Code
1.
Questions
Which type of theatre
follows the pattern of
ceremony? Discuss its
important features.
2.
Give a detailed analysis of
Mrs.Meldon’s character.
3.
Discuss
Aristotle’
4.
‘JM Synge was a popular
Irish playwright, poet and
prose writer’. Discuss his
life as a writer.
5.
Discuss the theme of J. B.
Priestly’s play ‘Mother’s
Day’.
4D15 – BAE404
‘Tragedy
after
Answers
A drama that follows the pattern of ceremony is called Ritual Drama. Some of
its important features are:
Jerry
•
Grotowski introduced the concept of Ritual Drama in the twentieth century.
•
The ritual drama form insists on the active participation of the audience,
unlike other forms of drama where the audience are passive viewers.
•
Jerry Grotowski’s intention was to create a more secular and interactive
form of drama.
•
A play called ‘The Ancestors’ Mickiewicz was directed and presented by
Grotowski as a ritual drama.
Charlotte Meldon is a grieving widow who is the polar opposite of her brother
Corrie. Her only son Eddie died in the First World War and her husband Tom
passed away from the shock of Eddie’s death. Mrs Meldon thus lives a lonely
life and often thinks about the happy times in the past when her family was alive
- an activity which upsets her greatly. Unlike her brother, Mrs Meldon is a
character who is full of feeling. Her brother cannot understand her pain and
sense of loss. However, Mrs Meldon understands the pain and loss of even
German mothers who lost their sons in the First World War.
For Mrs Meldon it does not make a difference which side a mother is on
because both feel the same way when they lose a son in war. When she hears
that the Corrie’s invention will obliterate thousands ‘just like Eddie’, she begs
him to destroy the invention that will ‘destroy life’. When Corrie refuses, she is
forced to destroy him.
The medieval period saw tragedy being defined by the fall of a man of great
stature from grace because of a reversal of fortune. Tragedy in the medieval
period started underlining human follies, thus becoming didactic. With the
emergence of the Elizabethan age, two prominent changes took place.
•
Death was used as a device to bring in the ultimate tragic end for the
protagonist and adversity started being associated to the original sin and
moral ethics.
•
Unlike Aristotle’s concept of a tragedy having unity of time and place,
Elizabethan tragedy compressed time and jumped from location to location
for different scenes.
•
Tragedy in the modern era deviated from its predecessor in a major way by
portraying its protagonist as a common man, unlike the earlier ages when
the protagonist had to be a man of great fortune.
However, conceptually, tragedy in the modern era remained the same because
it narrated the story of a man who is unable to attain his desires for various
reasons despite his best attempts.
Edmund John Millington Synge was born in 1871 near Dublin. In a span of just
six years, he became famous all over the world becoming a key figure in the
Irish literary scene. An avid traveller, Synge travelled through Germany, Italy
and France, learning about the essential characteristics of these nations along
the way, which helped him immensely. In 1896, he was spotted by the great
Irish poet W.B. Yeats who persuaded him to return to Ireland and start writing
on Irish life. Yeats was a great influence on Synge, helping him to cultivate his
growing interest in Irish language and lore. Throughout his career as a
playwright and novelist, Synge’s works focused on the lives of the Roman
Catholic Irish peasantry.
His most famous play The Playboy of the Western World, widely regarded as
his masterpiece, is the story of an apparent patricide committed by a young
man who has run away from a farm. Widely accused of supporting English
stereotypes of Irish peasantry and not supporting the Irish nationalist cause,
when the play was first performed, it received an extremely hostile reception
from the public and even caused a riot.
The play Mother’s Day is a humorous portrayal of the plight of a mother in a
family. The job of a mother is perhaps the most thankless. She is expected to
do everything for her children and husband, however, in return she does not get
any sort of acknowledgement. In the play the central character Mrs Pearson
faces such a situation in her household. Through the play Priestley seems to
suggest that thoughtless children and selfish husbands frequently ride rough
shot over a mother’s selfless service. The play can be considered feminist in the
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6.
Discuss the theme of St.
John
Ervine’s
play
‘Progress’.
4D15 – BAE404
sense that the plot shows that until and unless a woman fights back for her
rights her contribution is not recognised in the family. This moral of the play is
brought out through the character of Mrs Fitzgerald.
Progress is an anti-war play that stresses the perilous path of ‘progress’ science
has taken since the dawn of the twentieth century. In the play Ervine highlights
the fact that the best minds in the world no longer work for the betterment of
humanity but are engaged in creating weapons of destruction for fame and
fortune. It is through the main character of the play Mrs Meldon that Ervine
makes his impassioned plea against war.
War for Mrs Meldon is absurd and evil, spreading nothing but destruction and
grief. Through the play Ervine seems to suggest that the statesmen and
scientist who invent war machines and throw away lives of young people
frivolously are not engaged in progress but rather are the enemies of humanity.
The character of Henry Corrie is one such individual. He cares very little of the
thousands that will be obliterated by the use of his invention and only thinks of
the money that he will receive for it. Thus, what goes by the name of ‘progress’
actually is taking people on the path of destruction.
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