Modern Drama
4th year 2nd term
2022-2023
Modern Drama is a broad term associated with many schools, movements, and writers. The beginning of
modern drama dates back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Modern drama focuses on
ordinary people dealing with everyday problems.
The Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen is regarded as the father of modern drama. His dramatic writings, in
early works, reflect contemporary life, before going for an overtly symbolic style. His so-called realistic
plays contain symbols in their dramatic fabrics. His realistic plays include Pillars of Society, A Doll's House,
Ghosts, and An Enemy of the People. His symbolic works include The Wild Duck, The Lady from the Sea,
The Master Builder, and Little Eyolf.
The Swedish dramatist August Strindberg is an outstanding contributor to modern drama. This prolific
dramatist wrote more than fifty plays. His early works were historical dramas and farcical tales of rural
life. In his play The Father he presents a study of human vulnerabilities and deals with the striking enmity of
the sexes in war, in which the woman is the winner. In the second phase of his career, he wrote symbolic
plays like To Damascus and other works. In these works, he tried to present, in dramatic form, the apparent
discontinuity and the unpredictability of the dream. In his third phase, he accomplished works such as
Advent, Easter, and the two-part Dance of Death. These works indicated a slight return to the naturalistic
settings of his early works. Strindberg’s importance lies in his technical experiments putting the processes of
the unconscious on stage. He also pushed the analysis of the war of sexes further than before and explored
new subject-matter in his plays.
Realism is a late nineteenth century movement in drama. Its objective was to eschew (avoid) theatrical
histrionics and artifice (theatrical tricks), which were associated with the well-made play, replacing them with
a more seemingly-natural acting style. Besides, realistic plays are distinguished for relying on carefully
constructed structures rather than contrived 'coup de theatre'. One of the major pioneers of Realism is Henrik
Ibsen.
Symbolism is a theatrical movement that expresses opposition to the principles of Naturalism. It began in the
1890s. Its essential characteristics are the abandonment of the physical appearances of life in favor of its
spirit, and the search for poetic rather than prosaic drama. Maeterlinck is the principal dramatist of
Symbolism.
Well-made play is a dramatic genre from the nineteenth-century. This term was first coined by the French
dramatist Eugene Scribe. Nowadays, it is a pejorative term referring to concisely and economically structured
plays working with mechanical efficiency. A good example is Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap still running
since 1952.
Naturalism is a late nineteenth century movement in theatre. Its aim is to make the theatre mirror life with
the utmost directness, even crudity. It was meant to move beyond the Realism of Ibsen. The instigator
(pioneer) of this movement is the French novelist and playwright Zola. The movement spread to Germany,
Britain, Russia, and America. One of the best examples is The Lower Depth by Gorky. Strindberg was first
influenced by Naturalism before drifting away into Symbolism.
Expressionism aims to depict the inner psychological realities rather than physical appearances of the human
experience. The direct origin of Expressionism can be found in the later works of Strindberg like The Dream
Play, which explicitly tries to structure, in a dramatic form, the logic and movement of the dream. German
Expressionism was prevalent in the 1920s producing a sort of theatre in which extreme and often morbid
psychological states were explored via bold use of symbolic settings and costumes.
Phases of development in modern drama
The period from 1880 to 1930 is regarded by theatre historians as the age of experiment or the true heyday of
avant-gardism. In the fields of art and literature, It denotes exploration, innovation and invention, something
new, something advanced and revolutionary in the field of arts.
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Modern drama reflected the changing socio-political atmosphere in Europe and America throughout the
second half of the twentieth century. Plays in that era were generally related to a particular background. Each
decade was associated with a specific dramatic form, subject-matter and major historical developments: the
hectic boom of the 1920s, the Depression of the 1930s, the Second World War of the 1940s, new prosperity
in the nuclear age of the 1950s, the rebellious 1960s and 1970s, the Capitalism of the eighties, and the
globalization of the 1990s.
1920s
In the 1920s, most plays presented inaction, accepting implicitly that there is nothing to be done. In what is
called the theatre of inaction or the negative theatre, most of the characters were cardboard thin; they had no
specific features or characteristics, for example Almer Rice’s The Adding Machine.
1930s
In the 1930s, a considerable artistic change reflected the Depression years reducing millions of people, as a
result of poverty and unemployment, into the animal level of existence. Plays were mainly naturalistic,
dealing with socio-political themes. There were expressionistic plays encapsulating broad human and
historical issues rather than the current affairs. A good example is Waiting for Lefty by Clifford Odets. This
play shows an optimistic mood, and action is the hallmark of this play.
1940s
The outbreak of World War II in the 1940s was emphasis-changing. The European nations were going into
war and the individual was caught up in it willy-nilly. The focus on the individual’s predicament was the
subject-matter of several plays. The theatre of the forties was preoccupied with an analysis of the
implications of action, viewed from the perspective of the involved person. The most pressing issue was the
relationship between the means and the end. A good example is Armand Salacrou’s Nights of Wrath.
1950s
Dramatists of the fifties were mainly preoccupied with the positive values of the individual's own integrity
and his relationship with other human beings. More than previous decades, the theatre of this period was
mainly concerned with ordinary people. A good example is Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman in which the
hero is no more than a cog in the huge machinery of Capitalism, overwhelmed by his circumstances.
Absurd theatre is a term applied to a group of dramatists in the 1950s. However, the dramatists themselves
did not regard themselves as a group. Their main concern is the predicament of man in the universe. In their
view, existence is a purposeless plight which lacks harmony with the surroundings. The awareness of
absurdity brings about a state of metaphorical anguish, which is the main theme in the theatre of the Absurd.
Ideas in the Absurd theatre shape both content and form. The irrationality of human experience is transferred
to the stage. The logical construction of rational linking of an idea with another, in an understandable
argument, is abandoned. Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco are the major dramatists in the Absurd theatre,
in addition to Harold Pinter and Edward Albee. Major works include Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Pinter's
The Caretaker.
Epic theatre is a theatrical movement that originated in Germany in the 1920s. The main advocates are
Bertolt Brecht and Erwin Piscator. In Brecht’s view, the “essential point of the epic theatre is that it appeals
less to the spectator’s feelings than to his reason.” Unlike Aristotelian drama, which observes the three unities
of place, time, and action, the epic theatre focuses on a series of scenes presented simply and clearly without
the restrictions of conventional theatrical construction. Epic theatre was adopted to deliver a political
message with leftist tones. Major works include Mother Courage and Her Children and The Life of Galileo
by Brecht. Other works include the agit-prop plays of Peter Weise, such as Marat/Sade and The Investigation.
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