( 1 4 ) G e o r g e B e r n a r d S h a w
T h e Vi c t o r i a n D r a m a a n d T h e a t r e
-theatre = a flourishing and pop. institution
-=> wide appeal x but: limited artistic achievement
-comedy of Victorian pretence and hypocrisy: G. B. Shaw’s ‘problem plays' on difficult social issues, infl. by the socially controversial plays of Henrik Ibsen (1828 – 1906) x O. Wilde’s comedies
-infl. of drama in the novel:
-> C. Dickens composed many scenes in his novels with theatrical techniques
-> W. M. Thackeray repres. himself as the puppetmaster of his characters + employed the stock gestures and expressions of melodramatic acting in his illustr. in Vanity Fair
-> + A. Tennyson, R. Browning, and H. James = unsuccessful playwrights
T h e 2 0 th C e n t u r y D r a m a
P r e l u d e t o M o d e r n D r a m a :
-> O. Wilde’s witty drawing-room comedies, with verbal play + serious reflections on social, political, even feminist issues beneath
-> G. B. Shaw’s discussion plays, with a provocative paradox to challenge the complacency of the audience
I r i s h D r a m a :
-the 1st major theatrical movement of the 20th c. orig. in Dublin
-(I) The Irish Literary Theatre (1899) = founded by W. B. Yeats, A. Gregory, George Moore, and Edward Martyn; inaugurated by W. B. Yeats’s The Countess Cathleeen > (II) The Irish National Theatre (1902) = maintained a permanent all-Irish company > (III) The Abbey Theatre (1904) = moved to a building of that name
-> J(ohn) M(illington) Synge’s use of the speech and imagination of Ir. country people; W. B. Yeats’s use of the themes from old Ir. legends; and Sean O’Casey’s use of the Ir. civil war as a background for plays combining tragic melodrama, humour, and irony
E n g l i s h D r a m a :
-> T. S. Eliot’s ritual poetic drama, incl. Murder in the Cathedral + his plays combining contemporary social chatter with profound relig. symbolism, incl. The Cocktail Party > uneven
M o d e r n D r a m a H i g h l i g h t s :
(a)Ibsenism (1890s):
-< the Norwegian dramatist H. Ibsen = then perceived as a critic of middle-class society x rather than now as a poetic dramatist experimenting with symbolic modes of expression
-> a sentimental social comedy, highly pop. in its time: Noel Coward (1899 – 1973), J(ames) M(atthew) Barrie (1860 – 1937), & oth.
-=> typically produced in the London West End Theatre
(b)radio drama (1940s):
-wartime verse plays written for and commissioned by the BBC radio: Louis MacNeice, & oth.
(c)absurd drama (1950s +):
-< S. Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1948 Fr., 1953 E), an apparent lack of plot > focus on language as ‘the main instrument of man’s refusal to accept the world as it is’
-=> typically produced in the Royal Court Theatre
(d)the Angry Young Men (1950s – 60s):
-> John’s Osborne’s Look Back in Anger (1956), technically traditional x but: the novelty in its non-metropolitan setting and the emotional cruelty and directionless angst of Jimmy Porter, the prototype of the E rebel without a cause
-> technically more adventurous: J. Osborne’s The Entertainer (1957), a challenging allegory of the protagonist’s declining fortunes as a music-hall artist and of the changes in E society; and his Luther (1960), a study of the historical rebel with a tangible cause
(e)the kitchen-sink drama x symbolic drama (1950s – 60s):
-new challenges of cinema and TV > the response of the Br. theatre with changes
-new dramatists esp. from lower middle-class/working-class, educated on state grants, employed in odd jobs (kitchens, etc.), often jobs with the theatre (actors)
-> (a) the naturalist kitchen-sink drama (1950s): Arnold Wesker’s trilogy Chicken Soup with Barley (1958), & oth.
-> x (b) the drama of language and symbolism: Harold Pinter’s ‘comedies of menace’, incl. The Room (1957), a study of working-class stress and inarticulate anxiety; The Dumb Waiter (1960), a black farce; and The Homecoming (1965), a comic study of middle-class escape from working-class mores
-=> typically produced in the Royal Court Theatre
(f)black comedy (1960s):
-self-conscious theatricality to show theatre as different from film and TV
-> Joe Orton’s parodies of oth. forms of theatre, incl. What the Butler Saw (1969), a farce ending even with a deus ex machina, & oth.
-> Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1968), a parodic homage to the verbal texture and theatrical technique of S. Beckett; his The Real Inspector Hound (1968), a pastiche of the murder mystery, blurring the gap btw proscenium and audience; his Travesties (1974), a study of the role of memory and imagination in the creative process, incl. time-slips and memory lapses; and his Arcadia (1955), an account of a Romantic poet and his modern critics occupying the same physical space x but: never reaching intellectual common ground
E n d - o f - C e n t u r y C o n d i t i o n o f D r a m a :
-Lord Chamberlain’s abolition of the state censorship of plays (1968) > emergence of controversial political, social, and sexual issues in plays: Edward Bond’s Lear (1971), typical of new plays combining soaring lyrical language and realistic violence; & oth.
-a new trend of collab. and group development of plays
-women pushing their way onto mainstream stages: Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls (1982), the discourse aspiring to reproduce the ebb and flow of normal speech; & oth.
-the opening of the new National Theatre Complex on London’s South Bank (1976) = a high-water mark > drama recession due to TV (1980s – 90s)
G ( e o r g e ) B ( e r n a r d ) Sh a w ( 1 8 5 6 – 1 9 5 0 )
L i f e :
-b. in Dublin x but: went to London to become a novelist, wrote 5 unsuccessful novels
-studied Karl Marx’s (1818 – 83 [= a Ger. philos., political economist, social revolutionary, and co-founder of Marxism with Friedrich Engels]) Das Kapital (1867) and Richard Wagner’s (1813 – 83) opera Tristan and Isolde (1865):
(a)socialism = the answer to society’s problems: joined the Fabian Society = a socialist organisation
(b)a public speaker, author of public pronouncements and tracts: advocated gradual reform rather then rev., with wit absent from most oth. political writing of the time
(c)met and befriended William Archer (1856 – 1924 [= a Scott. journalist and critic])
(d)an art critic: pioneered a new standard of wit and judgement of reviewing
-a music critic: championed the operas of R. Wagner
-a drama critic: championed the plays of the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen (1828 – 1906) [see his The Quintessence of Ibsenism (1891)]
-a public character: experienced historical changes of the last ½ of the 19th c. / the 1st ½ of the 20th c. and pronounced on them in a witty epigrammatic style
-a literary celebrity: used his publicity to advocate his social ideas x O. Wilde used his to define his aesthetic POV
-a radical in many aspects: vegetarian, non-smoker, non-drinker, advocate of women’s rights, the abolition of private property, and the simplification of E spelling and punctuation
W o r k :
-author of more than 50 plays
(a)content:
-< H. Ibsen > men-mastering, no-nonsense, and strong-willed women characters
-< C. Dickens > tends to comedy, aspires to a dramatic reflection of D.’s comic energy, social diversity, and political observation
-set predominantly in the En. of the turn of the 20th c.
-fuses elements of socialism, science, and philos. x but: not as much didactic as instructive
-‘a drama of ideas’ = the characters argue their POVs to justify their social positions: the prostitute of Mrs Warren’s Profession (1893), the munitions manufacturer in Major Barbara (1905), etc.
-his history illuminating, present reforming, and future exciting: his intellectual confidence lacks in the cautious, agnostic, and depressive writing of most of his contemporaries
(b)form:
-emphasises the discussion: makes play and discussion practically identical, makes the spectators themselves the persons of the drama, and the incidents of their own lives its incidents
-produces dialogues of rhetorical brilliance
-reverses plot conventions, attacks conventional moralism of the audience, and moves the audience to an uncomfortable sympathy with the POVs and characters violating traditional assumptions
-orig.: difficulty getting his plays performed publ. in a book form with a didactic preface as Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (1898)
-then: performed in the Royal Court Theatre = the centre for avant-garde drama in London
-received the Nobel Prize for Lit. (1925)
The Quintessence of Ibsenism (1891):
-explains his reasons for admiring H. Ibsen
-defines the kind of drama he wanted to write
Widower’s Houses (1892):
-= his 1st play
-criticises the slum landlordism
The Philanderer (1893):
-> forbidden by the Lord Chamberlain’s censorship
Mrs Warren’s Profession (1893):
-conc.: the contemp. women’s question of the lack of employment occasions
-contrasts the future professional career of an educated, would-be-independent woman x the oldest profession of F prostitution: argues for the propriety of both vocations
-preface: prostitution caused not by F depravity x but: by underpaying, undervaluing, and overworking women
-women forced to resort to prostitution infamous of society to offer such alternatives
-internal tensions: juxtaposes the liberated daughter Vivie x her brothel-keeping mother
-concl.: no reconciliation, compromise, or empty gestures of feminine solidarity x but: a slammed door with an isolated Vivie happily engrossed in her work
-> the 1st legal public performances in E allowed only in the y. after his receiving the Nobel Prize
Arms and the Man: An Anti-Romantic Comedy (1894):
-= a ‘pleasant’ play for the commercial theatre
-challenges ideas of soldierly and masculine heroism
Candida: A Mystery (1894):
-= a ‘pleasant’ play
-turns H. Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (1879 [= criticises the traditional roles of men and women in Victorian marriage]) upside down in the context of a Christian Socialist family
The Devil’s Disciple (1896)
Caesar and Cleopatra (1898)
The Perfect Wagnerite (1898):
-< R. Wagner’s innovatory music-dramas of ‘The Ring Cycle’ (1848 – 74 [= TheRing of the Nibelung, a series of 4 epic music dramas based on elements of Germanic paganism])
-transforms W.’s mythology into an analyses of modern realities
-‘the dwarfs, giants and gods’ = ‘dramatisations of the three main orders of men’
(a)dwarfs = ‘the instinctive, predatory, lustful, greedy people’
(b)giants = ‘the patient, toiling, stupid,…money-worshipping people’
(c)gods = ‘the intellectual, moral, talented people’
-< further develops the idea in his Heartbreak House (1919)
You Never Can Tell (1899):
-= a ‘pleasant’ play
-allows for the victory of a new generation over the old
Man and Superman (1903):
-< Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s (1756 – 91 [= an Austrian composer]) Don Giovanni (1787)
-set in an infernal afterlife
-transforms the play’s characters into those of Don Giovanni in a vast post-Nietzschean argument
John Bull’s Other Island (1904):
-= one of his rare direct treatments of Ir.
Major Barbara (1905):
-conc.: the idea of the future reconstruction of society by a power-manipulating minority
-contrasts a strong-willed father x his equally strong-minded daughter
Androcles and the Lion (1912)
Pygmalion (1912):
-conc.: the developing relationship btw a ‘creator’ x his ‘creation’
-< possibly shares this ‘grotesque’ idea with C. Dickens’ Great Expectations
-> the basis of the musical My Fair Lady (1956)
Heartbreak House (1919):
-the title: from its subtle series of encounters btw characters each of which has to come to terms with disillusion and some kind of ‘heartbreak’
-< develops the theme of 3 contending orders of men of his The Perfect Wagnerite
-concl.: the god-like survivors destroy the oth. 2 orders
Back to Methuselah (1920)
Saint Joan (1923):
-celebrates the recent canonisation of the Fr. military heroine Joan of Arc (1412 – 31) x but: scarcely in a churchy way
-Joan = a self-aware, self-asserting woman ‘saintly’ not in the sentimental sense x but: by merit of the effects she has on oth. and in her willingness to give her life for the freedom opened up to her by her convictions