Artwork intended for performance, formal type of literature
Drama
is the specific
mode
of
fiction
represented
in
performance
: a
play
,
opera
,
mime
,
ballet
, etc., performed in a
theatre
, or on
radio
or
television
.
[1]
Considered as a genre of
poetry
in general, the dramatic mode has been contrasted with the
epic
and the
lyrical
modes ever since
Aristotle
's
Poetics
(
c.
335 BC
)?the earliest work of
dramatic theory
.
[2]
The term "drama" comes from a
Greek
word meaning "deed" or "
act
" (
Classical Greek
:
δρ?μα
,
drama
), which is derived from "I do" (
Classical Greek
:
δρ?ω
,
dra?
). The two
masks
associated with drama represent the traditional
generic
division between
comedy
and
tragedy
.
In English (as was the analogous case in many other European languages), the word
play
or
game
(translating the
Anglo-Saxon
ple?an
or
Latin
ludus
) was the standard term for dramas until
William Shakespeare
's time?just as its creator was a
play-maker
rather than a
dramatist
and the building was a
play-house
rather than a
theatre
.
[3]
The use of "drama" in a more narrow sense to designate a specific
type
of
play
dates from the modern era. "Drama" in this sense refers to a play that is
neither
a comedy nor a tragedy?for example,
Zola's
Therese Raquin
(1873) or
Chekhov's
Ivanov
(1887). It is this narrower sense that the
film
and
television
industries, along with
film studies
, adopted to describe "
drama
" as a
genre
within their respective media. The term "
radio drama
" has been used in both senses?originally transmitted in a live performance. It may also be used to refer to the more high-brow and serious end of the dramatic output of
radio
.
[4]
The enactment of drama in
theatre
, performed by
actors
on a
stage
before an
audience
, presupposes
collaborative
modes of production and a
collective
form of reception. The
structure of dramatic texts
, unlike other forms of
literature
, is directly influenced by this collaborative production and collective reception.
[5]
Mime is a form of drama where the action of a story is told only through the movement of the body. Drama can be combined with
music
: the dramatic text in
opera
is generally sung throughout; as for in some ballets dance "expresses or imitates emotion, character, and narrative action".
[6]
Musicals
include both spoken
dialogue
and
songs
; and some forms of drama have
incidental music
or musical accompaniment underscoring the dialogue (
melodrama
and Japanese
N?
, for example).
[7]
Closet drama
is a form that is intended to be read, rather than performed.
[8]
In
improvisation
, the drama does not pre-exist the moment of performance; performers devise a dramatic script spontaneously before an audience.
[9]
History of Western drama
[
edit
]
Classical Greek drama
[
edit
]
Western
drama originates in
classical Greece
.
[10]
The
theatrical culture
of the
city-state
of
Athens
produced three
genres
of drama:
tragedy
,
comedy
, and the
satyr play
. Their origins remain obscure, though by the 5th century BC, they were
institutionalised
in
competitions
held as part of
festivities
celebrating the god
Dionysus
.
[11]
Historians know the names of many ancient Greek dramatists, not least
Thespis
, who is credited with the innovation of an actor ("
hypokrites
") who speaks (rather than sings) and impersonates a
character
(rather than speaking in his own person), while interacting with the
chorus
and its leader ("
coryphaeus
"), who were a traditional part of the performance of non-dramatic poetry (
dithyrambic
,
lyric
and
epic
).
[12]
Only a small fraction of the work of five dramatists, however, has survived to this day: we have a small number of complete texts by the tragedians
Aeschylus
,
Sophocles
and
Euripides
, and the comic writers
Aristophanes
and, from the late 4th century,
Menander
.
[13]
Aeschylus' historical tragedy
The Persians
is the oldest surviving drama, although when it won first prize at the
City Dionysia
competition in 472 BC, he had been writing plays for more than 25 years.
[14]
The competition ("
agon
") for tragedies may have begun as early as 534 BC; official records ("
didaskaliai
") begin from 501 BC when the
satyr play
was introduced.
[15]
Tragic dramatists were required to present a
tetralogy
of plays (though the individual works were not necessarily connected by story or theme), which usually consisted of three tragedies and one satyr play (though exceptions were made, as with Euripides'
Alcestis
in 438 BC).
Comedy
was officially recognized with a prize in the competition from 487 to 486 BC.
Five comic dramatists competed at the City
Dionysia
(though during the
Peloponnesian War
this may have been reduced to three), each offering a single comedy.
[16]
Ancient Greek comedy
is traditionally divided between "old comedy" (5th century BC), "middle comedy" (4th century BC) and "new comedy" (late 4th century to 2nd BC).
[17]
Classical Roman drama
[
edit
]
Following the expansion of the
Roman Republic
(527?509 BC) into several Greek territories between 270 and 240 BC, Rome encountered
Greek drama
.
[18]
From the later years of the republic and by means of the
Roman Empire
(27 BC?476 AD), theatre spread west across Europe, around the Mediterranean and reached England;
Roman theatre
was more varied, extensive and sophisticated than that of any culture before it.
[19]
While Greek drama continued to be performed throughout the Roman period, the year 240 BC marks the beginning of regular
Roman drama
.
[20]
From the beginning of the empire, however, interest in full-length drama declined in favour of a broader variety of theatrical entertainments.
[21]
The first important works of
Roman literature
were the
tragedies
and
comedies
that
Livius Andronicus
wrote from 240 BC.
[22]
Five years later,
Gnaeus Naevius
also began to write drama.
[22]
No plays from either writer have survived. While both dramatists composed in both
genres
, Andronicus was most appreciated for his tragedies and Naevius for his comedies; their successors tended to specialise in one or the other, which led to a separation of the subsequent development of each type of drama.
[22]
By the beginning of the 2nd century BC, drama was firmly established in Rome and a
guild
of writers (
collegium poetarum
) had been formed.
[23]
The Roman comedies that have survived are all
fabula palliata
(comedies based on Greek subjects) and come from two dramatists:
Titus Maccius Plautus
(Plautus) and
Publius Terentius Afer
(Terence).
[24]
In re-working the Greek originals, the Roman comic dramatists abolished the role of the
chorus
in dividing the drama into
episodes
and introduced musical accompaniment to its
dialogue
(between one-third of the dialogue in the comedies of Plautus and two-thirds in those of Terence).
[25]
The action of all scenes is set in the exterior location of a street and its complications often follow from
eavesdropping
.
[25]
Plautus, the more popular of the two, wrote between 205 and 184 BC and twenty of his comedies survive, of which his
farces
are best known; he was admired for the
wit
of his dialogue and his use of a variety of
poetic meters
.
[26]
All of the six comedies that Terence wrote between 166 and 160 BC have survived; the complexity of his plots, in which he often combined several Greek originals, was sometimes denounced, but his double-plots enabled a sophisticated presentation of contrasting human behaviour.
[26]
No early Roman tragedy survives, though it was highly regarded in its day; historians know of three early tragedians?
Quintus Ennius
,
Marcus Pacuvius
, and
Lucius Accius
.
[25]
From the time of the empire, the work of two tragedians survives?one is an unknown author, while the other is the Stoic philosopher
Seneca
.
[27]
Nine of Seneca's tragedies survive, all of which are
fabula crepidata
(tragedies adapted from Greek originals); his
Phaedra
, for example, was based on
Euripides
'
Hippolytus
.
[28]
Historians do not know who wrote the only
extant
example of the
fabula praetexta
(tragedies based on Roman subjects),
Octavia
, but in former times it was mistakenly attributed to Seneca due to his appearance as a
character
in the tragedy.
[27]
Medieval
[
edit
]
Beginning in the
early Middle Ages
, churches staged dramatised versions of biblical events, known as
liturgical dramas
, to enliven annual celebrations.
[29]
The earliest example is the
Easter
trope
Whom do you Seek? (Quem-Quaeritis)
(
c.
925
).
[30]
Two groups would sing responsively in
Latin
, though no impersonation of
characters
was involved. By the 11th century, it had spread through Europe to
Russia
,
Scandinavia
, and
Italy
; excluding
Islamic-era Spain
.
In the 10th century,
Hrosvitha
wrote six plays in Latin modeled on
Terence
's comedies, but which treated religious subjects.
[31]
Her plays are the first known to be composed by a female dramatist and the first identifiable Western drama of the post-Classical era.
[31]
Later,
Hildegard of Bingen
wrote a
musical
drama,
Ordo Virtutum
(
c.
1155
).
[31]
One of the most famous of the early
secular
plays is the courtly
pastoral
Robin and Marion
, written in the 13th century in French by
Adam de la Halle
.
[32]
The Interlude of the Student and the Girl
(
c.
1300
), one of the earliest known in English, seems to be the closest in tone and form to the contemporaneous French
farces
, such as
The Boy and the Blind Man
.
[33]
Many plays survive from
France
and
Germany
in the
late Middle Ages
, when some type of religious drama was performed in nearly every European country. Many of these plays contained
comedy
,
devils
,
villains
, and
clowns
.
[34]
In England, trade guilds began to perform
vernacular
"
mystery plays
", which were composed of long cycles of many playlets or "pageants", of which four are
extant
:
York
(48 plays),
Chester
(24),
Wakefield
(32) and the so-called "
N-Town
" (42).
The Second Shepherds' Play
from the Wakefield cycle is a farcical story of a stolen sheep that its
protagonist
, Mak, tries to pass off as his new-born child asleep in a crib; it ends when the shepherds from whom he has stolen are summoned to the
Nativity of Jesus
.
[35]
Morality plays
(a modern term) emerged as a distinct dramatic form around 1400 and flourished in the early
Elizabethan era
in England. Characters were often used to represent different ethical ideals.
Everyman
, for example, includes such figures as Good Deeds, Knowledge and Strength, and this characterisation reinforces the conflict between good and evil for the audience.
The Castle of Perseverance
(
c.
1400
?1425) depicts an archetypal figure's progress from birth through to death.
Horestes
(
c.
1567
), a late "hybrid morality" and one of the earliest examples of an English
revenge play
, brings together the classical story of
Orestes
with a
Vice
from the medieval
allegorical
tradition, alternating comic,
slapstick
scenes with serious,
tragic
ones.
[36]
Also important in this period were the folk dramas of the
Mummers Play
, performed during the
Christmas
season. Court
masques
were particularly popular during the reign of
Henry VIII
.
[37]
Elizabethan and Jacobean
[
edit
]
One of the great flowerings of drama in
England
occurred in the 16th and 17th centuries. Many of these plays were written in verse, particularly
iambic pentameter
. In addition to Shakespeare, such authors as
Christopher Marlowe
,
Thomas Middleton
, and
Ben Jonson
were prominent playwrights during this period. As in the
medieval period
, historical plays celebrated the lives of past kings, enhancing the image of the
Tudor
monarchy. Authors of this period drew some of their storylines from
Greek mythology
and
Roman mythology
or from the plays of eminent Roman playwrights such as
Plautus
and
Terence
.
English Restoration comedy
[
edit
]
Restoration comedy
refers to English comedies written and performed in England during the
Restoration
period from 1660 to 1710.
Comedy of manners
is used as a synonym of Restoration comedy.
[38]
After
public theatre had been banned
by the
Puritan
regime, the re-opening of the theatres in 1660 with the Restoration of
Charles II
signalled a renaissance of
English drama
.
[39]
Restoration comedy is known for its
sexual
explicitness, urbane, cosmopolitan
wit
, up-to-the-minute topical writing, and crowded and bustling plots. Its dramatists stole freely from the contemporary French and Spanish stage, from English
Jacobean
and
Caroline
plays, and even from
Greek
and
Roman
classical comedies, combining the various plotlines in adventurous ways. Resulting differences of tone in a single play were appreciated rather than frowned on, as the audience prized "variety" within as well as between plays. Restoration comedy peaked twice. The genre came to spectacular maturity in the mid-1670s with an extravaganza of
aristocratic
comedies. Twenty lean years followed this short golden age, although the achievement of the first professional female playwright,
Aphra Behn
, in the 1680s is an important exception. In the mid-1690s, a brief second Restoration comedy renaissance arose, aimed at a wider audience. The comedies of the golden 1670s and 1690s peak times are significantly different from each other.
The unsentimental or "hard" comedies of
John Dryden
,
William Wycherley
, and
George Etherege
reflected the atmosphere at Court and celebrated with frankness an aristocratic
macho
lifestyle of unremitting sexual intrigue and conquest. The
Earl of Rochester
, real-life Restoration rake, courtier and poet, is flatteringly portrayed in Etherege's
The Man of Mode
(1676) as a riotous, witty, intellectual, and sexually irresistible aristocrat, a template for posterity's idea of the glamorous
Restoration rake
(actually never a very common character in Restoration comedy). The single play that does most to support the charge of
obscenity
levelled then and now at Restoration comedy is probably Wycherley's masterpiece
The Country Wife
(1675), whose title contains a lewd
pun
and whose notorious "china scene" is a series of sustained
double entendres
.
[40]
During the second wave of Restoration comedy in the 1690s, the "softer" comedies of
William Congreve
and
John Vanbrugh
set out to appeal to more socially diverse audience with a strong middle-class element, as well as to female spectators. The comic focus shifts from young lovers outwitting the older generation to the vicissitudes of marital relations. In Congreve's
Love for Love
(1695) and
The Way of the World
(1700), the give-and-take set pieces of couples testing their attraction for one another have mutated into witty prenuptial debates on the eve of marriage, as in the latter's famous "Proviso" scene. Vanbrugh's
The Provoked Wife
(1697) has a light touch and more humanly recognisable characters, while
The Relapse
(1696) has been admired for its throwaway wit and the characterisation of Lord Foppington, an extravagant and affected burlesque
fop
with a dark side.
[41]
The tolerance for Restoration comedy even in its modified form was running out by the end of the 17th century, as public opinion turned to respectability and seriousness even faster than the playwrights did.
[42]
At the much-anticipated all-star premiere in 1700 of
The Way of the World
, Congreve's first comedy for five years, the audience showed only moderate enthusiasm for that subtle and almost melancholy work. The comedy of sex and wit was about to be replaced by
sentimental comedy
and the drama of exemplary morality.
Modern and postmodern
[
edit
]
The pivotal and innovative contributions of the
19th-century
Norwegian dramatist
Henrik Ibsen
and the
20th-century
German theatre practitioner
Bertolt Brecht
dominate modern drama; each inspired a tradition of imitators, which include many of the greatest playwrights of the modern era.
[43]
The works of both playwrights are, in their different ways, both
modernist
and
realist
, incorporating formal
experimentation
,
meta-theatricality
, and
social critique
.
[44]
In terms of the traditional theoretical discourse of genre, Ibsen's work has been described as the culmination of "
liberal tragedy
", while Brecht's has been aligned with an
historicised
comedy.
[45]
Other important playwrights of the modern era include
Antonin Artaud
,
August Strindberg
,
Anton Chekhov
,
Frank Wedekind
,
Maurice Maeterlinck
,
Federico Garcia Lorca
,
Eugene O'Neill
,
Luigi Pirandello
,
George Bernard Shaw
,
Ernst Toller
,
Vladimir Mayakovsky
,
Arthur Miller
,
Tennessee Williams
,
Jean Genet
,
Eugene Ionesco
,
Samuel Beckett
,
Harold Pinter
,
Friedrich Durrenmatt
,
Dario Fo
,
Heiner Muller
, and
Caryl Churchill
.
Opera
[
edit
]
Western opera
is a dramatic art form that arose during the
Renaissance
[46]
in an attempt to revive the
classical Greek drama
in which dialogue, dance, and song were combined. Being strongly intertwined with
western classical music
, the opera has undergone enormous changes in the past four centuries and it is an important form of theatre until this day. Noteworthy is the major influence of the German 19th-century composer
Richard Wagner
on the opera tradition. In his view, there was no proper balance between music and theatre in the operas of his time, because the music seemed to be more important than the dramatic aspects in these works. To restore the connection with the classical drama, he entirely renewed the operatic form to emphasize the equal importance of music and drama in works that he called "
music dramas
".
Chinese opera
has seen a more conservative development over a somewhat longer period of time.
Pantomime
[
edit
]
Pantomime
(informally "panto"),
[47]
is a type of
musical comedy
stage production, designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is still performed throughout the United Kingdom, generally during the Christmas and New Year season and, to a lesser extent, in other English-speaking countries. Modern pantomime includes songs, gags, slapstick comedy and dancing, employs gender-crossing actors, and combines
topical humour
with a story loosely based on a well-known fairy tale, fable or
folk tale
.
[48]
[49]
It is a participatory form of theatre, in which the audience is expected to sing along with certain parts of the music and shout out phrases to the performers.
These stories follow in the tradition of
fables
and
folk tales
. Usually, there is a lesson learned, and with some help from the audience, the hero/heroine saves the day. This kind of play uses
stock characters
seen in masque and again
commedia dell'arte
, these characters include the villain (doctore), the clown/servant (Arlechino/Harlequin/buttons), the lovers etc. These plays usually have an emphasis on
moral dilemmas
, and good always triumphs over evil, this kind of play is also very entertaining making it a very effective way of reaching many people.
Pantomime has a long theatrical history in Western culture dating back to classical theatre. It developed partly from the 16th century
commedia dell'arte
tradition of Italy, as well as other European and British stage traditions, such as 17th-century
masques
and
music hall
.
[48]
An important part of the pantomime, until the late 19th century, was the
harlequinade
.
[50]
Outside Britain the word "pantomime" is usually used to mean
miming
, rather than the theatrical form discussed here.
[51]
Mime
[
edit
]
Mime
is a theatrical medium where the action of a story is told through the movement of the body, without the use of speech. Performance of mime occurred in
Ancient Greece
, and the word is taken from a single masked dancer called
Pantomimus
, although their performances were not necessarily silent.
[52]
In
Medieval
Europe, early forms of mime, such as
mummer plays
and later
dumbshows
, evolved. In the early nineteenth century
Paris
,
Jean-Gaspard Deburau
solidified the many attributes that we have come to know in modern times, including the silent figure in whiteface.
[53]
Jacques Copeau
, strongly influenced by
Commedia dell'arte
and Japanese
Noh
theatre, used masks in the training of his actors.
Etienne Decroux
, a pupil of his, was highly influenced by this and started exploring and developing the possibilities of mime and refined
corporeal mime
into a highly sculptural form, taking it outside of the realms of
naturalism
.
Jacques Lecoq
contributed significantly to the development of mime and
physical theatre
with his training methods.
[54]
Ballet
[
edit
]
While some ballet emphasises "the lines and patterns of movement itself" dramatic dance "expresses or imitates emotion, character, and narrative action".
[6]
Such ballets are theatrical works that have characters and "tell a story",
[55]
Dance movements in ballet "are often closely related to everyday forms of physical expression, [so that] there is an expressive quality inherent in nearly all dancing", and this is used to convey both action and emotions; mime is also used.
[55]
Examples include
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
's
Swan Lake
, which tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse,
Sergei Prokofiev
's ballet
Romeo and Juliet
, based on Shakespeare's famous play, and
Igor Stravinsky
's
Petrushka
, which tells the story of the loves and jealousies of three puppets.
Creative drama
[
edit
]
Creative drama includes dramatic activities and games used primarily in educational settings with children. Its roots in the United States began in the early 1900s.
Winifred Ward
is considered to be the founder of creative drama in education, establishing the first academic use of drama in Evanston, Illinois.
[56]
Asian drama
[
edit
]
India
[
edit
]
The earliest form of
Indian
drama was the
Sanskrit drama
.
[57]
Between the 1st century AD and the 10th was a period of relative peace in the
history of India
during which hundreds of plays were written.
[58]
With the
Islamic conquests
that began in the 10th and 11th centuries, theatre was discouraged or forbidden entirely.
[59]
Later, in an attempt to re-assert indigenous values and ideas, village theatre was encouraged across the subcontinent, developing in various regional languages from the 15th to the 19th centuries.
[60]
The
Bhakti movement
was influential in performances in several regions. Apart from regional languages,
Assam
saw the rise of
Vaishnavite
drama in an artificially mixed literary language called
Brajavali
.
[61]
A distinct form of one-act plays called
Ankia Naat
developed in the works of
Sankardev
,
[62]
a particular presentation of which is called
Bhaona
.
[63]
Modern Indian theatre developed during the
period of colonial rule
under the
British Empire
, from the mid-19th century until the mid-20th.
[64]
Sanskrit theatre
[
edit
]
The earliest-surviving fragments of
Sanskrit drama
date from the 1st century AD.
[65]
The wealth of archeological evidence from earlier periods offers no indication of the existence of a tradition of theatre.
[66]
The ancient
Vedas
(
hymns
from between 1500 and 1000 BC that are among the earliest examples of
literature
in the world) contain no hint of it (although a small number are composed in a form of
dialogue
) and the
rituals
of the
Vedic period
do not appear to have developed into theatre.
[66]
The
Mah?bh??ya
by
Patanjali
contains the earliest reference to what may have been the seeds of Sanskrit drama.
[67]
This treatise on
grammar
from 140 BC provides a feasible date for the beginnings of
theatre in India
.
[67]
The major source of evidence for Sanskrit theatre is
A Treatise on Theatre
(
N?tya??stra
), a compendium whose date of composition is uncertain (estimates range from 200 BC to 200 AD) and whose authorship is attributed to
Bharata Muni
. The
Treatise
is the most complete work of dramaturgy in the ancient world. It addresses
acting
,
dance
,
music
,
dramatic construction
, architecture,
costuming
,
make-up
,
props
, the organisation of companies, the audience, competitions, and offers a
mythological
account of the origin of theatre.
[67]
Its drama is regarded as the highest achievement of
Sanskrit literature
.
[68]
It utilised
stock characters
, such as the hero (
nayaka
), heroine (
nayika
), or clown (
vidusaka
). Actors may have specialised in a particular type. It was patronized by the kings as well as village assemblies. Famous early playwrights include
Bhasa
,
Kalidasa
(famous for
Urvashi, Won by Valour
,
Malavika and Agnimitra
, and
The Recognition of Shakuntala
),
?udraka
(famous for
The Little Clay Cart
),
Asvaghosa
,
Da??in
, and
Emperor Harsha
(famous for
Nagananda
,
Ratnavali
,
and
Priyadarsika
).
?akuntal?
(in English translation) influenced
Goethe's
Faust
(1808?1832).
[68]
Mobile theatre
[
edit
]
A distinct form of theatre has developed in India where the entire crew travels performing plays from place to place, with makeshift stages and equipment, particularly in the eastern parts of the country.
Jatra
(
Bengali
for "travel"), originating in the
Vaishnavite movement
of
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu
in
Bengal
, is a tradition that follows this format.
[69]
Vaishnavite
plays in the neighbouring state of Assam, pioneered by
Srimanta Sankardeva
, takes the forms of
Ankia Naat
and
Bhaona
. These, along with Western influences, have inspired the development of modern mobile theatre, known in
Assamese
as
Bhramyoman
, in Assam.
[70]
Modern Bhramyoman stages everything from
Hindu mythology
to adaptations of
Western classics
and
Hollywood movies
,
[71]
and make use of modern techniques, such as live visual effects.
[
citation needed
]
Assamese mobile theatre is estimated to be an industry worth a hundred million.
[72]
The self-contained nature of Bhramyoman, with all equipment and even the stage being carried by the troop itself, allows staging shows even in remote villages, giving wider reach.
[
citation needed
]
Pioneers of this industry include
Achyut Lahkar
and
Brajanath Sarma
.
Modern Indian drama
[
edit
]
Rabindranath Tagore
was a pioneering modern playwright who wrote plays noted for their exploration and questioning of nationalism, identity, spiritualism and material greed.
[73]
His plays are written in
Bengali
and include
Chitra
(
Chitrangada
, 1892),
The King of the Dark Chamber
(
Raja
, 1910),
The Post Office
(
Dakghar
, 1913), and
Red Oleander
(
Raktakarabi
, 1924).
[73]
Girish Karnad
is a noted playwright, who has written a number of plays that use history and mythology, to critique and problematize ideas and ideals that are of contemporary relevance. Karnad's numerous plays such as
Tughlaq
,
Hayavadana
,
Taledanda
, and
Naga-Mandala
are significant contributions to Indian drama.
Vijay Tendulkar
and
Mahesh Dattani
are amongst the major Indian playwrights of the 20th century. Mohan Rakesh in Hindi and Danish Iqbal in Urdu are considered architects of new age Drama. Mohan Rakesh's Aadhe Adhoore and Danish Iqbal's
Dara Shikoh
are considered modern classics.
China
[
edit
]
Chinese theatre has a long and complex history. Today it is often called
Chinese opera
although this normally refers specifically to the popular form known as
Beijing opera
and
Kunqu
; there have been many other forms of theatre in China, such as
zaju
.
Japan
[
edit
]
Japanese
N? drama
is a serious dramatic form that combines drama, music, and dance into a complete aesthetic performance experience. It developed in the 14th and 15th centuries and has its own musical instruments and performance techniques, which were often handed down from father to son. The performers were generally male (for both male and female roles), although female amateurs also perform N? dramas. N? drama was supported by the government, and particularly the military, with many military commanders having their own troupes and sometimes performing themselves. It is still performed in Japan today.
[74]
Ky?gen
is the comic counterpart to N? drama. It concentrates more on dialogue and less on music, although N? instrumentalists sometimes appear also in Ky?gen.
Kabuki
drama, developed from the 17th century, is another comic form, which includes dance.
Modern theatrical and musical drama has also developed in Japan in forms such as
shingeki
and the
Takarazuka Revue
.
See also
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
Elam (1980, 98).
- ^
Francis Fergusson
writes that "a drama, as distinguished from a
lyric
, is not primarily a composition in the verbal medium; the
words
result, as one might put it, from the underlying
structure of incident
and
character
. As
Aristotle
remarks, 'the poet, or "maker" should be the maker of
plots
rather than of verses; since he is a poet because he
imitates
, and what he imitates are
actions
'" (1949, 8).
- ^
Wickham (1959, 32?41; 1969, 133; 1981, 68?69). The sense of the creator of plays as a "maker" rather than a "writer" is preserved in the word
playwright
.
The Theatre
, one of the first purpose-built playhouses in London, was an intentional reference to the Latin term for that particular playhouse, rather than a term for the buildings in general (1967, 133). The word 'dramatist' "was at that time still unknown in the English language" (1981, 68).
- ^
Banham (1998, 894?900).
- ^
Pfister (1977, 11).
- ^
a
b
Encyclopaedia Britannica
- ^
See the entries for "opera", "musical theatre, American", "melodrama" and "N?" in Banham (1998).
- ^
Manfred
by
Byron
, for example, is a good example of a "
dramatic poem
." See the entry on "Byron (George George)" in Banham (1998).
- ^
Some forms of improvisation, notably the
Commedia dell'arte
, improvise on the basis of 'lazzi' or rough outlines of scenic action (see Gordon (1983) and Duchartre (1929)). All forms of improvisation take their cue from their immediate response to one another, their characters' situations (which are sometimes established in advance), and, often, their interaction with the audience. The classic formulations of improvisation in the theatre originated with
Joan Littlewood
and
Keith Johnstone
in the UK and
Viola Spolin
in the US; see Johnstone (1981) and Spolin (1963).
- ^
Brown (1998, 441), Cartledge (1997, 3?5), Goldhill (1997, 54), and Ley (2007, 206). Taxidou notes that "most scholars now call 'Greek' tragedy 'Athenian' tragedy, which is historically correct" (2004, 104). Brown writes that
ancient Greek drama
"was essentially the creation of
classical Athens
: all the dramatists who were later regarded as classics were active at Athens in the 5th and 4th centuries BC (the time of the
Athenian democracy
), and all the surviving plays date from this period" (1998, 441). "The dominant culture of
Athens in the fifth century
", Goldhill writes, "can be said to have invented
theatre
" (1997, 54).
- ^
Brockett and Hildy (2003, 13?15) and Banham (1998, 441?447).
- ^
Banham (1998, 441?444). For more information on these ancient Greek dramatists, see
the articles categorised under "Ancient Greek dramatists and playwrights" in Wikipedia
.
- ^
The theory that
Prometheus Bound
was not written by
Aeschylus
would bring this number to six dramatists whose work survives.
- ^
Banham (1998, 8) and Brockett and Hildy (2003, 15?16).
- ^
Brockett and Hildy (2003, 13, 15) and Banham (1998, 442).
- ^
Brockett and Hildy (2003, 18) and Banham (1998, 444?445).
- ^
Banham (1998, 444?445).
- ^
Brockett and Hildy (2003, 43).
- ^
Brockett and Hildy (2003, 36, 47).
- ^
Brockett and Hildy (2003, 43). For more information on the ancient Roman dramatists, see
the articles categorised under "Ancient Roman dramatists and playwrights" in Wikipedia
.
- ^
Brockett and Hildy (2003, 46?47).
- ^
a
b
c
Brockett and Hildy (2003, 47).
- ^
Brockett and Hildy (2003, 47?48).
- ^
Brockett and Hildy (2003, 48?49).
- ^
a
b
c
Brockett and Hildy (2003, 49).
- ^
a
b
Brockett and Hildy (2003, 48).
- ^
a
b
Brockett and Hildy (2003, 50).
- ^
Brockett and Hildy (2003, 49?50).
- ^
Brockett and Hildy (2003, 76, 78). Many churches would have only performed one or two
liturgical dramas
per year and a larger number never performed any at all.
- ^
Brockett and Hildy (2003, 76).
- ^
a
b
c
Brockett and Hildy (2003, 77).
- ^
Wickham (1981, 191; 1987, 141).
- ^
Bevington (1962, 9, 11, 38, 45), Dillon (2006, 213), and Wickham (1976, 195; 1981, 189?190). In
Early English Stages
(1981), Wickham points to the existence of
The Interlude of the Student and the Girl
as evidence that the old-fashioned view that
comedy
began in England in the 1550s with
Gammer Gurton's Needle
and
Ralph Roister Doister
is mistaken, ignoring as it does a rich tradition of
medieval comic drama
; see Wickham (1981, 178).
- ^
Brockett and Hildy (2003, 86)
- ^
Brockett and Hildy (2003, 97).
- ^
Spivack (1958, 251?303), Bevington (1962, 58?61, 81?82, 87, 183), and Weimann (1978, 155).
- ^
Brockett and Hildy (2003, 101?103).
- ^
George Henry Nettleton, Arthur
British dramatists from Dryden to Sheridan
p. 149
- ^
Hatch, Mary Jo (2009).
The Three Faces of Leadership: Manager, Artist, Priest
. John Wiley & Sons. p. 47.
- ^
The "China scene" from Wycherley's play
on
YouTube
- ^
The Provoked Wife
is something of a Restoration
problem play
in its attention to the subordinate legal position of married women and the complexities of "divorce" and separation, issues that had been highlighted in the mid-1690s by some notorious cases before the
House of Lords
.
- ^
Interconnected causes for this shift in taste were
demographic
change, the
Glorious Revolution
of 1688,
William
's and
Mary
's dislike of the theatre, and the lawsuits brought against playwrights by the
Society for the Reformation of Manners
(founded in 1692). When
Jeremy Collier
attacked Congreve and Vanbrugh in his
Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage
in 1698, he was confirming a shift in audience taste that had already taken place.
- ^
Williams (1993, 25?26) and Moi (2006, 17). Moi writes that "Ibsen is the most important playwright writing after Shakespeare. He is the founder of modern theater. His plays are world classics, staged on every continent, and studied in classrooms everywhere. In any given year, there are hundreds of Ibsen productions in the world." Ibsenites include
George Bernard Shaw
and
Arthur Miller
; Brechtians include
Dario Fo
,
Joan Littlewood
,
W. H. Auden
,
Peter Weiss
,
Heiner Muller
,
Peter Hacks
,
Tony Kushner
,
Caryl Churchill
,
John Arden
,
Howard Brenton
,
Edward Bond
, and
David Hare
.
- ^
Moi (2006, 1, 23?26). Taxidou writes: "It is probably historically more accurate, although methodologically less satisfactory, to read the
Naturalist movement in the theatre
in conjunction with the more anti-illusionist aesthetics of the theatres of the same period. These interlock and overlap in all sorts of complicated ways, even when they are vehemently denouncing each other (perhaps particularly when) in the favoured mode of the time, the manifesto" (2007, 58).
- ^
Williams (1966) and Wright (1989).
- ^
"opera | History & Facts"
.
Encyclopedia Britannica
. Retrieved
21 May
2019
.
- ^
Lawner, p. 16
- ^
a
b
Reid-Walsh, Jacqueline. "Pantomime",
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature
, Jack Zipes (ed.), Oxford University Press (2006),
ISBN
9780195146561
- ^
Mayer (1969), p. 6
- ^
"The History of Pantomime"
, It's-Behind-You.com, 2002, accessed 10 February 2013
- ^
Webster's New World Dictionary
, World Publishing Company, 2nd College Edition, 1980, p. 1027
- ^
Gutzwiller (2007).
- ^
Remy (1954).
- ^
Callery (2001).
- ^
a
b
Encyclopaedia Britannica
- ^
Ehrlich (1974, 75?80).
- ^
Richmond, Swann, and Zarrilli (1993, 12).
- ^
Brandon (1997, 70) and Richmond (1998, 516).
- ^
Brandon (1997, 72) and Richmond (1998, 516).
- ^
Brandon (1997, 72), Richmond (1998, 516), and Richmond, Swann, and Zarrilli (1993, 12).
- ^
(
Neog 1980
, p. 246)
- ^
Neog, Maheswar (1975).
Assamese Drama and Theatre: A Series of Two Lectures Delivered at the Indian School of Drama and Asian Theatre Centre, New Delhi, April 1962
. Neog.
- ^
Neog, Maheswar (1984).
Bhaona: The Ritual Play of Assam
. Sangeet Natak Academy.
- ^
Richmond (1998, 516) and Richmond, Swann, and Zarrilli (1993, 13).
- ^
Brandon (1981, xvii) and Richmond (1998, 516?517).
- ^
a
b
Richmond (1998, 516).
- ^
a
b
c
Richmond (1998, 517).
- ^
a
b
Brandon (1981, xvii).
- ^
Jatra
South Asian Folklore: An Encyclopedia : Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka
, by Peter J. Claus, Sarah Diamond, Margaret Ann Mills. Published by Taylor & Francis, 2003.
ISBN
0-415-93919-4
.
Page 307
.
- ^
RAMESH MENON (15 February 1988).
"Mobile theatre strikes deep roots in Assam"
.
India Today
. Retrieved
26 October
2019
.
- ^
"Mobile theatre is successful because we stage plays in villages"
.
- ^
"Screen salute to mobile theatre pioneer ? Veteran Ratna Ojha?s documenta Achyut Lahkar"
.
- ^
a
b
Banham (1998, 1051).
- ^
"Background to Noh-Kyogen"
. Archived from
the original
on 15 July 2005
. Retrieved
27 February
2013
.
Sources
[
edit
]
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The Cambridge Guide to Theatre.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN
0-521-43437-8
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Sanskrit Theatre in Performance.
Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1993.
ISBN
978-81-208-0772-3
.
- Bevington, David M.
1962.
From
Mankind
to Marlowe: Growth of Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor England.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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Indian English Drama: A Critical Study.
New Delhi: Sterling.
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The Cambridge Guide to Asian Theatre.'
2nd, rev. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
ISBN
978-0-521-58822-5
.
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History of the Theatre
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ISBN
0-205-41050-2
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Ed. Martin Banham. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. 441?447.
ISBN
0-521-43437-8
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ISBN
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Through the Body: A Practical Guide to Physical Theatre.
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ISBN
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ISBN
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ISBN
978-0-521-83474-2
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The Italian Comedy
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Elementary English
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Semiotics
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. 1949.
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External links
[
edit
]
Look up
drama
in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.