertness in the minds of the spectators, and a wish to be amused without the slightest exertion on their own parts, or any exercise whatever of their intellectual powers” remained the dominant critical response throughout the nineteenth century. Indeed, such views continued well into the twentieth century and certainly characterized the modernist reactions of the founding figures of the Irish national theatre in this period. Frank Fay, cofounder of the National Dramatic Society, denounced both the aesthetics of Dublin's Queen's Theatre as the “home of the shoddiest kind of melodrama,” and the intelligence of its audiences who, “wouldn't, at present, understand anything else.”

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“爱尔兰之夜”：贝尔法斯特舞台内外的超戏剧表演

直到最近，情节剧一直是一种受到不公平诽谤的戏剧史流派。它的贬义联想是基于偏见的假设，即它的过度美学（就其奢侈的情感、耸人听闻和在主要工人阶级观众中的受欢迎程度而言）意味着它是为傻瓜准备的。沃尔特·本雅明（Walter Benjamin）所痛斥的“古老的哀叹：大众寻求分散注意力，而艺术需要观众集中注意力”，这助长了资产阶级对这种戏剧形式的蔑视和对艺术的嘲笑。戏剧审判官对情节剧的斥责是“观众头脑中的一种惰性，并希望在不费力或不发挥任何智力的情况下被逗乐”仍然是主要的批评回应整个十九世纪。事实上，这种观点一直持续到 20 世纪，并且无疑是这一时期爱尔兰国家剧院创始人物的现代主义反应的特征。国家戏剧协会的联合创始人弗兰克·费伊（Frank Fay）谴责都柏林皇后剧院的美学是“最糟糕的情节剧的发源地”，以及“不会，目前，其他什么都懂。”