DRAMA IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

General Characteristics

The Renaissance of drama which began in the nineties of the nineteenth

century reached its peak in the early decades of the twentieth century
due to the following reasons:

(i) The Development of Theatres: The works of the nineteenth century

dramatists never saw the stage. The professional theatre of the period
was in a low state. T. W. Robertson, A. W. Pinero and Henry Arthur Jones
rendered great service to the realistic drama, which flourished in the
twentieth century. Many theatres came into existence, which gave a new
direction to the evolution of drama in the twentieth century. In the
present century theatre became a commercial adventure, and as an
answer to commercialism developed the Repertory Theatre, notably the
Abbey Theatre in Dublin (1903) and the Gaiety Theatre in Manchester
(1907). The Manchester Theatre Company encouraged the writing of
realistic problem plays in the new tradition. St. John Irvine, W. Stanley
Houghton and Allan Monkhouse were the realistic dramatists who wrote
for this theatre.

The most important of the theatrical developments was the creation of

the Irish National Theatre in Dublin. W. B. Yeats and J. M. Synge
contributed much to the development of Irish theatrical movement. Yeats
and Synge reacted against stark realism in drama. Emotions, legends,
folklore and peasantry of Ireland became the themes of modern drama.
Drama became popular due to the establishment of amateur companies,
which were a corollary of the Repertory Movement. The Abbey Theatre of
Ireland of which Yeats and Synge were directors attempted to revive
poetic drama on the stage.

(ii) Foreign Influences: Foreign dramatists— Ibsen, Strindberg, Anton

Chekhov, Tolstoy, Gorky, Brecht and others—influenced the development
of modern drama. The development of science, technology, industry and
commerce also moulded the modern drama to a great extent. The
experimental drama in the continent also influenced British drama in the
twentieth century. Important foreign dramatists of the new movement
were Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936), Karel Capex (1980-1938), George
Kaiser and Ernest Toiler.

"Expressionism" was the boldest experiment in drama. The

"Expressionist" drama was not concerned with society but with man.
According to Edward Albert: "It aimed to offer a deep, subjective,
psychological analysis, not so much of an individual as of a type, but it
made much of the subconscious." The expressionists used symbols and
symbolic figures embodying sect impulses, and gave up the traditional
structural pattern. This drama was difficult and obscure, and it could not
be popular in England. In England the influence of expressionism is seen
in O'Casey's The Silver Fassie and J. B. Priestley's Johnson over Jordan.

The influence of Samuel Beckett was important on drama after the fifties.
It was under his influence that the Absurd Drama came into being.

(iii) The Influence of Cinema, Radio and Television on Drama: The arrival
of cinema constituted a new threat to the theatre. It became the main
source of entertainment. Theatre declined. The cinema could create
sensation, thrill and cheapness which could not be achieved in theatrical
performances and which appealed to the taste of the common masses.
The lesser dramatists tried to cope with the cinema and produced more
lavish spectacles and a whole stream of thriller plays. Edgar Wallace's
Rope (1926), Patrick Hamilton's The Fourth Well (1928), A. A. Milne's The
Fourth Wall (1928) and Frank Vosper's Murder on the Second Floor
(1929) are thrillers which show the influence of cinematographic
technique. The development of the broadcasting also influenced the
commercial theatre. The audiences preferred to remain at home to enjoy
drama.

A revolutionary change came in playwriting when television appeared in

every home. A number of writers such as Alun Owen, Clive Exton and
John Mortimer wrote for the small screen rather than for the public stage.
The talkies and the television have superseded the theatre. The quality of
entertainment has declined. The theatre is still fighting a losing battle.

THE REALISTIC DRAMA

The realistic drama, also known as the naturalistic drama or the problem
play, presents a real picture of life. J. M. Barrie, John Galsworthy, G. B.
Shaw, James Birdie and many others contributed to the development of
the realistic drama in the twentieth century.

1. Henry Arthur James (1851-1929)

James promoted the new drama of ideas and social purpose. He achieved
great success with the Silver King and insisted that drama should provide
a criticism of manners and institutions. His famous comedy Liars, which is
full of wit, is the forerunner of the new comedy of manners.

2. Sir A. W. Pinero (1851-1929)

Pinero was highly influenced by Ibsen. He gave well-constructed plays

and life-like characters. The Weaker Sex is a biting social satire. The
Second Mrs. Tanqueray and The Notorious Mrs. Abbsmith are his famous
social problem plays. His plots are well constructed and have a tragic
cast. His other plays are The Magistrate, The Fantastics, Iris and
Midchannel.
Both Jones and Pinero paved the way for twentieth century problem and
well-made plays, which found their greatest exponent in Galsworthy and
Shaw.

3. John Galsworthy (1867-1933)

Galsworthy belongs to the realist tradition of Jones and Pinero. His first
play The Silver Box (1906) exposes the pernicious distinction which exists
between the rich and the poor. Strife (1909) deals with the struggle
between Capital and Labour, Justice (1910) brought to light the evils in
the administration of justice, mismanagement in the prisons of England
and the cruelty of solitary confinement. The Skin Game (1920) deals with
the different values of the old aristocracy and the newly rich
businessman; Loyalties (1922) "deals with anti-Jewish feeling,
discrimination against racial minority. His minor plays too deal with real
social problems. A Family Man illustrates that too much authority in
domestic life spells disaster. Window deals with the problem of illegitimate
children. The Eldest Son expresses class prejudices and The Pigeon deals
with the problem of reclaiming the outcastes. The Mob depicts the tragedy
of idealism. Foundation teaches that a religion of kindness is the only
corrective to caste feeling. The Forest presents a picture of modern
financiers whose unscrupulous and speculative dealings have caused
havoc in the economy.

Characteristics of Galsworthy as a Dramatist

Galsworthy was a "dominant force in the theatre of his day." He was

fundamentally modern in his outlook. His plays are conspicuous for the
following characteristics:

(i) Realism and Social Problems: We have already seen that all plays of
Galsworthy deal with real social problems. He himself writes about the
technique of realistic or naturalistic drama: "The question of naturalistic
technique will bear much more study than has yet been given to it. The
aim of the dramatist employing it is to create such an illusion of actual life
passing on the stage as to compel the spectator to pass through an
experience of his own, to think and talk, and move with the people he
sees thinking, talking, moving in front of him. A false phrase, a single
word out of tune or time will destroy that illusion and spoil the surface as
surely as a stone heaved into a still pool shelters the image see here."
The conception of society, dominating over and dictating the life attern of
the individual, forms the basic ideas in his plays. Coats emarks:
"Galsworthy in his plays aims almost exclusively at the representation of
contemporary life, in its familiar everyday aspect. He does not like Shaw
to take us back to Methuselah in the remote past, or as far as thought
can reach" into the distant fulure......To Galsworthy such romantic flights
are quite unnecessary; the humdrum world around us, with all its welter
of conflicting forces, provides just as it is, quite sufficient dramatic
material for artists purpose." About ten of his plays are in some way
concerned with justice and six of them with criminal case with its
essential thrills and pursuits of the law."

(ii) Sincerity and Impartiality: Galsworthy maintains complete sincerity

and impartiality in the presentation of social reality. He sees life steadily
and sees it whole, avoiding all artifice, sentimentality and straining after
effect. When dealing with real problems, Galsworthy clearly manages to
keep himself in the background and does not allow the personality to
intrude into his plays. He himself writes: "Let me eliminate any bias, and
see the whole thing as an umpire—one of those pure beings in, white
coats, purged of all prejudices, passions and predilections of mankind. Let
me have the temperament for the time being ..... only from the
impersonal point of view, if there be such a thing, I am going to get even
approximately at the truth."

Galsworthy is impartial in the selection of both characters and situations.

According to Coats: "This quality of impartiality is particularly required in
a dramatist, who has to deal in his plays with mutually opposed and
perhaps violently conflicting forces. If he shows undue partiality to the
one or the other so that the case for either of them is understated, the
dramatic interest is bound to suffer." It was due to impartiality that his
plays could make a great appeal in England and through them he could
accomplish his purpose of social reformation. Galsworthy recorded in his
notebook the great appeal Justice made in England: "Justice made a great
sensation, especially in parliamentary and Official circles. Winston
Churchill, the new home secretary, and Ruggles-Brise, head of the prison
commission, both witnessed it, the first with sympathy, the second with a
sinking sensation. Reinforcing previous efforts, the net result was that
solitary confinement was reduced for three months for recidivists, and to
one month for intermediates and star class."

(iii) Sympathy: In spite of his detachment and impartiality, Galsworthy

obviously feels a warm sympathy for the victims of social injustice, and
especially for the poor and the downtrodden. Galsworthy thinks that the
cruelty we inflict upon harmless creatures arises from nothing but lack of
sympathy, the sluggish laziness of unimaginative minds, our inability to
put ourselves in the place of those we torture.

(iv) Irony: Irony, deep and poignant, is an all-pervading force in

Galsworthy's plays. Explaining the underlying spirit of irony in his plays,
Nicoll writes: "The class war which faced man was not the creation of
capitalist or communist, it was the creation of twentieth century social
conditions. The power of law, which at times seemed to crush down the
unfortunate and innocent as well as the guilty was not the work of one
man or even the body of men; it had an existence and independence all
its own. The irony is hidden in apparent pugnacity." Through irony
Galsworthy comments on the follies of the human spirit. Through irony he
reveals that though things are actually what they are, they need not be
so. Through irony he throws light on his attitude to things. All are well
meaning and well intentioned. Irony issues from our lack of sympathy and
understanding. Edgar in Strife points out: "There's nothing wrong with
humanity. It's our imaginations, Mr. Scantlebury."

(v) Dramatic Technique and Craftsmanship: Galsworthy is a master of

dramatic technique. His plots do not unfold complicated happenings and
situations for their own sake. They unfold a situation with its effect on
character and corresponding reactions the other way. All this is done
within "the atmosphere of an idea". Each play of Galsworthy is based on a
theme which is calculated to give some social message, and every scene,
every word contributes something to the exposition of that theme as
integral parts of an organic artistic unity. In the construction of his plays
he shows a sense of form, and the best of them are excellent stage
pieces.

His characters are not individuals but types. Falder represents the modern
ordinary class young man, romantic by nature but suffering from want of
money. Dancy represents the whimsical but adventurous militaryman.
Harold Wilson writes about his characters: "Mr. Galsworthy transfers his
people from the office, the home, the street to the stage, modifying
nothing save to compress and arrange, in order clearly to direct the
attention of his audience to that question of the day which is the business
of the play." All his characters are well studied and his psychological
insight is well seen in his studies of internal conflict.

Galsworthy successfully creates an atmosphere which is harmonious and

likeable. His dialogues and situations are natural and he never lapses into
sentimentality or melodramatic distortion. His style is remarkable for
simplicity, ease, vividness, economy and precision. It is conversational
and idiomatic.

(vi) His Place in British Drama: Galsworthy enjoys a permanent place in

British Drama. His name will endure in future for a rare and great
contribution—the picture of social life in the upper middle classes of
England. Coats comments on his place in British Drama: "In the drama of
today Galsworthy occupies an important and distinctive place. He has his
affinities, it is true, with other playwrights of the past and the present. His
naturalism is akin to that of Ibsen; he shares the moral earnestness of
Shaw, in his preoccupation with the sores and diseases of society he
resembles Brieux. Yet the essential qualities of his art not borrowed when
we see his plays on the stage, or read them in the quietness of study, we
are impressed by a psychological insight, a social passion, an artistic
economy and restraint which are manifestly the author's own."

4. G. B. Shaw (1856-1950)
Shaw, a prolific dramatist, came to the theatre with a moral purpose, and
commanded attention by his inimitable wit and humour. Plays: Pleasant
and Unpleasant (1898) contained seven plays, three "unpleasant" and
four "pleasant". The "unpleasant" plays are The Widower's Houses
(1892), Mrs. Warren's Profession (1894) which deal respectively with the
problems of slum landlordism and organized prostitution, and The
Philanderer (1893) which is a satire on the pseudo-Ibsenites and their
attitude to woman. The "pleasant" plays are Arms and the Man (1894), an
excellent and amusing stage piece which pokes fun at the romantic
conception of the soldier; Candida (1895), a study of the "eternal
triangle" of a person, his wife and a poet; The Man of Destiny (1895) and
You Never Can Tell (1897), The Devil's Disciple (1897), Caesar and
Cleopatra (1898), were collected in Three Plays for Puritans (1901). Man
and Superman (1903), one of his finest plays, deals with woman's
pursuits of her mate. In it he presents his philosophy of Life Force.

Major Barbara (1905) deals with religious and social problems. The
Doctor's Dilemma (1906) is a biting satire on the medical profession.
Getting Married (1908) is a satire on the marriage conventions. In
Androcles and the Lion he combines an attack on religion and relations
between parents and children. Pygmalion (1912) is a witty and satirical
study of class distinctions.

Back to Methuselah (1921) and St. Joan (1923) are studies of religion.
The Apple Cart (1929), a political extravaganza, is a satire on the
democratic form of government. None of his plays written after The Apple
Cart is comparable to his best work. His later plays are Too True to be
Good (1932), The Millionairess (1936), Geneva (1938), and Buoyant
Billions (1949).

Characteristics of Shavian Drama

(i) Plays of Ideas and Problems: Shaw used drama for the purpose of
bettering the lot of humanity. He discarded the romantic view of life and
examined man, society and social institutions with intellectual Courage
and honesty, and shrewd, irreverent insight. He took to account the
outstanding problems—religion, housing conditions, finance, prostitution,
marriage conventions, social prejudices, the romanticised soldier, the
medical profession, religion, glamorous historical figure. His earliest
period was emphatically socialist, and socialism, later in a more moderate
form, remained his hope for humanity. Hudson remarks: "The stage by
Shaw's contrivance became the ventilating shaft of modern civilization;
and what splendid exhilarating fun the ventilating process became ! Shaw
quickly learned how to organise for stage the living material he had
collected." Shaw's dramatic art is closely related with life and it puts forth
fresh and unconventional ideas for the betterment of human life and
society.
(ii) Wit: Shaw's plays sparkle with his brilliant wit. "Wit," writes Edward
Albert, "is the very essence of Shavian Comedy, in which the dramatist,
standing outside the world he creates, sees it with an impish detachment.
His sense of fun is undying, and there is in his drama an endless stream
of exuberant vitality and gaiety of spirit. Sometimes his sense of humour
is uncontrolled and the result is disturbing, but generally it can be said
that there is a serious purpose underlying his fun." Shaw's humour is dry
and intellectual. There is no emotion in it. It is due to the lack of emotion
that Shaw rarely touches the depths of tragedy.

(iii) Characterisation: Nicoll writes: "We may agree that in the whole
range of Shavian drama there are no characters who assume such
breathing vitality as we find in the persons of Sophocles or of
Shakespeare, but that is because Shaw's approach to his characters is of
a different kind. His theatre might well be described as theatre of ideas
...... His characters are the embodiments of intellectual concepts; his
dismal are ceaseless dances of thought." Shaw's characters are the
products, good or bad, of social forces, or as embodiments of ideas. Some
are mere mouthpieces of his theories, while others are projections of his
own personality. Shaw is particularly successful in the creation of women
characters, and it is interesting to note that he has no real heroes and no
villains.

(iv) His Dramatic Technique: Although Shaw was the greatest exponent of
the drama of ideas, he rarely neglected the art of the theatre and his best
plays have been excellent on the boards. He was a skilled dramatic
craftsman. In the beginning of his dramatic career he followed the
conventional dramatic technique, and it was when his reputation was
established that he began such experiments as the epilogue to Man and
Superman and the gigantic cycle of Back to Methuselah. The introduction
of the long stage directions is his remarkable contribution to the
technique of drama. They are written with all the care and artistry of his
dialogues and prefaces.

Shaw's brilliant dialogue is an important aspect of his dramatic technique.

He was a brilliant talker and used this gift to great advantage in his plays.
Edwart Albert remarks: "He excels in brief, witty exchanges and, above
all, in the handling of extremely long speeches when his characters put
forward their carefully reasoned arguments. He had the art of making the
long discourse as interesting and as dramatic as action, and this was
something new to the stage. His brilliance in this has never been
surpassed.

5. Harley Granville Barker (1877-1946)

Barker, a renowned Shakespeare critic and scholar, wrote a number of

realistic and naturalistic plays. He deals with main social problems as
marriage, sex, inheritance and position of women. He discards emotions
and his approach is purely intellectual. His plays are remarkable for vivid
characterisation and natural dialogue. His memorable plays are The
Moving of Ann Leete (1899), The Voysey Inheritance (1905), Waste
(1907), The Madras House (1910) and The Secret Life (1923).

6. William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)

Maugham continued to write realistic drama. His earlier plays had been
delightful examples of the comedy of manners but they had little
substance and less bite. The Circle (1921) is a true comedy of manners. It
is his finest play. It is a worldwide demonstration of the eternal appeal of
love outside the bonds of matrimony. Our Betters (1917) is a virulent
attack on aristocratic English decadence and on socially climbing
Americans. For Services Rendered (1932) is a bitter play on the theme of
the futile sacrifices of the war heroes. His plays reflect his shrewd
observations of human nature and manners. There is hardly any trace of
sentimentality in his plays. His approach is purely intellectual and rational.
Maugham's best plays are "the ironical comment of a cynically humorous
observer, aiming to present life as it really is." All his plays are well
constructed. A Man of Honour is a realistic tragedy.

Other Dramatists up to the Fifties of the Twentieth Century

Sir J. M. Barrie (1860-1937), the Scottish novelist and playwright, was

inimical to the intellectualism and realism prevalent in the drama of the
period. He cultivated the vein of sophisticated sentimentalism in which he
had been conspicuously successful in What Every Woman Knows and
earlier plays. His sentimental romances like The Professor's Love Story
(1894), Quality Street (1902), Mary Rose (1920) and A Kiss For
Cinderella (1916) have been popular. His later plays combine fantasy and
realism. His well-known plays are The Admirable Crichton (1902), What
Every Woman Knows (1908), The Will (1913), Dear Brutus (1917), Marie
Rose (1920) and The Boy David (1936). Barrie appears to be a good
craftsman in his plays. His plays have well-constructed plots, slight but
charming characters, and crisp dialogue.

J. M. Synge (1871-1909) was the greatest dramatist in the rebirth of the

Irish Theatre. He wrote both comedies and highly moving comedies. The
Shadow of Glen (1903), a comedy based on an old folktale, presents a
romantic picture of Irish peasant life. The Well of Saints (1905) and The
Tinker's Wedding (1907) are fine comedies. His finest comedy is The
Playboy of the Western World (1907). It is also based on an old legend
and presents an excellent but ironical picture of Irish character. Riders to
the Sea (1904) is a powerful, deeply moving tragedy in one Act. Deirdre
of Sorrow (1910) is based on a legend and in it the themes of love and
death are tragically interwoven. Synge reacted sharply against the
popular reverted to drama which he felt, missed the poetry and joy of life.
So, he
Sean O'Casey (1884-1964), an Irish playwright, is one of the greatest
figures in modern drama. He is known for his naturalistic tragicomedies
on the swarming life of the Dublin tenements in which he had been
brought up. His famous plays are The Shadow of A Gunman (1923), Juno
and the Paycock (1924), The Plough and the Stars (1926), Within the
Gates, The Stars Turn Red (1940), Purple Dust (1941), Red Roses For Me
(1946), Oak Leaves and Lavender (1946) and Cockadoodle Dandy (1949).
The background of O'Casey's plays was provided by the slums of Dublin,
crowded, noisy tenements where women quarrelled and loafers drank,
and the tragic violence of civil war was at hand. In his plays comedy and
tragedy often commingle. Comedy is seldom long absent, yet one can
never forget the grim, underlying sadness. "He draws what he sees with a
ruthless objectivity and an impressionistic vividness of detail." Casey's
prose is rhythmical and imaginative and his dialogue is vivid, racy and
packed with metaphor.

James Bridie (1888-1951) is regarded to some extent as a disciple of

Shaw. Like Shaw his plays are conspicuous for wit and humour and power
of entertaining by dramatic discussion and argument. But his range was
wider and he was more restlessly experimental. His best known plays are
The Anatomist (1931), Jonah and the Whale (1932), A Sleeping
Clergyman (1933), Mr. Bolfry (1943), Dr. Angelus (1947) and Daphne
Laureola (1949). He is less interested in ideas and more interested in
characters. His plays, writes Edward Albert, "are a peculiar mixture of
argument, philosophy, violent incident, wit, and whimsical fancy."

J. B. Priestley turned to playwriting after his great success as a novelist

with The Good Companions. His range is very wide. It consists of comedy,
farce, morality, social comment. He combines the common sense of a
plain man with the zeal of a reformer. His characters are well drawn, his
dialogue is sharply vivid, but his plays lack poetic insight which is
essential for a good dramatic work. His well-made conventional comedies
are Laburnum Grove (1933), Eden End (1934), and When We Are
Married. Priestley's remarkable contribution to theatre lies "with plays
dealing with the new theories of time evolved by certain philosophers-
chiefly the theory that clock-time associated with the notion of the past,
present and future is an illusion and that time consists in reality of a
continuous present ..... " The plays dealing with this theme are Time and
the Con ways, I Have Been Before and Johnson Over Jordan.

Sir Noel Coward (1899-1973) made his mark just after the First World
War with a tense and emotionally strained play The Vortex (1924). His
other plays are Easy Virtue (1926), This Year of Grace (1928), Bitter
Sweet (1929), Private Lives (1930), Design For Living (1933), To-night at
Eight Thirty (1936), Blithe Spirit (1941), Present Laughter (1943) and
This Happy Breed (1943). Coward's IAD, Fever is a brilliant comedy. His
popularity rested "on the brilliance of a sophisticated but rather shallow
wit, blase and cynical, which produced a dialogue of scintillating
epi-grams; the appeal to sentiment popular at the moment; the
effervescent excitement which was the dominant mood of many of his
later plays, and above all his superb theatrical technique.

Mention must be made of excellent short plays of Laurence Housman

(1865-1959) whose Little Plays of St. Francis (1922) and Glorious, a
series of episodes in the life of Queen Victoria, are memorable.

Sir Terence Rattingan (1911-77) has been called "the most consistently
successful of modern English playwrights." In his prefaces to his Collected
Plays (1953) he expressed his outspoken hostility to the use of the drama
as a means of disseminating ideas. His aim is to provide entertainment,
light or serious, and his goal is the creation of the "well made play" with
the modifications inevitably induced by the contem-porary taste. He
believes that the most powerful effects can be secured by means of
understatement and suggestion. His early comedies - Trench Without
Tears (1936) and O Mistress Mine (1944) are delightfully fresh pictures of
the vagaries of young love against a foreign setting. His other popular
plays are Flare Path (1942), The Winslow Boy (1946), The Browning
Version (1948), Separate Tables (1954), Ross (1960) and Cause Celebre
(1977).

Denis Johnston wrote plays like Storm Song in the technique of realistic
drama but his most significant work was expressionistic. Moody and
Lovett remark: "Attempting no direct realistic representation of life, his
plays use whatever means - poetic, colloquial, stylized, symbolical,
allegorical-that will communicate most tellingly what he thinks important
to Fay." Some of his famous plays are The Old Lady Says 'No' (1929), The
Moon in the Yellow River (1931), A Bride For the Unicorn (1933) and
Storm Song (1934). Johnston skilfully employed all the technical
resources of an experimental theatre.

Some historical plays of note were written during this period. John
Drinkwater (1882-1937) was the pioneer in this respect. He contributed
four plays Abraham Lincoln (1918), Mary Stuart (1921-22), Oliver
Cromwell (1922) and Robert E. Lee (1923). These plays are not merely
chronicle plays focussing attention on events and external happenings,
taken from history, but the plays of ideas, discussing problems of human
life in a dramatic form. Clifford Bax wrote several historical plays such as
Mr. Pepys (1926), Socrates (1930), The Venetian (1931), The Immortal
Lady (1931) and The Rose Without A Thorn. Nicoll writes: "Mr. Bax is one
of those dramatists of this generation whose plays will live. His effective
treatment of character, his skilful wielding of material, and his delicate
sense of style give prime distinction to his work." Other historical plays
are Ashley Duke's The Man With A Load of Mischief (1924), Reginald
Berkley's The Lady With the Lamp, Alfred Sangster's The Baronets (1933)
and Norman Ginsbury's The First Gentleman (1940).
British Drama after Nineteen Fifty

During the middle of the twentieth century anti-conventional drama

developed. Peter Levin Shaffer (1926- ), who wrote Five Finger Exercise
(1958), The Royal Hunt of the Sun, The Battle of the Shrivings (1970)
and Equus (1973), pioneered the anti-conventional drama. John Whiting
(1915-63) skilfully utilized the new stage theories in Marching Song
(1954) and The Devils (1960). Robert Oxton Bolt (1924-) wrote for films,
but later he wrote on the theme of power politics and clash of ambitions
in Vivat ! Vivat, Regina (1970).

The establishment of the English Stage Company at the Royal Court

Theatre in 1956 gave a new direction to the development of English
drama. It aimed at presenting "the best foreign plays and to encourage
new native writers, its private productions without decor gave inestimable
help to young actors and writers, and helped to disseminate new ideas."
John James Osborne (1929- ), the outstanding product of the English
Stage Company, attracted the widest attention during this period. Jimmy
Porter, the vituperative anti-hero in his finest play Look Back in Anger
(1956), came to serve as the archetype of the Angry Young Man. "This
portrait of a completely disillusioned young intellectual, subtly destroying
his most significant human relationship with his wife and a close friend,
was stylistically eloquent but nihilistically rebellious." The Entertainer
(1957) relates the contrast of three generations associated with show
business. His finest work Luther (1961) portrays the sixteenth century
man of religion as an AYM. Osborne's other plays are Inadmissible
Evidence (1964), A Patriot For Me (1965), The West of Suez (1971) and
Watch It Caine Down (1976).

Arnold Wesker (1932- ) was a social realist with a sense of commitment

that gave his plays a more positive quality than those of Osborne. In his
famous trilogy Chicken Soup With Barley (1958), Roots (1959) and I'm
Talking About Jerusalem (1960), he traced the impact of leftist political
ideology on a Jewish working class family and their progressive
disillusionment with it. In Chips With Everything (1962) he showed the
persistence and triumph of class distinctions in a public school youth who
had attempted to escape from them. It is part comedy, part satire, part a
tragic allegory heavily coloured with mysticism. His other plays are Their
Very Own and Golden City (1965) and The Friends (1970).

There was another type of revolt against the limitations of drawing room
drama which denominated the Drama of Absurd. The term "Absurd" was
used by French Existential writers as Sartre and Camn to denote the
essential meaninglessness of life and the burden on the individual of
creating his own values in the midst of cosmic meaning-lessness. Samuel
Beckett (1906- ), the Irish writer, was the most out-standing practitioner
of the Drama of Absurd in English. His most famous play Waiting for the
Godot (1953) depicts disturbingly and evocatively the almost futile quest
for the discovery of some meaning in life. Endgame (1957) was even
more completely negative and nihilistic. In 1957 Beckett wrote a radio
play All That Fall for B. B. C. "Here he appeared to counterbalance a
quietly horrifying revelation of the contagiousness of evil with a
compensating element of compassion not immediately evident in his
earlier plays."

Harold Pinter (1930- ) was the most gifted disciple of Beckett. According
to Edward Albert: "He conveys the rambling ambiguities and silences of
everyday conversation with an amazing authenticity that is obviously
much influenced by Beckett, and uses them to build up the sense of
menace and scarcely built violence which characterise The Birthday Party
(1958), The Dumb Waiter (1960) and The Caretaker (1960). The plays
are quite short and set in an enclosed, claustrophobic space, the
characters are always in doubt of their function, and in fear of someone or
something "outside". His other plays are A Night Out (1961), The
Homecoming (1965), Silence (1969) and Old Times (1971). Pinter
seemed equally at home in the media of radio, television, and drama, and
The Collection was presented in all three media.

Henry Livings (1929-) followed the theatre of the Absurd in some of his
plays such as Big Soft Neslie (1961), Nil Carborundum (1962), and Kelly's
Eye (1963). His later works were wirtten in the conventional framework.
They are Honour and Offer (1968), The Finest Family in the Land (1970)
and Pongo Plays (1971).

John Arden wrote some experimental plays. They are Live Like Pigs
(1958), The Happy Heaven (1960) and Left Handed Liberty (1965). Allan
Jellicoe's plays, The Sport of My Mad Mother (1956) and The Knack
(1961) present the violent, unorganized, insecure, meaningless and
frivolous world of the teenager. David Mercer gives pictures of people
violated in their environment and finding in madness or eccentricity the
only relief from tension. His plays are Ride A Cock Horse (1965), A
Suitable Case for Treatment (1966) and Duck Song (1974).

Edward Bond (1935-) presents world as a place of despair, in which man

has no freedom. He is in social, political and mental chains everywhere.
His plays include Saved (1965), Lear (1971), Bingo (1974) and The Fool
(1975). Bond uses violent imagery and terse, unambiguous language for
the exposition of his themes.

Christopher Hampton (1946-) wrote a number of plays on a variety of

themes. He ranges from clever middle class comedy to historico-social
document in When Did You Last See My Mother? (1971), The
Philanthropist (1970) and Habeas Corpus (1973).

THE REVIVAL OF THE POETIC DRAMA IN THE

TWENTIETH CENTURY

Background

The Victorian poets attempted the poetic drama but they could not impart
to it real dramatic excellence. Mention must be made of Tennyson's
Queen Mary, Harold (1877) and Becket (1884) and of Browning's
Strafford (1837), King Victor and King Charles (1842), The Return of the
Druses (1843), Colombe's Birthday (1884) and A Soul's Tragedy (1846).
But the conditions of the stage were not favourable for poetic drama.
Thus the nineteenth century contributed little to the development of
poetic drama. It could not be produced either in the eighteenth century,
which was an age of great prose writers, or in the nineteenth which was
an age of great poets. Thus, there was no tradition of poetic drama at the
beginning of the twentieth century.

Its Beginning

There were signs of its rebirth by 1920, but the atmosphere in which
realistic and naturalistic drama prospered was not congenial to the growth
and development of poetic drama. At the Abbey Theatre Yeats
endeavoured to revive poetic drama, but he was not endowed with the
essential qualities of a dramatist. It was T. S. Eliot who firmly established
the tradition of poetic drama in the twentieth century. The revival of
poetic drama took various forms. It must be noted that the new attempts
at poetic drama had a much closer connection with the deeper religious
beliefs or social attitudes of their authors than had most of the prose
drama of the time.

Stephen Philis (1864-1915) wrote poetic plays including Paolo and

Francesca (1900), Herod (1901), Ulysses (1902), The Son of David
(1904) and Nero (1906). His poetic plays had little popular appeal. John
Masefield (1878-1967) experimented in poetic drama. His plays include
The Tragedy of Man (1909), his finest play, The Tragedy of Pompey, The
Great (1910), Good Friday (1917), The Trial of Jesus (1925) and The
Coming of Christ (1928). His plays were written mainly on religious
themes. Gordon Bottomley (1874-1948) wrote a number of powerful
poetic plays, which consist of The Crier by Night (1902), Midsummer Eve
(1905), King Lear's Wife (1915), Grauch (1921) and Culbin Sands (1932).
James Elory Flecker (1884-1915) wrote Hassan (1922), which occupies an
immortal place in the history of poetic drama. It is a highly coloured,
oriental play. It is rich in imagery, music and poetic quality but it lacks in
characterisation and dramatic appeal. Lascelles Abercrombie (1881-1938)
was an experimenter in poetic drama. His plays include Deborah (1913),
The Adder (1913), The End of the World (1914), The Staircase (1922),
The Derter (1922), Phoenix (1923) and The Sale of St. Thomas (1930).
He attempted to adapt the rhythms of blank verse to the requirements of
modern poetic drama. His plays contain fine poetry but lack in dramatic
appeal which issues from action and character study. John Drinkwater
(1882-1937) began his career with poetic dramas—Rebellion (1914), The
Storm (1515), The God of Quiet (1916) and X = 0: A Night of the Trojan
War (1917).

In the disintegration of social life before and after World War I and in the
general mood of anxiety and despair, these dramatists strengthened faith
in the permanence of life, art and beauty, and created a taste for poetic
drama which helped T. S. Eliot in making his valuable experiments in
poetic drama.

W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)

Yeats was opposed to realistic drama with a problem. He did not consider
drama to be "a representational art". In his essay The Tragic Theatre he
wrote: "Our movement is a return to the people ......The play that is to
give them a quite natural pleasure, should tell them either of their own
life, or of that life of poetry where every man can see his own image,
because there alone does human nature escape from arbitrary
conditions." He was prompted to reconstruct contemporary life through
the symbols of ancient folklore and the mythology of Ireland. In order to
make the audience concentrate on poetry Yeats went back to the
simplicity of Greek theatre and Shakespearean theatre.

According to Raymond Williams, Yeats opposed "the artificial narrowness

of theme which the practices of naturalism seemed to predicate; he
wished the drama once again to rest on human integrity, and in particular
to attend to those deeper levels of personality which it has been the
traditional interest of literature to explore". In his two earliest plays The
Countess Cathleen (1892) and The Land of Heart's Desire (1894) he
attempted "the realization of the spiritual theme." In his most successful
play On Baile's Strand (1904) Yeats "achieves an end for which all
important drama in this century has sought the interpenetration of
different levels of reality in an integral and controlled structure." Yeats'
other plays are The Shadowy Waters (1900), The King's Threshold
(1904), The Hour Glass (1904), Deridre (1907), The Resurrection (1913),
At the Hawk's Well (1917), Calvary (1921) and The Cat and the Moon
(1926). Yeats' plays are rich in poetical intensity. He makes little or no
attempt at character study, and his figures are mere mouthpieces for his
ideas, which find expression in poetic speeches. Commenting on Yeats'
contribution to poetic drama Eliot remarks: "He started writing plays at a
time when the prose play of contemporary life seemed triumphant..... We
can begin to see now that even the early imperfect attempts he made are
probably more permanent literature than the plays of Shaw."

T. S. Eliot (1885-1965)
T. S. Eliot propounded the theory of the poetic drama in his essay
Rhetoric and Poetic Drama (1919). He pointed out that "a speech in a
play should never appear to be intended to move us as it might
conceivably move other characters in the play, for it is essential that we
should preserve our position of spectators, and observe always from the
outside though with complete understanding." In 1920 he wrote about the
Possibility of A Poetic Drama that "the essential is to get upon the stage
this precise statement of life, which is at the same time a point of view, a
world — a world which the author's mind has subjected to a complete
process of simplification."

Drama, according to Eliot, expresses the depth of human soul. Eliot says:
"The human soul, in intense emotion, strives to express itself in verse."
He asserts that "the greatest drama is poetic drama, and dramatic defects
can be compensated by poetic excellence." Eliot holds that the craving for
poetic drama is permanent in human nature, and that "we must find a
new form of verse which shall be as satisfactory a vehicle for us as blank
verse for the Elizabethans."

T. S. Eliot has been a conspicuous leader in a movement to revive the

poetic drama. The Murder in the Cathedral (1935) is his first full length
poetic play, "which blends curiously but rather effectively a mediaeval
saint's legend and comic relief that takes the form of contemporary satire,
treats of the conflict between the claims of the world and the claims of the
soul." The central figure, Thomas a Becket, is impressively delineated.
Eliot makes extensive use of chorus, and of prose. He realised that if
poetic drama was to enter into overt competition with realistic drama, it
must choose its subjects from contemporary life, and make verse flexible
enough to eschew the use of prose altogether. Rayond Williams points out
that Eliot's language "reasserts control in performance…….This is his most
important general achievement ..... There is the same control over
character. The persons are individualized so far as is necessary, but they
are contained by the total pattern." The Murder in the Cathedral is the
best example of the discovery of an adequate form for serious drama.

The Family Reunion (1939), one of Eliot's most powerful plays, "is a
drama of contemporary people speaking contemporary language." In it
Eliot skilfully modernized the old Greek theme of Orestes pursued by the
furies. The stylistic complexity makes effective performance difficult. Eliot
successfully created "a type of poetry that would at once serve the
purposes of modern drama and at the same time give the drama, on
occasion, an elevation of which even the best prose was incapable."

In The Cocktail Party (1950) Eliot gave up "even those rituals which had
been retained in The Family Reunion; the use of an occasional chorus, of
interspersed lyrics ..... of ruine recital." In it the characters are modern
upper-class Londoners, and the dominant tone is worldly and
sophisticated. This play lacks some of the poetic richness of The Family
Reunion but it has greater humanity. The verse is flexible and is capable
of expressing all kinds of feelings. It is a verse of statement, with the
mini-mum of imagery and evocation.

The Confidential Clerk (1953) "is a thought-provoking play which

contains, under its surface wit and comedy, serious consideration of such
questions as the nature of identity and effects of heredity, and which
underlies the importance of coming to grips with one's true self." In it the
style has been diluted and it does not disturb an audience habituated to
prose.

The Elder Statesman (1958) treated Eliot's familiar theme of an old sin
brought to light and acknowledged the consequent spiritual release. It has
an increased warmth of feeling, but the characters are anaemic. It was
less impressive than the earlier works.

T. S. Eliot evolved a befitting poetic mode of expression for the poetic

drama. He discarded the use of traditional blank verse, which owing to its
use of non-dramatic poetry, had grown too rigid for dramatic purposes.
He carefully avoided any echo of Shakespeare. He evolved a new mode of
poetic expression which comes close to modern idiom. He explored the
dramatic possibility of verse. In his essay Poetry and Drama (1950) he
said: "It (poetry) must justify itself dramatically, and not merely be fine
poetry shaped into a dramatic form. From this it follows that no play
should be written in verse for which prose is dramatically adequate....In
verse drama prose should be used very sparingly indeed.....We should
aim at a form of verse in which everything can be said that has to be
said, and that when we find some situation which is intractable in verse, it
is merely because our form of verse is inelastic..... But if our verse is to
have so wide a range that it can say anything that has to be said, it
follows that it will not be `poetry' all the time. It will only be `poetry'
when the dramatic situation has reached such a point of intensity that
poetry becomes the natural utterance, because then it is the only
language in which emotions can be expressed at all." T. S. Eliot extended
the scope of poetic drama. Highest drama is born out of the fusion of
poetry and drama. Eliot's greatest contribution lies in producing a
dramatic verse which has grown from the contemporary idiom. D. E.
Jones remarks: "His plays are great literature, and Eliot's work is assured
of a permanent place in dramatic literature. There can be no denying the
fact that Eliot's plays are important steps towards the revival of poetic
drama."

Poetic Drama After T. S. Eliot

The poetic dramatists who followed T. S. Eliot justify his obser-vation that
the craving for the poetic drama is permanent in human nature.
Christopher Isherwood (1904-) wrote the Ascent of F6 (1936) and Across
the Frontiers (1938). His plays deal with symbolic situations and
simplified cartoon characters. Christopher Fry's The Lady Is Not For
Burning (1948) is an important experiment in verse and technique. It is
an excellent comedy which "dazzled its audiences with an exuberance of
language suggestive of the less restrained Elizabethans." In Venus
Observed (1950), a modern comedy, Fry uses simple poetic language.
The Dark Is Light Enough (1954) is also a famous comedy of Fry. His
Curtmantle (1962) is a historical play of the reign of Henry II. It stands
comparison with Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral. Other poetic drama-tists
who followed in the footsteps of Eliot are Stephen Spender, Louis
Macneice, Ronald Duncan, Norman Nicholson, Anne Ridler and W. H.
Auden.