Transcript MODERN DRAMA

MODERN DRAMA
(Survey)
SYNONYMS :
• Theatre of Cruelty
• Theatre of the Absurd
• Anti-theatre
• Theatre of Silence
Initiated by :
• John Osborne :
"Look Back in Anger"
(1956)
• Samuel Beckett :
"Waiting for Godot"
(1956)
NEW CONTENTS :
• No middle class environment anymore, but working class
background
• violence, which has some strange fascination
• fears of different kinds
• ruthlessness
• inability to communicate >> lack of communication
• loneliness
▼
• craving for love / friendship / close relationships
• sex (often not heterosexual)
AIMS :
• Demonstration of the chaos and incoherence
of ordinary speech
• Revelation of fundamental problems in
society
▼
social criticism
STYLE :
• satire
• sick humour
FURTHER
REPRESENTATIVES :
* Alan Ayckbourn
* James Saunders
* Harold Pinter
* Tom Stoppard
Possibilities of representing
characters
by....
• the description of the character in the stage
directions
• what he says and how he behaves
• what other characters say about him/her