Drama and Dramatic Arts

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Other Antirealistic Experiments

The two leading Swiss dramatists of the postwar years, Friedrich Dürrenmatt and Max Frisch, were for a time considered part of the absurdist movement because their plays departed from conventional realism. However, their dark, exaggerated allegories have little in common with Ionesco or Beckett, and Dürrenmatt's suggestion that his plays be called grotesque rather than absurd highlights the difference. Frisch's Biedermann und die Brandstifter (1958; The Fire Raisers, 1962) and Dürrenmatt's Der Besuch der alten Dame (1956; The Visit, 1958), for example, are grim moral fables, with distorted but quite rational dramatic actions. Closer to the absurdists were the experiments of Peter Handke of Austria. His Publikumsbeschimpfung (1966; Offending the Audience, 1969), even more than any work by Ionesco, might be best described as an antiplay. It directly attacks the dramatic illusion itself by having the actors address and insult the audience.

The structure of the best-known German play of the 1960s, by Peter Weiss, was strongly influenced by his countryman Brecht, most notably in its use of political songs and a herald who comments on the action. Generally referred to as Marat/Sade, the full title of Weiss’s play is Die Verfolgung und Ermordung Jean-Paul Marats dargestellt durch die Schauspielgruppe des Hospizes zu Charenton unter Anleitung des Herrn de Sade (1964; The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, 1965). However, the Brechtian influence was overshadowed—especially in the London production staged by director Peter Brook—by Weiss's use of shocking, often physical devices, notably in each actor’s vivid portrayal of insanity. These devices were inspired by the theories and practices of Antonin Artaud, a theater visionary associated with the surrealists. Artaud dreamed of a visceral theater of cruelty, which through the use of movement and gesture would force audiences to confront their most basic desires.

Despite the great success of Marat/Sade, Weiss turned in his following plays to another type of drama just then coming to prominence in Germany, the docudrama or theater of fact, which writers created by weaving together excerpts from actual historical documents. Rolf Hochhuth's Der Stellvertreter (1963; The Deputy, 1964) was the first such play to gain prominence. This notice was largely due to the scandal caused by its charge that Pope Pius XII, by refusing to take a moral stand, was in part guilty of the Nazi extermination of the Jews during World War II. Hochhuth in fact utilized a good deal of fictional material, while Weiss's Die Ermittlung (1965; The Investigation, 1966) was a true docudrama, drawn entirely from official hearings about the crimes against humanity committed at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Another important contribution to this movement was Heinar Kipphardt's In der Sache J. Robert Oppenheimer (1964; In the Case of J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1967), based on a government hearing that resulted in the physicist losing his security clearance.

The modern drama of Poland and Czechoslovakia, both with strong experimental traditions, gained particular attention with the coming of the theater of the absurd. Poland had a particularly powerful nonrealistic tradition, which began with Stanislaw Wyspianski's strange mixtures of realism and fantasy, as in Wesele (1901; The Wedding, 1933). It continued with Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz's more extreme antilogical dramas, such as Kurka wodna (1921; The Water Hen, 1988), which explored the workings of the unconscious mind, and Witold Gombrowicz's Ionesco-like Iwona, ksiezniczka Burgunda (1938; Ivona, Princess of Burgundy, 1969), which contrasts democracy and monarchy. Next came absurdist political allegories, such as Kartoteka (1960; The Card Index, 1969) by Tadeusz Rósewicz and Tango (1964; translated 1968), by Slawomir Mrozek. The leading postwar Czech dramatist, Václav Havel, followed a similar style of grotesque political satire in such plays as Vyrozumění (1965; The Memorandum, 1967), which looked at the absurdities of life under Communist rule.

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Postwar Realism

After World War II, the British stage was reinvigorated primarily by a new wave of realism, more concerned with social commentary and depicting the lives of the lower classes. The writers in this movement were initially called the 'angry young men,' in reference to the disillusioned protagonist of the first important success in the new style, Look Back in Anger (1956) by John Osborne. Among the other leading dramatists in this movement were John Arden, whose Serjeant Musgrave's Dance (1959) discussed class and war; Arnold Wesker, whose The Kitchen (1959) used a restaurant kitchen as a microcosm of British society; and Edward Bond, whose Saved (1965) presented so grim a picture of lower-class British life that it was banned for a time.

Many British and Irish plays of this period displayed an interest in social and political issues, though not all employed the techniques of realism. Partly inspired by Brecht’s mixed style, some plays used song and vaudeville turns to help present the most serious of social messages. They include the antiwar revue Oh What a Lovely War! (1963) by Joan Littlewood and The Hostage (1958), a study of the ongoing Irish-English conflict by Brendan Behan. Some dramatists with less specific political concerns took inspiration from Brecht's epic style, utilizing many short scenes, a loosely organized plot, and in may cases theatrical commentary on the action. One such dramatist was Robert Bolt in his A Man for All Seasons (1960), a study of the life and death of English statesman Sir Thomas More.

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American Trends

In the United States, Anderson, Hellman, Odets, and Wilder continued to produce important works following World War II, but the most praised older dramatist was O'Neill. His later works, most notably Long Day's Journey into Night (produced 1956), were brought to the stage at last in the late 1950s. But the dominant dramatists of the postwar years were Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller. Miller pursued the Ibsenian tradition of social drama in his most famous play, The Death of a Salesman (1949), and enriched it with some touches of expressionism and symbolism by conveying parts of the story through the main character’s memories. Williams also worked generally in the mode of realism, but in a somewhat more poetic style and stressing individual psychology more than social concerns, as can be seen in his first two major works, The Glass Menagerie (1944) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1947). William Inge in such works as Picnic (1953) and Robert Anderson in Tea and Sympathy (1953) echoed the themes and approach of Williams and Miller.

The postwar years also saw the American musical become a major force. The dominant figures were composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II, whose Oklahoma! (1943) inaugurated a remarkable period in this genre. Major new works by this team appeared every two or three years. The pair also inspired a number of other artists, such as lyricist and librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe, who wrote Brigadoon (1947) and My Fair Lady (1956), and composer, lyricist, and librettist Frank Loesser, who won fame for Guys and Dolls (1950).

A number of young American dramatists of the late 1950s and early 1960s wrote dramas in the absurdist style, but of these only Edward Albee established a major reputation. His early short plays The Zoo Story (1959) and The American Dream (1961) seem clearly absurdist, but his best-known work, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962), is an evening-long psychological confrontation closer to Strindberg or Williams. The most popular serious American dramatists after Albee returned to the general domain of realism, as may be seen in such works as The Hot l Baltimore (1973) by Lanford Wilson or Glengarry Glen Ross (1983) by David Mamet. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Buried Child (1978) by Sam Shepard suggested hidden and menacing dimensions somewhat in the manner of Pinter.

An important African American theater emerged during the 1960s, heralded by A Raisin in the Sun (1959) by Lorraine Hansberry, the first play by an African American woman to be presented on Broadway, the center of New York City’s theater district. Most subsequent leading African American dramatists continued to work in the traditional style of American realism. They included Charles Gordone, with No Place to Be Somebody (1967); Ed Bullins, with The Taking of Miss Janie (1975); Charles Fuller, with A Soldier's Play (1981); and August Wilson, with Fences (1985). Amiri Baraka, the most militant of these dramatists, consciously sought a drama more dependent on spectacle and indebted to African tribal ceremonies, as is evident in such plays as Slave Ship (1967). A powerful antirealistic African American drama also developed, with certain ties to expressionism and surrealism. In Funnyhouse of a Negro (1962) by Adrienne Kennedy, for example, several historical figures visit a young woman as she seeks to understand her identity. More recently The America Play (1994) by Suzan-Lori Parks relates the untold history of blacks in America through an Abraham Lincoln look-alike named Foundling Father.

Members of other minorities also made important contributions to the American theater of the 1980s and 1990s. Probably the best known of these is David Henry Hwang, the Chinese American author of M. Butterfly (1988), a play that deals not only with cultural conflict but with homosexuality. Emotional attachment between persons of the same sex, generally hidden or condemned in earlier American drama, received more direct and sympathetic treatment in plays from the mid-1960s onward. A significant early example is The Madness of Lady Bright (1964), a compassionate look at an aging homosexual by Lanford Wilson. Homosexuality is also a central theme in one of the most ambitious and powerful American dramas of the 1990s, the two-part epic Angels in America (1991, 1993) by Tony Kushner.

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Recent Developments

In most European countries the final decades of the 20th century saw more emphasis placed upon the work of directors than on that of dramatists. Some of the most prominent figures enjoyed both roles. Heiner Müller of Germany created and staged lengthy, unconventional challenges to traditional dramatic structure. Robert Wilson of the United States produced parts of his epic the CIVIL warS (1983) in five different countries. The Seven Streams of the River Ota (1996), an epic by Canada’s Robert Lepage, premiered in Québec before touring the world.

During the 1990s Ireland maintained one of the strongest continuing traditions of new drama in Europe. Brian Friel, best known for his Dancing at Lughnasa (1990), headed a group of talented writers. This group also included Frank McGuinness, with Someone Who'll Watch Over Me (1992); Sebastian Barry, with The Steward of Christendom (1995); and Martin McDonagh, with The Beauty Queen of Leenane (1996).

The growing importance of women playwrights is one of the most significant features of recent American and British theater. Some of them are part of a recent trend toward solo performance, including Karen Finley, with her Constant State of Desire (1987), or Rachel Rosenthal, with her Pangean Dreams (1990). Others work within the general tradition of realist drama, whether in serious drama or in comedy. These playwrights include Beth Henley in Crimes of the Heart (1978), Marsha Norman in `Night, Mother (1982), Wendy Wasserstein in The Heidi Chronicles (1988) and An American Daughter (1997), and Paula Vogel in How I Learned to Drive (1996). Still others, such as Maria Irene Fornés in Fefu and Her Friends (1977) or Susan Yankowitz in Night Sky (1991) employ more avant-garde techniques. Along with such leading British dramatists as Caryl Churchill, with Top Girls (1982), Pam Gems, with Camille (1984), and Timberlake Wertenbaker, with Our Country's Good (1988), these women have made some of the most important contributions to recent drama.