Drama

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What is Drama?

Drama is a unique tool to explore and express human feeling.
Drama is an essential form of behaviour in all cultures, it is a fundamental human activity…

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.

Drama is a universal art. Nearly every civilization has had some form of it. Drama is also an ancient art. Staged performances using actors took place as long ago as

500 B.C, and probably occurred even earlier. But schol­ars have insufficient evidence to state definitely when drama first began. Nor do they know for certain what led to the creation of drama. However, they propose a number of theories. One theory suggests that drama may have developed from ancient religious ceremonies that were performed to win favour 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.

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 ri diculous situations and broad physical clowning for its humorous effects.

The structure of drama

Aristotle, a Greek philosopher who lived in the 30ffs 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 behaviour 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.

Western drama was born in ancient Greece. Much of our knowledge of Greek theatre 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 honouring Dionysus, their god of wine and fertility. Later, they held drama contests to honour 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 Theatre of Di­onysus, on the slope below the Acropolis in Athens. The theatre seated about 14,000 people. It consisted of rows of stadium-like 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. See Europe (picture: Ancient Greek drama).

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 skilful 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' Cyclops. It is a parody of Odysseus' encounter with the monster Cyclops. The satyr play was a regular part of the Athenian theatre during the 400's B.C. But this form of play 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 Crouch 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.

After the 200's B.C, Creek 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 theatres were adaptations of Greek theatres. 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 30 metres long and was about 1.5 metres above the level of the orchestra. The back wall of the stage represented a fagade (build­ing front) and probably had three openings. In come­dies, each of these openings was treated as an entrance to houses, and the stage became a street scene. Schol­ars disagree on whether the back wall was flat or three-dimensional.

Tragedy was introduced in Rome by Livius An- dronicus 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 rrikgic 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' humour 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 humour more thoughtful. His six plays had a strong influence on later comic playwrights, especially Moliere 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 theatre 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 by barbarian tribes, brought an end to the Roman theatre. 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 travelling 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'Bach 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 Illustration from A Dissertation on the Pageants or Dramatic Mysteries Anciently Performed at Coven­try by Thomas Sharp, courtesy Oscar G. Brockett 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 theatre 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 known later as neoclassicism.

The centres 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 theatres 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 artistic value. But they are important historically because they departed from the shapelessness of medieval drama and moved toward greater control of 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 Niccold Machiavelli, is still admired and performed. 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 popular at that time. The inter­mezzi were performed between acts of regular plays. They drew flattering parallels between mythological fig­ures and people of the dav, 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 had become the most popular dramatic form in Italy.

The Italian stage. More important than the plays was the new type of theatre developed in Italian courts and academies. Italian scenic designers were influenced by two traditions—the Roman facade theatres 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 theatre 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 faqade was recreated in the Teatro Olimpico, Italy's first important permanent theatre, 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 faqade appeared in the Teatro Farnese, built in 1618. This theatre had the first permanent prosceniumarch, 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 theatre until the 1900's.

Commedia dell' arte 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 Flarlequin the clown and Pantaloon the old man. In each company, 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. Scholars 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 1, 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 theatres. The first public theatre 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 theatres had the same basic design. A large unroofed area called the yard was en­closed by a three-storeyed, gallery-type structure that was round, square, or octagonal. A large, elevated plat­form stage projected into the yard and served as the theatre'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-storey facade. On the stage level, the faqade 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 theatres had a faqade 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 theatre 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 theatre, and refresh­ments were sold during performances.

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 theatre.

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 theatre. 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 centred 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 /K(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 unequal­led, 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 behaviour 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 theatres 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 reintroduce Christianity into 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 sacra- mentales. 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 theatre in Spain opened in Madrid in 1579. Spanish theatres generally -resembled Elizabethan theatres in design.

Lope de Rueda, a dramatist, actor, and producer, es­tablished the professional theatre in Spain during the mid-1500's. However, the professional Spanish theatre actually did not flourish until after 1580. The two great­est playwrights of the Golden Age of Spanish drama

were Lope de Vega and Pedro Calderon 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 skilful, 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.

Calderon 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 Calderon's death in 1681, Spanish drama declined rapidly and never fully re­covered its early vitality.

Carros, the Spanish travelling stages, brought religious drama to town audiences during the annual Feast of Corpus Christi.

French neoclassical drama

The French theatre had its roots in the medieval re­ligious plays produced by guilds. The most important of these amateur groups, the Confrerie de la Passion, es­tablished a permanent theatre 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 Confrerie's thea­tre, called the Hotel de Bourgogne, was rented to visit­ing professional companies. The first of these groups to establish itself was Les Comediens 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 theatre 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 theatres until the 1630's. The playwright most closely as­sociated with the change to neoclassi<fdrama 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 neoclassjc drama.

The plays of Jean Racirie 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 centring 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.

Moliere raised French comedy to a level comparable with that of French tragedy. He also was the finest comic actor of his age, and a theatre manager and a director. Moliere borrowed freely from many sources, including Roman comedy, medieval farce, and Spanish and Italian stories. His most famous plays were comedies that cen­tred around such humorous eccentrics as misers. The ri­diculous excesses of the protagonists were exposed by characters of "good sense." Moliere'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 theatre became legal in England. But the Eng­lish theatre 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 theatres reopened in 1660, new play­houses in the Italian style were built in London. These theatres 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 theatre 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 would appeal to today's audiences. 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 humour more robust.

English comedy enjoyed a period of extreme liberty during the reign of Charles II. But Puritan elements reap peared 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 behaviour.

The heroic play flourished from about 1660 to 1680. It was written in rhymed couplets and dealt with the con­flict between love and honour. 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 (MW) 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 centre of Europe. The standard for European drama was set by the neoclassic tragedies of Corneille and Racine and the comedies of Moliere. 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 170ffs, the French government per­mitted only one theatrical company, the Comedie- Frangaise, to produce regular comedy and tragedy. Minor forms, including comic opera, short plays, and burlesques, were staged by the Comedie-ltalienne, 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 Chaussee. His play The False Antipathy (MS'S) established the popularity of comedie larmoyante (tearful comedy). True comedy in the form of brilliant social satire appeared in the plays of Pierre Beaumarchais.

Italy. During the 1700's, Italian dramatists worked to preserve commedia dell' arte by incorporating its char­acters into written plays. Carlo Goldoni was the greatest Italian dramatist of the period. He wrote sentimental ver­sions of commedia, as well as many excellent comedies. Carlo Gozzi opposed Goldoni's changes in commedia, and attempted reforms of his own by writing imagina­tive fantasies with some improvised scenes. In spite of the efforts of Goldoni and Gozzi, commedia dell' arte de clined in popularity. By the end of the 1700's, it was no longer a significant form. The only important Italian tragic dramatist was Vittorio Alfieri.

Germany. A crude type of drama developed in vari­ous German states during the 1500's and 1600's. German theatre 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 theatre.

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 theatre had been revolutionized. All major German states sup­ported theatres modelled on the Comedie-Frangaise, 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 theatre. Richly and colourfully 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 no 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 no theatre reached its present form in the 1600's, &nd it has remained practically unchanged since then.

No plays are poetic treatments of history and legend, influenced by the religious beliefs of Buddhism and Shintoism. Many of these plays are shorter than West­ern one-act plays, and they may seem undramatic. Like ancient Greek tragedy, a no drama is accompanied by music, dance, and choral speaking, and the actors play­ing women and demons wear masks. The no 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 theatre enjoyed great popu­larity in the 1600's and 1700's. Today, only one theatrical company performs these plays. Like the no plays, the puppet dramas originally were religious. The puppets stand 1 to 1.5 metres 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 theatre. Ka­buki, the last of the forms to develop, appeared about 1600. It competed with the puppet theatre for popularity during the late 1700's and also took over many puppet theatre 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 no drama, it differs greatly from the formality of the no plays. Kabuki theatre is violently melodramatic. It features colourful costumes and makeup, spectacular scenery, and a lively and exaggerated acting style. See Japan (The arts [Theatre; picture]).

Romanticism

Many elements made up romanticism, a European lit­erary movement of the late 1700's and early 1800s. 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 fulfilment. 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 sceptical attitude appeared in the work of two of the best German dramatists of the day, Heinrich von Kleist and Georg Buchner.

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 theatre with the production of Hugo's Hernani in 1830. Hernani revolved around the conflict be­tween love and honour, 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 behaviour. They also felt that literature should reflect real life. As these attitudes spread throughout literature and the theatre, 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 behaviour or record case histo­ries. Naturalists also placed greater emphasis on hered­ity and environment in determining behaviour. 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 1800s, 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 theatre movement developed in most European countries because commercial theatres refused to present realistic drama. Commercial theatre managers feared the controversy it aroused, leading to the possibility of government opposition. Independent theatres 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 theatre was the Theatre Libre, founded in Paris in 1887 by Andre An­toine. The Freie Biihne 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 skilfully 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), Unde Vanya (1898), The Three Sisters (1901), and The Cherry Orchard (1904).

English drama. The realistic spirit gradually influ­enced dramatists throughout Europe. Until the last quar­ter of the 1800's, the British theatre was dominated by sentimental romances and melodrama. Henry Arthur Jones and Arthur Wing Pinero, the most popular British dramatists of the late 1800s, moved toward realism.

The plays of Sir James 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 labour 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 England. Most of Shaw's plays are examples of the com­edy of ideas, in which the theatre 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 centred on 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 theatre. 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 Heilman; 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 theatre. The discontent of the post-World War I era appeared in much drama of the 1920's and 1930's.

Many countries were dramatically changed during World War II (1939-1945) and the years which followed, and these changes affected drama greatly. Experimental and alternative theatre developed new structures for drama, challenging traditions in dramatic form and in social values. Live theatre increasingly had to compete with drama in film, radio, and television. In some coun­tries, such as India, competition from local film drama led to the closure of many live theatres. In other coun­tries, such as Britain, television drama developed as a distinct form contrasting with live theatre.

Theatre 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 favour 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 theatre 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 Eugene Ionesco, particularly The Bald So­prano (1953), also violated conventional dramatic form.

Theatre of the absurd was a broad movement that included many important new playwrights of the 1950's. Samuel Beckett wrote about characters, such as the two tramps in this scene from Waiting for Codot, who lead meaningless lives.

The most fruitful attempt to focus the attention of theatregoers on political, economic, and social realities was epic theatre, developed by the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht.

Brecht adopted the name epic to distinguish his aims from those of the traditional dramatic theatre. 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.

jean Genet portrayed human behaviour as a series of ceremonies expressing sexual and political desires for violence and domination.

Experimental theatre. Many theatre artists were in­fluenced by the writings of French director and drama­tist Antonin Artaud. He demanded an intense, rigorous theatre free from the domination of playwrights.

Americans Julian Beck and Judith Malina established the Living Theater in 1951. The Living Theater worked to abolish the conventional boundaries between theatre and politics, between actors and spectators, and be­tween stage and auditorium. Joseph Chaikin, a former Living Theater actor, later founded the Open Theater in New York City. It staged such works as The Serpent (1968), with a text by American dramatist Jean-Claude van Itallie. The productions and writings of the Polish di­rector Jerzy Grotowski also influenced experimental theatre. In the 1970's, experimental theatre lost much of its crusading energy and determination to change the world.

Alternative theatre originated in many countries as a form of political protest during the 1960's. In Britain, the fringe movement grew out of the Edinburgh Festival, and became a major dramatic movement. Fringe drama, which included much political satire, was widely per­formed in small theatres.

Later German-Ianguage drama reflects the influ­ence of both epic and absurdist theatre. Swiss dramatist Friedrich Diirrenmatt'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 (1789-1799) by in­mates of a mental institution. Austrian dramatist Peter Handke and German playwright Heiner Muller wrote plays in the absurdist tradition. German dramatist Franz Xaver Kroetz wrote harsh, naturalistic plays of stinging social criticism.

Television drama. The nature of a television audi­ence, with people relaxed at home, encourages a partic­ularly intimate form of drama. The 1940's and 1950's is considered a golden age of television drama in the United States. American writers, such as Paddy Chayef- sky, depicted ordinary events in television drama. In Britain, Jeremy Sandford's Cathy Come Home (1966) firmly established documentary drama on television.

Television drama includes series and single plays. British writers who have been outstanding in both forms include Dennis Potter and John Mortimer. Potter's drama has been particularly innovative, bringing in ideas such as casting adults as children, or including recordings of popular songs.

Later British drama. In England after World War II (1939-1945), interest in verse drama was revived briefly by T. S. Eliot and Christopher Fry. A new period in Eng­lish 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 English playwrights.

Flarold Pinter is Beckett's most important follower. Pinter's plays create a menacing atmosphere from every­day events and seemingly realistic dialogue. John Arden, Edward Bond, Howard Brenton, Caryl Churchill, David Hare, and Arnold Wesker wrote specifically as political radicals. Tom Stoppard attacked political radicals in his plays. Despite their differences, all of these dramatists expressed discontent with the quality of life in modern Britain.

One of the most commercially successful later British playwrights is Alan Ayckbourn. Many of his plays are about middle-class values, using dramatic conventions from farce. Michael Frayn's plays are also often comic, exploring people's behaviour in relation to various insti­tutions. Peter Nichols produced original and unsettling comedies, experimenting with popular forms such as pantomime and musicals.

Joe Orton's black comedies shocked audiences by dealing with taboo subjects as if they were everyday events. Peter Shaffer's tragedies, such as Amadeus (1979), often focus on the tension between the intellect and passionate emotion. Other modern British drama­tists include Simon Gray, Alan Bennett, Trevor Griffiths, and the comedy-writers Willy Russell and Keith Water­house. New women dramatists include Clare McIntyre, Sarah Daniels, and Lucy Gannon.

Later United States drama. Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller became the leading American dramatists of the 194ffs and 1950's. Both playwrights combined re­alistic dialogue with expressionistic staging. In such plays as The Class Menagerie (1945) 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. The play re­ceived considerable critical acclaim and won him the Pulitzer Prize.

In the 1950's, small theatres sprang up in several neighbourhoods of Manhattan in New York City. These theatres became known as off-Broadway. They intro­duced many American playwrights, notably Edward Albee. Albee's successful play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? {1962), a wry, grim drama of domestic discord, was first produced on Broadway in 1962.

In the 1960's, new voices in the American theatre ex­pressed various ethnic, sexual, political, and aesthetic concerns. A typical play of this time was the black dram­atist Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun (1959). During the late 1900's, noncommercial theatres took up the presentation of new plays. For example, Sam Shepard's hallucinatory family play Buried Child (1978) was first presented at the Magic Theater in San Fran­cisco. August Wilson became the leading black Ameri­can dramatist of the 1980's.

Drama in other countries often expresses anger at political and social injustice. South African dramatist Athol Fugard writes sombre, realistic plays about apart­heid (South Africa's policy of racial segregation). Dario Fo of Italy writes broadly comic but pointedly satiric plays. Czechoslovakian dramatist Vaclav Havel explores the breakdown of communication. The plays of Wole Soyinka of Nigeria reveal his belief in the importance of individual freedom.

Related articles. See Theatre and its list of Related articles. See also such literature articles as American literature and the following articles:

American playwrights

Albee, Edward; Anderson, Maxwell; Baraka, Amiri; Barry, Philip; Behrman, S. N.; Cohan, George M.; Dunlap, William; Hart, Moss; Hecht, Ben; Heilman, Inge, William; Kaufman, George S.; Kingsley, Sidney;  Lindsay, Howard; Luce, Clare Boothe; Mamet, David; McCullers, Carson; Miller, Arthur; Odets, Clifford; O'Neill, Eugene G.; Payne, John Howard; Rice, Elmer; Saroyan, William; Shaw, Irwin; Shepard, Sam;  Sherwood, Robert E.; Simon, Neil; Van Druten, John W.; Wilder, Thornton N.; Williams, Tennessee.

British playwrights

Barrie, Sir James M.; Beaumont, Francis; Behn, Aphra; Bulwer-Lytton, Edward; Chapman, George; Congreve, William; Coward, Sir Noel; Davenant, Sir William; Dekker, Thomas; Dryden, John; Eliot, T. S.;

Etherege, Sir George; Farquhar, George; Fletcher, John; Ford, John; Fry, Christopher; Galsworthy, John; Gascoigne, George; Gay, John; Gilbert and Sullivan; Goldsmith, Oliver; Granville-Barker, Harley;

Questions

What are three leading theories about the origin of drama? What was the influence of Thomas Kyd on Elizabethan drama? What is the function of the plot of a play?

What were the theories that shaped French neoclassicism? What were some differences between Old Comedy and New Comedy?

What was the comedy of manners? What was emphasized in a sentimental comedy?

What contribution did the Greek playwright Sophocles make to dramatic form?

What is the theme of most absurdist drama?

What were Victor Hugo's contributions to the rise of romanti­cism in drama?

IMDb Picks: May TV Premieres

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May marks the end of the traditional broadcast television season. In the Peak TV era, a lot of shows are just getting started. See which new and returning shows premiere in May.