How did realist theatre try to make dialogue and behavior resemble ordinary life?

Realist theatre, a movement that gained prominence in the late 19th century, sought to align theatrical performances with the fidelity of everyday life by rejecting the artificiality of the well-made play.1

To achieve this, dramatists like August Strindberg, Henrik Ibsen, and Anton Chekhov implemented several key changes:

• Dialogue and Language: They abandoned poetic language and extravagant diction in favor of dialogue that sounded like ordinary, everyday speech. In his own work, Strindberg utilized unaffected, naturalistic dialogue to explore contemporary social problems and psychological conflicts.12
• Acting Style: Realism replaced the declamatory delivery and overblown virtuosity common in earlier eras with a style demanding natural movements, gestures, and speech.1
• Staging: Productions moved away from stylized or luxurious scenery, instead using stage settings that accurately reproduced ordinary, domestic surroundings. Strindberg, in particular, employed stark scenery and used stage props as symbolic elements to enhance the naturalistic effect.12

By focusing on contemporary society and human behavior, these playwrights aimed to create a more authentic reflection of life on stage.13