Drama is an art form that tells a story through the speech and actions of the characters in the story. Most drama is performed by actors who impersonate the characters before an audience in a theater.
Although drama is a form of literature, it differs from other literary forms in the way it is presented. For example, a novel also tells a story involving characters. But a novel tells its story through a combination of dialogue and narrative, and is complete on the printed page. Most drama achieves its greatest effect when it is performed. Some critics believe that a written script is not really a play until it has been acted before an audience.
Drama probably gets most of its effectiveness from its ability to give order and clarity to human experience. The basic elements of drama—feelings, desires, conflicts, and reconciliations—are the major ingredients of human experience. In real life, these emotional experiences often seem to be a jumble of unrelated impressions. In drama, however, the playwright can organize these experiences into understandable patterns. The audience sees the material of real life presented in meaningful form—with the unimportant omitted and the significant emphasized.
No one knows exactly how or when drama began, but nearly every civilization has had some form of it. Drama may have developed from ancient religious ceremonies that were performed to win favor from the gods. In these ceremonies, priests often impersonated supernatural beings or animals, and sometimes imitated such actions as hunting. Stories grew up around some rites and lasted after the rites themselves had died out. These myths may have formed the basis of drama.
Another theory suggests that drama originated in choral hymns of praise sung at the tomb of a dead hero. At some point, a speaker separated from the chorus and began to act out deeds in the hero’s life. This acted part gradually became more elaborate, and the role of the chorus diminished. Eventually, the stories were performed as plays, their origins forgotten.
According to a third theory, drama grew out of a natural love of storytelling. Stories told around campfires re-created victories in the hunt or in battle, or the feats of dead heroes. These stories developed into dramatic retellings of the events.
For a discussion of modern theater arts, see the World Book article on Theater.
Forms of drama
Among the many forms of Western drama are (1) tragedy, (2) serious drama, (3) melodrama, and (4) comedy. Many plays combine forms. Modern dramatists often disregard these categories and create new forms.
Tragedy
maintains a mood that emphasizes the play’s serious intention, though there may be moments of comic relief. Such plays feature a tragic hero, an exceptional yet flawed individual who is brought to disaster and usually death. The hero’s fate raises questions about the meaning of existence, the nature of fate, morality, and social or psychological relationships. Aristotle identified the emotional effect of tragedy as the “catharsis [emotional release] of pity and fear.”
Serious drama,
which developed out of tragedy, became established in the 1800’s. It shares the serious tone and often the serious purpose of tragedy and, like tragedy, it concentrates on unhappy events. But serious drama can end happily, and its heroes are less imposing and more ordinary than the tragic hero. Serious drama is sometimes viewed as tragedy’s modern successor.
Melodrama
involves a villain who initiates actions that threaten characters with whom the audience is sympathetic. Its situations are extreme and often violent, though endings are frequently happy. Melodrama portrays a world in which good and evil are clearly distinguished. As a result, almost all melodramas have a sharply defined, oversimplified moral conflict.
Comedy
tries to evoke laughter, often by exposing the pretensions of fools and rascals. Comedy usually ends happily. But even in the midst of laughter, comedy can raise surprisingly serious questions. Comedy can be both critical and playful, and it may arouse various responses. For example, satiric comedy tries to arouse scorn, while romantic comedy tries to arouse joy.
Farce is sometimes considered a distinct dramatic form, but it is essentially a type of comedy. Farce uses ridiculous situations and broad physical clowning for its humorous effects.
The structure of drama
Aristotle, a Greek philosopher who lived in the 300’s B.C., wrote the earliest surviving and most influential essay on drama, called Poetics. In it, he identified the parts of a tragedy as (1) plot, (2) character, (3) thought, (4) diction, (5) music, and (6) spectacle. These six elements are fundamental to all types of drama, not just tragedy. In a well-written play, all of the elements combine to form a unified, coherent, and purposeful sequence of incidents.
Plot
is a term sometimes used to mean a summary of a play’s story. More properly, it means the overall structure of the play. In this sense, it is the most important element of drama. The beginning of a play includes exposition, which gives the audience information about earlier events, the present situation, or the characters. Early in most plays, the author focuses on a question or a potential conflict. The author brings out this question or conflict through an inciting incident which sets the action in motion. The inciting incident makes the audience aware of a major dramatic question, the thread that holds the events of the play together.
Most of the play involves a series of complications—discoveries and decisions that change the course of action. The complication leads to a crisis, a turning point when previously concealed information is at least partly revealed and the major dramatic question may be answered. The final part of the play, often called the resolution, extends from the crisis to the final curtain. It pulls together the various strands of action and brings the situation to a new balance, thus satisfying the expectations of the audience. Writers of modern drama often ignore these traditional aspects of plot.
Character
is the principal material from which a plot is created. Incidents develop mainly through the speech and behavior of dramatic characters. The characters must be shaped to fit the needs of the plot, or the plot must be shaped to fit the needs of the characters.
Thought.
Every play, even the most light-hearted comedy, involves thought in its broadest sense. In dramatic structure, thought includes the ideas and emotions implied by the words of all the characters. Thought also includes the overall meaning of the play, sometimes called the theme. Not all plays explore significant ideas. But every play makes some comment on human experience, either through direct statement or, more commonly, by implication.
Other parts of drama.
Diction, or dialogue, is the use of language to create thought, character, and incident. Music involves either musical accompaniment or, more commonly today, the arranged pattern of sound that makes up human speech. Spectacle deals with the visual aspects of a play, especially the physical actions of the characters. Spectacle also refers to scenery, costumes, makeup, stage lighting, and props.
Greek drama
Drama was born in ancient Greece. Much of our knowledge of Greek theater comes from archaeological studies and historical writings of the time. By the 600’s B.C., the Greeks were giving choral performances of dancing and singing at festivals honoring Dionysus, their god of wine and fertility. Later, they held drama contests to honor Dionysus. The earliest record of Greek drama dates from about 534 B.C., when a contest for tragedy was established in Athens. Thespis, who was the winner of the first competition, became the earliest known actor and dramatist. The word thespian comes from his name.
The most important period of ancient Greek drama was the 400’s B.C. Tragedies were performed as part of an important yearly religious and civic celebration called the City Dionysia. This festival, which lasted several days, offered hotly contested prizes for the best tragedy, comedy, acting, and choral singing.
The Greeks staged performances in the Theater of Dionysus, on the slope below the Acropolis in Athens. The theater seated about 14,000 people. It consisted of rows of stadiumlike seats that curved about halfway around a circular acting area called the orchestra. Beyond the circle and facing the audience was the skene (stage house), originally used as a dressing area and later as a background for the action. This structure eventually developed into a long building with side wings called paraskenia projecting toward the audience. The skene probably had three doors. The action may have taken place on a raised platform, or perhaps entirely in the orchestra.
Tragedy.
Greek tragedy, perhaps because it originally was associated with religious celebrations, was solemn, poetic, and philosophic. Nearly all the surviving tragedies were based on myths. Typically, the main character was an admirable, but not perfect, person confronted by a difficult moral choice. This character’s struggle against hostile forces ended in defeat and, in most Greek tragedies, his or her death.
Greek tragedies consisted of a series of dramatic episodes separated by choral odes (see Ode). The episodes were performed by a few actors, never more than three on stage at one time, during the 400’s B.C. A chorus danced and sang and chanted the odes to musical accompaniment.
The actors wore masks to indicate the nature of the characters they played. Men played women’s roles, and the same actor appeared in several parts. The acting style, by modern standards, was probably far from realistic. The poetic language and the idealized characters suggest that Greek acting was dignified and formal. The dramatist usually staged his own plays. A wealthy citizen called the choregus provided the money to train and costume the chorus.
Of the hundreds of Greek tragedies written, fewer than 35 survive. All but one were written by three dramatists—Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.
Aeschylus, the earliest of the three, won 13 contests for tragedy. His plays are noted for their lofty tone and majestic language. He was the master of the trilogy, a dramatic form consisting of three tragedies that focus on different phases of the same story. His Oresteia, the only surviving Greek trilogy, tells how Clytemnestra killed her husband, Agamemnon, and was then killed by their son Orestes. This trilogy traces the development of the idea of justice from primitive vengeance to enlightened, impersonal justice administered by the state. This development is portrayed in a powerful story of murder, revenge, remorse, and divine mercy. The chorus is important in Aeschylus’ plays.
Sophocles is the playwright whose work served as the primary model for Aristotle’s writing on tragedy. Sophocles seems today the most typical of the Greek tragic playwrights. His plays have much of Aeschylus’ philosophic concern, but his characters are more fully drawn and his plots are better constructed. He was also more skillful in building climaxes and developing episodes. Aeschylus used only two characters on stage at a time until Sophocles introduced a third actor. This technique increased the dramatic complexity of Greek drama. Sophocles also reduced the importance of the chorus. His most famous play, Oedipus Rex, is a masterpiece of suspenseful storytelling and perhaps the greatest Greek tragedy.
Euripides was not widely appreciated in his own day, but his plays later became extremely popular. Euripides is often praised for his realism. His treatment of traditional gods and myths shows considerable doubt about religion, and he questioned moral standards of his time. Euripides showed his interest in psychology in his many understanding portraits of women. His Medea describes how a mother kills her children to gain revenge against their father.
Euripides used a chorus, but did not always blend it well with the episodes of his tragedies. He is sometimes criticized for his dramatic structure. Many of his plays begin with a prologue summarizing past events and end with the appearance of a god who resolves a seemingly impossible situation.
Satyr plays.
Each playwright who competed in the contests at the City Dionysia had to present three tragedies and then a satyr play. The satyr play, a short comic parody of a Greek myth, served as a kind of humorous afterpiece to the three tragedies. It may be even older than tragedy. The satyr play used a chorus performing as satyrs (mythical creatures that were half human and half animal). The actors and chorus in the tragedies also appeared in the satyr play.
Only one complete satyr play still exists—Euripides’s Cyclops. It is a parody of Odysseus’s encounter with the monster Cyclops. The satyr play was a regular part of the Athenian theater during the 400’s B.C. But the form disappeared when Greek drama declined after the 200’s B.C.
Old Comedy.
Greek playwrights did not mix tragedy and comedy in the same play. Greek Old Comedy, as the comic plays of the 400’s are called, was outspoken and bawdy. The word comedy comes from the Greek word komoidia, which means merrymaking.
In the first scene of a typical Old Comedy, a character suggests the adoption of a happy idea. For example, in the comedy Lysistrata by Aristophanes, the women of Athens figure out a way to stop their men from going to war. After a debate called an agon, the proposal, sometimes greatly changed, is adopted. The rest of the play shows the humorous results. Most of these plays end with a komos (an exit to feasting and merrymaking).
The only surviving examples of Old Comedy are by Aristophanes. He combined social and political satire with fantasy, robust farce, obscenity, personal abuse, and beautiful lyric poetry. Aristophanes was a conservative who objected to the social, moral, and political changes occurring in Athenian society. In each of his plays, he ridiculed and criticized some aspect of the communal life of his day.
New Comedy.
Tragedy declined after 400 B.C., but comedy remained vigorous. Comedy changed so drastically, however, that most comedies written after 338 B.C. are called New Comedy. In spite of its popularity, only numerous fragments and a single play have survived. The play is The Grouch by Menander, the most popular playwright of his time. Most New Comedy dealt with the domestic affairs of middle-class Athenians. Private intrigues replaced the political and social satire and fantasy of Old Comedy. In New Comedy, most plots depended on concealed identities, coincidences, and recognitions. The chorus provided little more than interludes between episodes.
Roman drama
After the 200’s B.C., Greek drama declined and leadership in the art began to pass to Rome. Today, Greek drama is much more highly regarded than Roman drama, which for the most part imitated Greek models. Roman drama is important chiefly because it influenced later playwrights, particularly during the Renaissance. William Shakespeare and the other dramatists of his day knew Greek drama almost entirely through Latin imitations of it.
In Rome, tragedy was less popular than comedy, short farces, pantomime, or such nondramatic spectacles as battles between gladiators. Roman theaters were adaptations of Greek theaters. The government supported theatrical performances as part of the many Roman religious festivals, but wealthy citizens financed some performances. Admission to theatrical performances was free and audiences were unruly in the brawling, holiday atmosphere.
The Roman stage
was about 100 feet (30 meters) long and was about 5 feet (1.5 meters) above the level of the orchestra. The back wall represented a facade (building front) and probably had three openings. In comedies, these openings were treated as entrances to houses, and the stage became a street. Scholars disagree on whether the back wall was flat or three-dimensional.
Tragedy
was introduced in Rome by Livius Andronicus in 240 B.C. But the dramatic works of only one Roman tragedian, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, still exist. Seneca’s plays probably were never performed during his lifetime. His nine surviving plays were based on Greek originals. These plays are not admired today. However, they were extremely influential during the Renaissance.
Later western dramatists borrowed a number of techniques from Seneca. These techniques included the five-act form; the use of elaborate, flowery language; the theme of revenge; the use of magic rites and ghosts; and the device of the confidant, a trusted companion in whom the leading character confides.
Comedy.
The only surviving Roman comedies are the works of Plautus and Terence. All their plays were adaptations of Greek New Comedy. Typical plots revolved around misunderstandings. These misunderstandings frequently were based on mistaken identity, free-spending sons deceiving their fathers, and humorous intrigues invented by clever slaves. Plautus and Terence eliminated the chorus from their plays, but they added many songs and much musical accompaniment. Plautus’ humor was robust, and his plays were filled with farcical comic action. Terence avoided the broad comedy and exaggerated characters of Plautus’ plays. Terence’s comedies were more sentimental and more sophisticated and his humor more thoughtful. His six plays had a strong influence on later comic playwrights, especially Molière in France in the 1600’s.
Minor forms
of drama were popular in Rome, but no examples of these forms exist today. The mime, a short and usually comic play, was often satiric and obscene. In the pantomime, a single dancer silently acted out stories to the accompaniment of choral narration and orchestra music.
The Roman theater gradually declined after the empire replaced the republic in 27 B.C. The minor dramatic forms and spectacles became more popular than regular comedy and tragedy. Many of these performances were sensational and indecent, and offended the early Christians. In the A.D. 400’s, actors were excommunicated. The rising power of the church, combined with invasions from outside the Roman Empire, brought an end to the Roman theater. The last known performances in ancient Rome took place in A.D. 533.
Medieval drama
Although state-supported drama ended in the A.D. 500’s, scattered performances by traveling mimes and troubadours probably continued throughout the Middle Ages. The plays of Plautus, Terence, and Seneca were preserved by religious orders which studied them not as plays but as models of Latin style.
Medieval drama flourished from the 900’s to the 1500’s, and became increasingly diverse. It was gradually suppressed, however, because of the religious strife associated with the Reformation. By 1600, religious drama had almost disappeared in every European country except Spain.
Liturgical drama.
The rebirth of drama began in the 900’s with brief playlets acted by priests as part of the liturgy (worship service) of the church. The Resurrection was the first event to receive dramatic treatment. A large body of plays also grew up around the Christmas story, and a smaller number around other Biblical events. In the church, the plays were performed in Latin by priests and choirboys.
Mystery plays.
Beginning in the 1200’s, plays were moved outdoors. Plays written after this time are often called mystery plays. These plays, which were written in verse, taught Christian doctrine by presenting Biblical characters as if they lived in medieval times. Many mystery plays were rich with comedy.
During the 1300’s, the performance of mystery plays was taken over by such secular (nonreligious) organizations as trade guilds. The vernacular (local language) replaced Latin. The short plays had been staged throughout the year. But by the 1300’s, they were often given as a group called a cycle. A cycle portrayed the entire Christian story of the relationship between God and human beings, from the creation of the world to the final judgment. It included an account of the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Cycles usually were performed during the summer.
Cycles of mystery plays from four English towns—Chester, Lincoln, Wakefield, and York—have been preserved. All date from the 1300’s. Plays from France, Italy, Spain, and elsewhere have also survived.
In England, the setting for each play was mounted on a pageant wagon. This wagon was drawn through a city to various places where audiences gathered. Because of the limited space, the actors probably performed on a platform beside the wagon. The audience usually stood in the street or watched the performance from nearby houses. The actors were townspeople, and most of them belonged to the trade guilds that financed and produced the plays.
In various cities on the European continent, several mansions (miniature settings) were erected on a long platform. The actors moved from one of these settings to another, according to the action of the play. See Mystery play.
Miracle plays and morality plays
were also popular during the Middle Ages. Miracle plays dramatized events from the lives of saints or the Virgin Mary. The action in most of these plays reached a climax in a miracle performed by the saint. Morality plays used allegorical characters to teach moral lessons. These dramas grew from fairly simple religious plays into secular entertainments performed by professional acting companies. See Miracle play; Morality play.
Farces and interludes.
Purely secular drama achieved its greatest development in two short forms of drama—the farce and the interlude. Farces were almost entirely comic, and many were based on folk tales. Interludes originally were entertaining skits, probably acted between courses during banquets or at other events. The interlude was especially associated with the coming of professional actors who became regular parts of many noble households.
Italian Renaissance drama
Even before the development of the theater in England and Spain, the Renaissance had begun to transform Italian drama. A new interest in ancient Greece and Rome extended to the drama, and classical plays were studied for the first time as drama, not just as literature. Italian critics of the 1500’s wrote essays based on Aristotle’s Poetics and Horace’s Art of Poetry. From these essays grew a movement in the arts known later as Neoclassicism.
The centers of Italian theatrical activity were the royal courts and the academies, where authors wrote plays that imitated classical drama. These plays were produced in small private theaters for the aristocracy. Most of the actors were courtiers, and most performances were a part of court festivities.
There were three types of plays—comedy, tragedy, and pastoral. Pastoral drama dealt with love stories about woodland goddesses and shepherds in idealized rural settings. Few Italian Renaissance plays had much real artistic value. But they are important historically because they departed from the shapelessness of medieval drama and moved toward greater control of the plot. Ludovico Ariosto was the first important comic writer. His comedies Cassaria (1508) and I Suppositi (1509) are considered the beginning of Italian drama. La Mandragola (about 1520), a comedy by the statesman and writer Niccolò Machiavelli, is still admired and performed today. The first important tragedy was Sofonisba (1515), by Giangiorgio Trissino, who followed the Greeks rather than Seneca.
Intermezzi and operas.
To satisfy the Italian love of spectacle, the intermezzo, a new form, developed from the court entertainments. The intermezzi were performed between acts of regular plays. They drew flattering parallels between mythological figures and people of the day, and provided opportunities for imaginative costumes and scenery. After 1600, the intermezzi were absorbed into opera, which originated in the 1590’s from attempts to reproduce Greek tragedy. By 1650, opera was Italy’s favorite dramatic form.
The Italian stage.
More important than the plays was the new type of theater developed in Italian courts and academies. Italian scenic designers were influenced by two traditions—the Roman facade theaters and the newly acquired knowledge of perspective painting. In 1545, Sebastiano Serlio published the first Italian essay on staging. He summarized contemporary methods of adapting the Roman theater for use indoors. Serlio’s designs show semicircular seating in a rectangular hall and a wide, shallow stage. Behind the shallow stage was a raked (tilted) stage on which painted sets created a perspective setting. Serlio’s three stage designs—for comedy, tragedy, and pastoral dramas—were widely imitated.
The Roman facade was re-created in the Teatro Olimpico, Italy’s first important permanent theater, which opened in 1585. A perspective alley showing a view down a city street was placed behind each of seven openings in the facade. A more significant development of the facade appeared in the Teatro Farnese, built in 1618. This theater had the first permanent proscenium arch, a kind of large frame that enclosed the action on stage. It was especially suited for perspective settings. In 1637, the first public opera house opened in Venice. There, earlier developments helped create the proscenium stage that dominated theater until the 1900’s.
Commedia dell’arte.
Commedia dell’arte << kawm MEH dyah dehl LAHR tay >> was the name given to boisterous Italian plays in which the actors improvised (made up) the dialogue as they went along. Commedia was a truly popular form in Italian, as opposed to the literary drama of the court and academies. Commedia was performed by professional actors who worked as easily on simple platforms in a market square as they did on elaborate court stages.
The commedia script consisted of a scenario (outline of the basic plot). Characters included such basic types as Arlecchino the clown and Pantaloon the old man. The same actor always played the same role. Most of the lively, farcical plots dealt with love affairs, but the main interest lay in the comic characters. We do not know how commedia originated, but by 1575 the companies that performed it had become extremely popular in Italy. Commedia soon was appearing throughout Europe. It remained a vigorous force in drama until the mid-1600’s, and continued to be performed until the end of the 1700’s. Commedia had an important influence on much of the comedy written during the 1600’s.
Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline drama
The Reformation directly affected the history of drama by promoting the use of national languages rather than Latin. The use of these languages led to the development of national drama. The first such drama to reach a high level of excellence appeared in England between 1580 and 1642. Elizabethan drama was written mainly during the last half of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, from about 1580 to 1603. Jacobean drama was written during the reign of King James I (1603-1625). William Shakespeare, the greatest dramatist of the age, bridged the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, but he generally is considered an Elizabethan playwright. Caroline drama was written in the reign of King Charles I (1625-1649).
Elizabethan theaters.
The first public theater in England, called The Theatre, was built near London in 1576. By 1642, there had been at least nine others in and around London, including the Globe, Rose, and Fortune.
All Elizabethan public theaters had the same basic design. A large unroofed area called the yard was enclosed by a three-storied, gallery-type structure that was round, square, or octagonal. A large, elevated platform stage projected into the yard and served as the theater’s principal acting area. The audience stood in the yard or sat in the galleries, watching the play from three sides.
At the rear of the platform stood a two- or three-story facade. On the stage level, the facade had two doors that served as the principal entrances. Another acting area on the second level was used to represent balconies, walls, or other high places. Some theaters had a facade with a third level where the musicians sat. The specific place of the dramatic action was indicated primarily through descriptive passages in the play’s dialogue. A few pieces of scenery were used. This theater design was ideal for Elizabethan plays, which moved at a rapid pace and had many scenes.
Performances began in the early afternoon and lasted until just before dusk. Women never appeared on the professional stage. Boys played women’s roles, and some acting companies consisted entirely of boys. All classes of society attended the theater, and refreshments were sold during performances. The audience watched in a boisterous, holiday mood.
Elizabethan playwrights.
Elizabethan plays developed from the interludes performed by wandering actors, and the classically inspired plays of schools and universities. These two traditions merged in the 1580’s when a new group of playwrights, many of them university-educated, began writing for professional actors of the public theater.
Thomas Kyd is important in the history of drama because he brought classical influence to popular drama. Kyd wrote the most popular play of the 1500’s, The Spanish Tragedy (1580’s). This play established the fashion for tragedy in the theater. It moved freely in place and time, as did medieval drama. But The Spanish Tragedy also showed the influence of Seneca in its use of a ghost, the revenge theme, the chorus, the lofty poetic style, and the division of the play into five acts. Most of all, Kyd demonstrated how to construct a clear, absorbing story. He wrote The Spanish Tragedy in blank verse and established this poetic form as the style for English tragedy (see Blank verse). The Spanish Tragedy may seem crude today. However, the play was a remarkable advance over earlier drama and had great influence on later drama.
Christopher Marlowe perfected blank verse in English tragedy. Marlowe wrote a series of tragedies that centered on a strong protagonist (main character). Marlowe’s work was filled with sensationalism and cruelty, but it included splendid poetry and scenes of sweeping passion.
John Lyly wrote primarily for companies of boy actors that specialized in performing before aristocratic audiences. Most of Lyly’s plays were pastoral comedies. He mixed classical mythology with English subjects, and wrote in a refined, artificial style.
Robert Greene also wrote pastoral and romantic comedies. His Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (about 1589) and James IV (about 1591) combined love stories and rural adventures with historical incidents. Greene’s heroines are noted for their cleverness and charm.
Thus, by 1590, several dramatists had bridged the gap between the learned and popular audiences. Their blending of classical and medieval devices with absorbing stories established the foundations upon which Shakespeare built. William Shakespeare, like other writers of his time, borrowed from fiction, histories, myths, and earlier plays. Shakespeare contributed little that was entirely new, but he developed the dramatic techniques of earlier playwrights. His dramatic poetry is unequaled, and he had a genius for probing character, producing emotion, and relating human experience to broad philosophical issues.
Ben Jonson’s comedies are sometimes called corrective because he tried to improve human behavior by ridiculing foolishness and vice. He popularized the comedy of humours. According to a Renaissance medical concept, everyone had four humours (fluids) in his or her body. Good health depended on a proper balance among them. An excess of one humour might dominate a person’s disposition. An excess of bile, for example, supposedly made a person melancholy. Jonson also wrote two tragedies on classical subjects, and many elaborate spectacles called masques.
Several other playwrights bridged the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods besides Shakespeare and Jonson. They included George Chapman, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Heywood, and John Marston.
Jacobean and Caroline drama.
About 1610, English drama began to change significantly. The tragicomedy, a serious play with a happy ending, increased in popularity. Many plots were artificially arranged and contained sensational, rather than genuinely tragic, elements. The obsession of much Jacobean and Caroline tragedy with violence, dishonesty, and horror has appalled many critics. But these plays have also been greatly admired for their magnificent poetry, their dramatic power, and their unflinching view of human nature and the human condition.
Important Jacobean playwrights included Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, Thomas Middleton, Cyril Tourneur, and John Webster. Philip Massinger and John Ford were among the important Caroline playwrights.
After Charles I was deposed in the 1640’s and the Puritans gained control of Parliament, theatrical performances were prohibited. The Puritan government closed the theaters in 1642, ending the richest and most varied era of English drama.
The Golden Age of Spanish drama
The late 1500’s brought a burst of theatrical activity in Spain as well as in England. The period between the mid-1500’s and late 1600’s was so productive that it is called the Golden Age of Spanish drama.
During the Middle Ages, religious drama developed only in northeastern Spain. The rest of the country was occupied by the Moors. After the Moors were driven from the country in the late 1400’s, Spanish rulers began to re-Christianize the country. Drama became an important means of religious teaching. Religious drama, perhaps because of church control, grew in importance in Spain while being banned in other countries during the Reformation. Until the 1550’s, Spanish religious plays resembled those of other European nations. After 1550, the religious plays of Spain assumed various traits of their own.
Religious plays
in Spain were called autos sacramentales. They combined features of the cycle play and the morality play. Human and supernatural characters were mingled with such symbolic figures as Sin, Grace, and Pleasure. Dramatists took stories from secular as well as religious sources, and adapted them to uphold church teachings. In Madrid, trade guilds staged the plays until the city council took over the job in the 1550’s. The council engaged Spain’s finest dramatists to write plays and hired professional companies to perform them. The public and religious stages closely resembled each other after 1550, and the same dramatists wrote for both.
Production of the plays varied from community to community, but the staging in Madrid was typical. The autos sacramentales were performed on carros (two-storied wagons) that resembled the pageant wagons of the English cycle plays. Carros carrying scenery were drawn through the streets to various points where audiences gathered. A second wagon served as a stage when placed in front of the carro. The second wagons eventually became permanent acting areas at various places, and the carros were drawn up to them. The autos were performed by professionals, but they retained their religious content and their close association with the church. They were performed annually during the Feast of Corpus Christi.
In addition to the autos, the actors performed short farces in the form of interludes and dances. These grew in importance, and gradually the secular elements began to dominate the performances. In 1765, church authorities forbade autos because of their content and the carnival spirit of farce and dancing.
Secular drama.
The first permanent theater in Spain opened in Madrid in 1579. Spanish theaters generally resembled Elizabethan theaters in design.
Lope de Rueda, a dramatist, actor, and producer, established the professional theater in Spain during the mid-1500’s. However, the professional Spanish theater actually did not flourish until after 1580. The two greatest playwrights of the Golden Age of Spanish drama were Lope de Vega and Pedro Calderón de la Barca.
Lope de Vega may have written as many as 1,800 plays. More than 400 surviving plays are attributed to him. Lope took subjects for his plays from the Bible, the lives of the saints, mythology, history, romances, and other sources. He was inventive and skillful, but his plays lack the depth of Shakespeare’s. Like Shakespeare, he often used song and dance and mixed the comic with the serious. Lope influenced almost all future Spanish drama.
Calderón wrote many kinds of plays, but is best known for works exploring religious and philosophical ideas. Most of his works were autos written for the Corpus Christi festivals of Madrid. After Calderón’s death in 1681, Spanish drama declined rapidly and never fully recovered its early vitality.
French Neoclassical drama
The French theater
had its roots in the medieval religious plays produced by guilds. The most important of these amateur groups, the Confrérie de la Passion, established a permanent theater in Paris in the early 1400’s. It eventually received a royal monopoly, making it the city’s only play-producing organization.
During the late 1500’s and 1600’s, the Confrérie’s theater, called the Hôtel de Bourgogne, was rented to visiting professional companies. The first of these groups to establish itself was Les Comédiens du Roi, sometime after 1598. Alexandre Hardy, the most popular dramatist of the early 1600’s, wrote many plays for this company. Hardy mostly wrote loosely constructed tragicomedies filled with adventures of chivalry.
The French theater changed significantly after the Neoclassic theories were imported from Italy. In France, these theories took firmer root and were followed more rigidly than elsewhere. The basic beliefs of Neoclassicism can be summarized in four parts. (1) Only two types of drama, tragedy and comedy, were legitimate forms, and tragic and comic elements should not be mixed. (2) Drama should be written to teach a moral lesson by presenting the lesson in a pleasant form. (3) Characters should be universal types rather than eccentric individuals. This principle became known as the doctrine of decorum. (4) The unities of time, place, and action should be observed. This rule usually meant that a plot should cover no more than 24 hours, take place in a single locality, and deal with a single action.
Neoclassical playwrights.
Although Neoclassical ideas were accepted among educated French people in the late 1500’s, they made little impression in public theaters until the 1630’s. The playwright most closely associated with the change to Neoclassic drama in France was Pierre Corneille. His play The Cid set off a stormy dispute that ended with the triumph of Neoclassicism. The Cid is a tragicomedy based on a Spanish story. It follows many Neoclassical rules, but violates the doctrine of decorum because the heroine marries her father’s murderer. In later plays, Corneille observed the Neoclassic rules and helped establish Neoclassicism as the standard for French drama. The distinguishing characteristic of Corneille’s drama is the hero of unyielding will. The hero gains steadily in power, but his character does not become more complex. Corneille wrote in a form of verse called Alexandrine, which became standard for French Neoclassic drama.
The plays of Jean Racine marked the peak of French Neoclassic tragedy. His first dramas in the 1660’s established his reputation, and he soon surpassed Corneille. Racine used Neoclassical rules to concentrate and intensify the dramatic power of his stories. His tragedies contained little outward action. Their drama came from internal conflicts centering on a single fully developed personality. This character usually wants to act ethically, but is prevented by other forces—often by conflicting desires. Racine created simple plots, but he revealed his characters with remarkable truth.
Molière raised French comedy to a level comparable with that of French tragedy. He also was the finest comic actor of his age, and a theater manager and a director. Molière borrowed freely from many sources, including Roman comedy, medieval farce, and Spanish and Italian stories. His most famous plays were comedies that centered around such humorous eccentrics as misers. The ridiculous excesses of the protagonists were exposed by characters of “good sense.” Molière’s comedies offered much biting social and moral criticism, but were amusing and good-natured. He has achieved wider and more lasting appeal than Corneille or Racine.
By about 1690, the three major French dramatists were either dead or had given up writing. Most of their successors merely repeated the old formulas, and French drama declined.
European drama: 1660-1800
England.
In 1660, the Restoration ended the Puritan government. Charles II returned to the throne. Once again the theater became legal in England. But the English theater had lost the broad popular appeal it had enjoyed in Shakespeare’s day. It became the pastime of a narrow circle of courtiers. Only gradually did it again become popular with the middle classes.
Soon after the theaters reopened in 1660, new playhouses in the Italian style were built in London. These theaters had a large apron (the part of the stage in front of the proscenium arch). Permanent doors opened onto the apron. The auditorium had tiered galleries with some private boxes. Cheaper seats were in a roughly U-shaped flat area called the pit. Until 1762, spectators often sat on the stage itself.
Settings in the English theater closely resembled those used in Italy, with scenes painted in perspective. Because of the Neoclassic demand for universal themes, most settings were generalized—a palace or a garden, for example. During the later 1700’s, settings began to show specific places.
Actresses first appeared regularly on the English stage in the 1660’s, and male actors soon stopped playing women’s roles. Actors became increasingly important during the 1700’s, and audiences often went to see outstanding performers rather than a particular play. Actors apparently based their style on real life, but their acting was undoubtedly more exaggerated than today’s audiences would approve. In the 1740’s, David Garrick brought greater realism to English acting.
The Restoration period is known especially for the comedy of manners and the heroic drama. The comedy of manners was the form most identified with the Restoration. It satirized (poked fun at) upper-class society in witty prose. Some of these satires tolerated immorality, but the ideal behind them was self-knowledge. Characters in the comedy of manners were ridiculed for deceiving themselves or trying to deceive others. The most common characters included the old woman trying to appear young, and the jealous old man married to a young wife. The ideal characters were worldly, intelligent, and undeceived.
The comedy of manners originated largely in the plays of George Etherege. The form was perfected in the dramas of William Congreve, whose The Way of the World (1700) is often called the finest example of the form. In the works of William Wycherley, the tone was coarser and the humor more robust.
English comedy enjoyed a period of extreme liberty during the reign of Charles II. But Puritan elements reappeared in the early 1700’s as the merchant class grew more powerful. Middle-class disapproval of the comic tone was reflected in the change from the mocking Restoration plays to the more sentimental comedies of George Farquhar. Farquhar put emphasis on emotion and good-hearted behavior.
The heroic play flourished from about 1660 to 1680. It was written in rhymed couplets and dealt with the conflict between love and honor. These plays featured elaborate rhetoric, many shifts in plot, and violent action. Such dramas seem absurd today, but they were popular in their time.
A more vital strain of tragedy developed alongside heroic drama. These tragedies were written in blank verse that imitated Shakespeare’s. Notable examples were John Dryden’s All for Love (1677), which reshaped the story of Antony and Cleopatra according to Neoclassical rules, and Thomas Otway’s Venice Preserv’d (1682).
The term sentimental is often applied to most drama of the 1700’s. It indicates an overemphasis on arousing sympathy for the misfortunes of others. Plots dealt with the ordeals of characters with whom the audience sympathized. The humorous portions of plays featured such minor characters as servants. Today, the characters seem too noble and the situations too artificial to be convincing. But audiences of the 1700’s liked them, believing that emotional displays were spiritually uplifting.
Sentimental comedy had its first full expression in The Conscious Lovers (1722) by Sir Richard Steele. In the 1770’s, when this type of comedy dominated the English stage, two dramatists tried to reform public taste with comedies that avoided excessive sentimentality. Oliver Goldsmith attempted to reestablish what he called laughing comedy in the tradition of Ben Jonson. Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s plays have the satire of Restoration comedy, but lack its questionable moral tone.
Domestic tragedy substituted middle-class characters for the kings and nobles of earlier tragedy. It is an ancestor of serious drama. Domestic tragedy showed the horrifying results of yielding to sin, while sentimental comedy showed the rewards of resisting sin. George Lillo’s The London Merchant (1731) popularized domestic tragedy. This drama became a model for playwrights in France and Germany as well as England.
Several minor dramatic forms also developed. The ballad opera was a prose comedy with lyrics sung to popular tunes. The most famous one was John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728). The burlesque was a parody of well-known dramas or literary practices. The pantomime combined dance, music, acting without dialogue, and elaborate scenery and special effects.
France.
By the end of the 1600’s, France had become the cultural center of Europe. The standard for European drama was set by the Neoclassic tragedies of Corneille and Racine and the comedies of Molière. The effort to obey the rules of Neoclassicism tended to freeze dramatic invention during the 1700’s. Voltaire was the only notable French tragic dramatist. The first important French writer of domestic tragedy was Denis Diderot. His plays enjoyed little popularity during his lifetime. However, his proposed reforms in staging, acting, and playwriting—all designed for greater realism—greatly influenced dramatists of the 1800’s.
For most of the 1700’s, the French government permitted only one theatrical company, the Comédie-Française, to produce regular comedy and tragedy. Minor forms, including comic opera, short plays, and burlesques, were staged by the Comédie-Italienne, an Italian group, and at Paris fairs.
Pierre Marivaux wrote comedies in a sophisticated style that had some sentimental touches but were primarily revelations of human psychology. Sentimental comedy appeared in the works of Pierre de La Chaussée. His play The False Antipathy (1733) established the popularity of comedie larmoyante (tearful comedy). True comedy in the form of brilliant social satire appeared in the plays of Pierre de Beaumarchais.
Italy.
During the 1700’s, commedia dell’arte underwent changes in form. Carlo Goldoni was the greatest Italian dramatist of the century. He departed from the commedia style by creating several fully written plays in the mid-1700’s that gained great popularity. During this time, Carlo Gozzi opposed Goldoni’s changes in commedia, and attempted reforms of his own by writing imaginative fantasies with some improvised scenes. Commedia dell’arte declined in popularity, and by the end of the 1700’s, was no longer a significant form. The only important Italian tragic dramatist of the 1700’s was Vittorio Alfieri.
Germany.
A crude type of drama developed in various German states during the 1500’s and 1600’s. German theater had a low reputation until about 1725. At that time, the actress-manager Caroline Neuber and the dramatist Johann Gottsched made serious efforts to reform both playwriting and play production. Their work marked a turning point in German theater.
The dramatist and critic Gotthold Ephraim Lessing also made important contributions. His plays and his influential critical work The Hamburg Dramaturgy turned attention from French Neoclassicism to English dramatic models. By the end of the 1700’s, the German theater had been revolutionized. All major German states supported theaters modeled on the Comédie-Française, and German playwrights won recognition outside Germany. The Neoclassical ideal was giving way to the Romantic movement.
Asian drama
Drama in Asia developed independently of European drama. Not until the 1800’s did Western playwrights generally become aware of Oriental drama and begin to borrow from its rich heritage.
India.
Indian drama is one of the oldest in the world. Its exact origins are uncertain, but sometime between 200 B.C. and A.D. 200, the wise man Bharata wrote the Natyasastra, an essay which established traditions of dance, drama, makeup, costume, and acting.
By the mid-A.D. 300’s, flourishing drama in the Sanskrit language had developed. In technique, Sanskrit plays resembled epic poems. Each play was organized around one of nine rasas (moods). The goal was to produce harmony, so authors avoided clashing moods and all plays ended happily. The most important of the surviving plays are The Little Clay Cart (probably A.D. 300’s) and Shakuntala by Kalidasa (late 300’s or early 400’s).
China.
The drama of China probably originated in ancient ceremonies performed in song, dance, and mime by priests at Buddhist shrines. Professional storytellers became common by the A.D. 700’s, but not until the 1200’s did performances become truly dramatic.
The first formal Chinese drama appeared during the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368). Since the 1800’s, Peking opera (also called Beijing opera) has been the major form. The plays of the Peking opera are based on traditional stories, history, mythology, folklore, and popular romances. The play is merely an outline for a performance. Performers often make changes in the script.
The Chinese stage is simple, permitting rapid changes of location. These changes are indicated by speech, actions, or symbolic props. A whip, for example, indicates that a performer is on horseback. Musicians, and assistants who help the performers with their costumes and props, remain on stage during the performance. But by tradition they are considered invisible. The performer is the heart of Chinese theater. Richly and colorfully costumed, the performer moves, sings, and speaks according to rigid conventions. Each type of role has a definite vocal tone and pitch, and delivery follows fixed rhythmic patterns.
Japan.
The noh plays are the oldest of the three traditional forms of Japanese drama. They developed during the 1300’s from dances performed at religious shrines. The noh theater reached its present form in the 1600’s, and it has remained practically unchanged since then.
Noh plays are poetic treatments of history and legend, influenced by the religious beliefs of Buddhism and Shinto. Many of these plays are shorter than Western one-act plays, and they may seem undramatic. Like ancient Greek tragedy, a noh drama is accompanied by music, dance, and choral speaking, and the actors playing women and demons wear masks. The noh performance is probably the most carefully controlled in the world. Every detail of the traditional stage, every movement of the hands and feet, every vocal intonation, and every detail of costume and makeup follows a rule.
Japanese doll or puppet theater enjoyed great popularity in the 1600’s and 1700’s. Today, only one theatrical company performs these plays. Like the noh plays, the puppet dramas originally were religious. The puppets stand 3 to 4 feet (0.9 to 1.2 meters) high and look realistic, with flexible joints and movable eyes, mouth, and eyebrows. The puppet handlers work quietly on the stage in view of the audience. A narrator recites the story to music and expresses each puppet’s emotions.
The kabuki play is the most popular traditional form in Japan today, and the most sensitive to changing times. It is also the least pure of the three traditional forms, having borrowed freely from other types of theater. Kabuki, the last of the forms to develop, appeared about 1600. It competed with the puppet theater for popularity during the late 1700’s and also took over many puppet theater plays and techniques.
The earliest kabuki were performed by a single female dancer. An all-male cast later became traditional. Although kabuki borrowed much from the noh drama, it differs greatly from the formality of the noh plays. Kabuki theater is violently melodramatic. It features colorful costumes and makeup, spectacular scenery, and a lively and exaggerated acting style. See Japan (The arts).
Romanticism
Many elements made up Romanticism, a European literary movement of the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. The most important was a growing distrust of reason and a new belief that people should be guided by their feelings and emotions. The Romantics tended to rebel against traditional social and political institutions. Romantic playwrights rebelled against the rules of Neoclassical tragedy, taking Shakespeare as their model. Variety and richness became the standard for judging drama, replacing the unity and simplicity admired by the classicists. See Romanticism.
By 1800, a productive Romantic movement had become established in Germany. Two important dramatists of the period, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, wrote plays in the Romantic style, but both denied being Romantics. In many ways, Goethe’s Faust showed the Romantic outlook in the protagonist’s unending search for fulfillment. Many of Schiller’s plays dramatized moments of crisis in history.
After Germany’s defeat by Napoleon’s armies in 1806, some Germans became increasingly interested in their national past and less hopeful about human nature. This skeptical attitude appeared in the work of two of the best German dramatists of the day, Heinrich von Kleist and Georg Büchner.
The intentions of French Romantics were clearly established with the publication of Victor Hugo’s preface to his play Cromwell in 1827. Romanticism triumphed in the French theater with the production of Hugo’s Hernani in 1830. Hernani revolved around the conflict between love and honor, and was filled with exciting episodes, suspense, and powerful verse. French Romantic plays were less philosophical than German Romantic plays. In addition, they depended more on such devices as disguises and narrow escapes. Probably the most outstanding French Romantic dramatist was Alfred de Musset, who explored the psychological motives of his protagonists.
Melodrama appeared along with Romantic drama at the beginning of the 1800’s. It helped stimulate the development of realistic scenery. Many melodramatic scenes of breathtaking escapes and such natural disasters as floods required clever, detailed settings. Melodrama appealed to a much wider audience than Romantic drama, and remained popular long after the Romantic movement had ended.
Early Realism
By the mid-1800’s, Europe was being transformed by the development of an industrial society creating new and complex social conditions. Many people believed these conditions should be studied to determine their effect on human behavior. They also felt that literature should reflect real life. As these attitudes spread throughout literature and the theater, they were reflected in the style known as Realism. Realistic playwrights tried to portray the real world, which they studied by direct observation. These playwrights found their subjects in daily life and wrote dialogue in conversational prose. See Realism.
The popularity of melodrama stimulated the development of realistic settings and elaborate special effects. The development of the box set was an important step toward stage realism in the 1800’s. Scenery enclosed the acting area at the back and sides, imitating the shape of a room with one wall removed. Actors tried to create the illusion of real people in a real room.
Realism was soon followed by Naturalism, a more extreme but less influential movement. The Naturalists believed that drama should become scientific in its methods. They argued that drama should either demonstrate scientific laws of human behavior or record case histories. Naturalists also placed greater emphasis on heredity and environment in determining behavior. Naturalism as a self-conscious movement declined after 1900, but by emphasizing the need for copying the details of daily life, it strengthened the Realist movement. See Naturalism.
Directors appeared in the late 1800’s, partly as a result of the growing complexity in staging. In earlier periods, a leading actor took the responsibility of staging most plays. As the demand for greater realism increased, so did the need for more careful rehearsals and better coordination of all elements. The history of the modern director is usually traced from the work of Georg II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. His well-rehearsed German acting company toured Europe between 1874 and 1890. This group demonstrated the value of integrating all aspects of a theatrical production into an artistic whole. 
The independent theater movement developed in most European countries because commercial theaters refused to present Realistic drama. Commercial theater managers feared the controversy it aroused, leading to the possibility of government opposition. Independent theaters began to appear in the 1880’s. They were private organizations open only to members and could perform works that otherwise would not have been presented. The first important independent theater was the Theatre Libre, founded in Paris in 1887 by Andre Antoine. The Freie Bühne was established in Berlin by Otto Brahm in 1889. The Independent Theatre Society, founded by Jacob T. Grein in London in 1891, introduced the witty plays of George Bernard Shaw to audiences in England.
Modern drama: Ibsen to World War II
Ibsen.
The strongest influence in the development of Realistic drama came from Henrik Ibsen, Norway’s first important dramatist. Ibsen is often called the founder of modern drama. His plays were both the high point of Realism and the forerunner of movements away from Realism. Ibsen broke with tradition not only in technique but also in his fearless treatment of human problems. He portrayed the environment in his plays realistically. His characters reveal themselves as they would in real life—through their words and actions rather than by a statement by the author.
Ibsen’s The League of Youth (1869) was the first of a series of plays that handled social problems realistically, though his Realistic plays contain important elements of symbolism as well. A Doll’s House (1879) and Ghosts (1882) were explosive attacks against the conventional morality of Ibsen’s time. In Hedda Gabler (1891) and The Master Builder (1893), Ibsen intensified his focus on the mind and spirit of the individual. In his late plays, especially in When We Dead Awaken (1900), Ibsen increased his emphasis on symbols and mysterious forces beyond human control.
Russian drama and Chekhov.
The Realistic plays of the Russian writer Anton Chekhov became nearly as influential as those of Ibsen. The principal playwrights in Russia before Chekhov included Nikolai Gogol, Alexander Ostrovsky, and Ivan Turgenev. Gogol’s farce The Inspector-General (1836) satirized small-town officials. Ostrovsky portrayed the everyday life of the merchant class in such plays as The Storm (1860). Turgenev’s play A Month in the Country (completed in 1850) was a Realistic study of boredom, jealousy, and compromise, elements that appear in Chekhov’s plays.
Chekhov took his subjects from Russian society of his day. He skillfully created action that reflects the apparent aimlessness of life itself. As in life, comic incidents often intermingle with pathetic or tragic ones. Chekhov’s greatest masterpieces are his last four plays—The Seagull (1896), Uncle Vanya (1898), The Three Sisters (1901), and The Cherry Orchard (1904).
British drama.
The Realistic spirit gradually influenced dramatists throughout Europe. Until the last quarter of the 1800’s, the British theater was dominated by sentimental romances and melodrama. Henry Arthur Jones and Arthur Wing Pinero, the most popular British dramatists of the late 1800’s, moved toward Realism.
The plays of J. M. Barrie have some Realism, but they are basically Romantic and many are overly sentimental. Oscar Wilde is remembered chiefly for his brilliant comedy The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). Novelist John Galsworthy wrote powerful realistic plays, including Strife (1909), a drama about labor strikes.
George Bernard Shaw was an influential critic as well as dramatist. He supported the social and artistic ideals of Ibsen, and was chiefly responsible for their spread in the United Kingdom. Most of Shaw’s plays are examples of the comedy of ideas, in which the theater is used as a forum for social, political, and moral criticism.
Irish drama.
A remarkable period of theatrical activity developed in Ireland during the late 1800’s and extended into the 1900’s. It was part of a general nationalistic revival of Irish literature known as the Irish Literary Revival. Irish drama centered around the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. It staged the plays of most major Irish dramatists, including Lady Gregory, Sean O’Casey, John Millington Synge, and William Butler Yeats.
French drama.
Jean Giraudoux was probably the leading French playwright between World War I and World War II. He often used Greek myths, Biblical stories, and fantasy to make sympathetic and witty comments about humanity. Jean Cocteau also used Greek myths as the basis of his plays, but he was much more experimental in his style. Paul Claudel became famous for his religious verse plays. Jean Anouilh’s many plays vary in form, but they usually take the side of youthful purity against the corrupting forces of age and greed.
United States drama.
Until the early 1900’s, American drama closely followed the European theater. Few American dramatists of distinction appeared until the 1800’s, and none gained international recognition until Eugene O’Neill, who began writing in 1913. O’Neill’s plays are a record of persistent experimentation with various styles and dramatic devices. His power is probably best revealed in his drama of tortured family relationships, Long Day’s Journey into Night.
Other significant American dramatists of the 1920’s and 1930’s were Lillian Hellman; Clifford Odets, whose best plays express the political and social radicalism of the Great Depression years; Elmer Rice; and Thornton Wilder. Popular comic playwrights included the team of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. In this period, American musical comedy developed into an art form capable of a wide range of expression. Much of its appeal resulted from the music of composers George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, and Richard Rodgers.
Italian drama.
Since the late 1700’s, few important Italian dramatists have appeared. A noteworthy exception is Luigi Pirandello, the leading Italian playwright of the 1900’s. His plays are based on the idea that there is no single truth—only the conflicting views of individuals. Another dramatist, Ugo Betti, became famous for his tragedies about guilt and justice.
Symbolism
in drama developed in France during the 1880’s. The Symbolists believed that appearance is only a minor aspect of reality. They believed that reality could be found in mysterious, unknowable forces that control human destiny. They argued that truth could not be portrayed by logical thought, but could only be suggested by symbols. Their plays tended to be vague and puzzling. The settings and the performers’ movements and speaking style were deliberately unrealistic in an attempt to stimulate the audience to look for deeper meanings in the action. The most celebrated Symbolist dramatist was Maurice Maeterlinck.
Expressionism
is difficult to define because the term was used in Germany between 1910 and 1925 to describe almost any departure from Realism. Most German Expressionists believed that the human spirit was the basic shaper of reality. Surface appearance, therefore, was important only as it reflected an inner vision. To portray this view, Expressionist playwrights used distorted sets, lighting, and costumes; short, jerky speeches; and machinelike movements. Expressionistic techniques can be seen in Georg Kaiser’s From Morn to Midnight (1916), a symbolic story of humanity’s misguided search for happiness through wealth.
Expressionism appeared in Germany about 1910. The dramatic techniques of Expressionism owed much to the Swedish dramatist August Strindberg. In such plays as To Damascus (parts I and II written in 1898, part III written in 1901), A Dream Play (written in 1901), and The Ghost Sonata (1908), time and place shift freely. Characters multiply and merge and objects change in appearance. See Expressionism.
Epic theater.
The discontent of the post-World War I era appeared in much drama of the 1920’s and 1930’s. The most fruitful attempt to focus the attention of theatergoers on political, economic, and social realities was epic theater, developed by the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht.
Brecht adopted the name epic to distinguish his aims from those of the traditional dramatic theater. He used techniques of the epic poem, including episodic action and narrative mixed with dialogue. In such plays as Mother Courage and Her Children (1941) and Life of Galileo (1943), Brecht tried to make spectators think critically and relate his plays to real-life conditions. In this way, he hoped to inspire them to change those conditions. Brecht wrote all his major works before 1945, but his greatest influence came later.
Modern drama since World War II
Theater of the Absurd,
which emerged in France during the 1950’s, was probably the most influential new movement in drama after the end of World War II in 1945. The Absurdists rejected conventional notions of plot, character, dialogue, and logic in favor of dreamlike metaphors that did not try to imitate surface reality. They hoped to express the disorientation of living in a universe they saw as unfriendly, irrational, and meaningless, and therefore absurd.
The most famous play of the Theater of the Absurd was Waiting for Godot (1953) by Samuel Beckett. In this work, two tramps pass the time uncomfortably while waiting for someone named Godot, who never arrives. The plays of Eugène Ionesco, particularly The Bald Soprano (1953), also violated conventional dramatic form. Jean Genet portrayed human behavior as a series of ceremonies expressing sexual and political desires for violence and domination.
Experimental theater.
Many theater artists were influenced by the writings of French director and dramatist Antonin Artaud. They were drawn to Artaud’s demand for an intense, rigorous theater free from the domination of playwrights.
Americans Julian Beck and Judith Malina founded the Living Theatre in 1947 in New York City. The Living Theatre worked to abolish the conventional boundaries between theater and politics, between actors and spectators, and between stage and auditorium. Joseph Chaikin, a former Living Theatre actor, later founded the Open Theater in New York City. The productions and writings of the Polish director Jerzy Grotowski also influenced experimental theater. In the 1970’s, experimental theater lost much of its crusading determination to change the world.
Later German-language drama
reflects the influence of both epic and Absurdist theater. Swiss dramatist Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s The Visit (1956) and The Physicists (1962) are dark parables about crime, guilt, responsibility, and justice. German playwright Peter Weiss’s powerful Marat/Sade (1964) features an anguished reconsideration of the French Revolution by inmates of a mental institution. Austrian dramatist Peter Handke and German playwright Heiner Müller wrote plays in the Absurdist tradition. German dramatist Franz Xaver Kroetz wrote harsh, Naturalistic plays of stinging social criticism.
Later British drama.
T. S. Eliot and Christopher Fry briefly renewed verse drama in the United Kingdom after World War II. A new period in British drama began with John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger (1956). This Realistic play gave a voice to the rebellious spirit of a group of writers eventually called the “angry young men.” Along with the plays of Brecht and Beckett, Look Back in Anger stimulated a new generation of British playwrights.
Harold Pinter was Beckett’s most important follower. Pinter’s plays create a menacing atmosphere from everyday events and seemingly realistic dialogue. John Arden, Edward Bond, Caryl Churchill, David Hare, and Arnold Wesker wrote specifically as political radicals. Joe Norton wrote cynical, dark farces. Tom Stoppard writes intellectual comedies. Other notable British playwrights include Alan Ayckbourn, Michael Frayn, Peter Nichols, and Peter Shaffer. In spite of their differences in form, they all expressed their discontent with modern British life.
Later United States drama.
Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller became the leading American dramatists of the 1940’s and 1950’s. Both playwrights combined Realistic dialogue with Expressionistic staging. Both were also accurate observers of American life, Williams in the South and Miller in the North. But Williams demanded compassion for the doomed dreamers in his plays, while Miller dealt judgment to guilty strivers. In such plays as The Glass Menagerie (1944) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Williams wrote of faded Southern belles who were not equipped to function in the turbulent United States of the 1900’s. In Death of a Salesman (1949), Miller used a common man’s personal failure to criticize society’s focus on material success.
In the 1950’s, small theaters sprang up in several neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. These theaters became known collectively as off-Broadway. They introduced many American playwrights, notably Edward Albee. Albee’s successful play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , a wry, grim drama of domestic discord, was first produced on Broadway in 1962.
During the 1960’s, the Broadway comedies of Neil Simon became tremendously popular. But in general, the Broadway theater, the traditional arena for American plays, declined. Meanwhile, performances of new plays by new dramatists flourished in lofts, basements, cafes, and other venues. These productions formed the basis of what has become known as the off-off-Broadway movement.
Also around the 1960’s, new voices in the American theater began expressing various ethnic, sexual, political, and aesthetic concerns. At this time, numerous important black playwrights found an audience in the postwar American theater. Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959) was the first play by a black dramatist to achieve major success on Broadway.
During the late 1900’s, noncommercial theaters took up the functions that Broadway had performed, especially the presentation of new plays. For example, Sam Shepard’s hallucinatory family plays Curse of the Starving Class and Buried Child (both 1978) were first presented at the New York Shakespeare Festival in New York and the Magic Theatre in San Francisco, respectively. David Mamet, a harsh critic of dishonesty in American life, began his career in Chicago, where his American Buffalo was first produced in 1975. Lanford Wilson, author of three plays about the Talley family of Lebanon, Missouri, was a founder of the Circle Repertory Company in New York City. David Rabe, best known for his plays about the Vietnam War (1957-1975), was sponsored by the New York Shakespeare Festival.
August Wilson became the leading African American dramatist during the 1980’s. His cycle of plays reflects African American life in each decade of the 1900’s. Wendy Wasserstein wrote several popular comedies about women, most notably The Heidi Chronicles (1988).
A number of homosexual playwrights began to write openly about gay lifestyles. The most significant plays include As Is (1985) by William Hoffman, The Normal Heart (1985) by Larry Kramer, and Love! Valour! Compassion! (1994) by Terrence McNally. Tony Kushner’s two-play Angels in America (1993) was perhaps the most celebrated of these plays, making gay men the central characters in a complex allegory of modern American life.
Drama in other countries
reflects the impact of troubled local histories. South African playwright Athol Fugard has written realistic plays that involve apartheid (South Africa’s policy of racial separation from 1948 to 1991) and its aftermath. Wole Soyinka’s plays show Nigeria caught between traditional and modern ways of life. Dario Fo of Italy became known for broadly comic but satiric plays from a left-wing perspective.
