Drama and Dramatic Arts

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Early 20th-Century Drama

In the 20th century, many dramatists undertook radical experiments with form and language. Although many of these experiments challenged realism, a tradition of essentially realistic drama continued.

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Developments in Europe

Some 19th-century movements, including realism and symbolism, remained influential in Europe, especially during the early years of the century. But following World War I (1914-1918), reactions against those traditions erupted in Italy, France, Germany, and other European countries.

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New Directions in Realism

The Irish Renaissance, initiated in the late 19th century by the works of Yeats, reached its peak in the early years of the 20th century. Yeats himself continued to lead the movement, enriching the poetic symbolism of such dramas as At the Hawk's Well (1916) with inspiration from the Asian theater. John Millington Synge contributed more realistic dramas, drawing on life in the Irish countryside to produce major works of both tragedy and comedy, such as Riders to the Sea (1904) and The Playboy of the Western World (1907), respectively. A number of secondary dramatists surrounded Yeats and Synge. Some specialized in realistic depictions of their native land, as did Lady Gregory with The Workhouse Ward (1908), and others developed symbolist themes, as, for example, Lord Dunsany with The Glittering Gate (1909). The leading Irish dramatist of the next generation, Sean O'Casey, turned from rural and mythic themes to serious though comic studies of urban Irish life, such as Juno and the Paycock (1924).

British theater of the early 20th century was dominated by Shaw. By infusing discussions of social problems with wit and paradox, Shaw lent power and success to the 19th-century tradition of realistic drama. A prime example is the treatment of war, peace, and weaponry in Major Barbara (1905). The treatment of social problems by John Galsworthy, such as labor unrest in Strife (1909), produced more typical realistic dramas. During the 1920s Somerset Maugham and Noel Coward revived once again the sophisticated comedy of manners, a longtime British specialty. Coward’s Private Lives (1930) has been restaged frequently.

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Radical experiments within a basically realistic framework were undertaken in Italy by Luigi Pirandello, who called into question the realist assumption of a single reality that could be objectively observed and shown on stage. Very often he used the theater itself as a central image, as in his best-known work, Sei personnagi in cerca d'autore (1921; Six Characters in Search of an Author, 1922). In this work characters from a play challenge the ability of the theater to portray their lives and relationships fully and accurately.

In England, J. B. Priestley took realism in a new direction, challenging its cause-and-effect structure and its closed system of action with a series of plays that used the dimension of time in unconventional and surprising ways. In his first important success, Dangerous Corner (1932), for example, the action unfolds in a logical manner leading to catastrophic consequences, then at the end returns to repeat the opening scene to show that a slight change in the dialogue would lead the action in a totally different direction.

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Poetic Drama

A number of playwrights in the early 20th century attempted to revive poetic drama, which had fallen out of fashion with the rise of realism. The most successful was the period's most respected poet, T. S. Eliot, who was born in the United States but became a British citizen. Eliot wrote several poetic dramas of contemporary life and the historical meditation Murder in the Cathedral (1935), a verse play that deals with the martyrdom of Saint Thomas à Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. More widely produced were the plays of Spain's Federico García Lorca. He powerfully blended poetic imagery with strong sexual passion in such works as Bodas de sangre (1933; Blood Wedding, 1939).

The leading French dramatist between the two world wars—from 1918 to 1939—was Jean Giraudoux. Like many French dramatists before him, he took his subject matter from classic mythology, as in his comedy Amphitryon 38 (1929; translated 1938), or from a rather fantasized contemporary life, as in La folle de Chaillot (1945; The Madwoman of Chaillot, 1947). He gave to each his particular poetic imagination, fantasy, and gentle irony. Giraudoux inspired the younger Jean Anouilh, who, like the early Shaw, divided his plays into pleasant and unpleasant works (Anouilh's terms for them were rosy and black or sparkling and grating). Anouilh's best-known work is Antigone (1942; translated 1946). Created during the German occupation of Paris in World War II, it is a complex study of the forces of political power and resistance.

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Reactions Against Realism

A series of strong reactions to the prevalent theater of realism appeared throughout the early 20th century in a number of continental European countries. Probably the most influential of the nonrealistic dramatists from the early years of the 20th century was Strindberg, who around 1900 turned from naturalistic drama to more subjective works that sought to capture the inner imagination of dreams. He even titled one of them The Dream Play (originally Ett drömspel, 1902; translated 1912). These plays, along with the dark, grotesque, and often shocking later dramas of Frank Wedekind of Germany, such as Die Büchse der Pandora (1904; Pandora's Box, 1918), prepared the way for perhaps the most important reaction against realism in the early 20th century: expressionism.

After symbolism, the next movement to emerge was called futurism. Futurism rejected both realism and romanticism as relics of the 19th century and sought a new form for a new century, a form more suited to an age of technology. Futurism was most important in Italy, where its leader Filippo Tommaso Marinetti specialized in brief, often parodistic scenes called sintesi, and in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). There Vladimir Mayakovsky produced much more complex works that often included political commentary, as in his play Klop (1929; The Bedbug, 1960). By the early 1930s, however, the Soviet government required that literature present an optimistic view of life in the USSR, establishing a style known as socialist realism and halting experimentation. The play Na dne (1902; The Lower Depths, 1912) by the naturalist Maksim Gorky was praised for its interest in the oppressed and seen as a better model for drama, but no new dramatists of Gorky's stature appeared to create the more cheerful portraits that the Soviets wanted.

Two much-publicized revolts against realism arose during World War I (1914-1918): dada and surrealism. Dada went further than futurism in its efforts to subvert existing art, including drama, and left only plays designed to be impossible to stage, among them Le coeur à gaz (1920; The Gas Heart, 1964) by French writer Tristan Tzara. Surrealism took a more positive approach, attempting to go beyond realism, as its name suggests, into the psychic world of dreams and imagination. Not surprisingly, neither of these rather extreme movements produced much drama. However, Jean Cocteau of France, who began his career as a surrealist, continued to employ its techniques in the 1930s in his popular adaptations of classical myths, including Orphée (1926; Orpheus, 1933). Later the theater of the absurd would show the influence of these movements (for more information, see the Theater of the Absurd section of this article).

The work of several other dramatists of the 1920s also displayed the antirealistic influence of such movements as surrealism and symbolism. These include Fernand Crommelynck of France, with Le cocu magnifique (1921; The Magnificent Cuckold, 1966), an eccentric love story; Roger Vitrac of France, with Victor, ou les enfants au pouvoir (1928; Victor, or Children in Power), a farce with surrealist elements; and Michel de Ghelderode of Belgium, with Pantagleize (1929; translated 1960), a bitterly humorous look at revolution. None of these playwrights attracted widespread attention, however, until the emergence of the theater of the absurd in the 1950s, to which their work then seemed related.