Modern drama

Three schools of modern drama are:

the theatre of the absurd’, a phrase coined by the critic Martin Esslin.
Characterised by a fascination with absurdity in all its forms – philosophical,
dramaturgical, existential, emotional – this is a drama form that pushes theatre
to extremes, and which asks probing questions about what reality (and
unreality) really looks like. Often interpreted as a response to the challenges of
living in a 20th-century world that seems devoid of meaning, it is frequently far
more nightmarish than funny. The playwrights most often associated with the
movement are Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, and Arthur
Adamov. The early plays of Edward Albee and Harold Pinter fit into this
classification, but these dramatists have also written plays that move far away
from the Theater of the Absurd's basic elements. These are some of the reasons
which prompt the critic to classify them under the heading "Theater of the
Absurd'' — a title which comes not from a dictionary definition of the word
"absurd," but rather from Martin Esslin's book The Theatre of the Absurd, in
which he maintains that these dramatists write from a "sense of metaphysical
anguish at the absurdity of the human condition." This theatre, as Esslin has
pointed out, "has renounced arguing about the absurdity of the human condition;
it merely presents it in being — that is, in terms of concrete stage images of the
absurdity of existence."

The Theatre of Cruelty is both a philosophy and a discipline. Artaud wanted to

disrupt the relationship between audience and performer. The ‘cruelty’ in
Artaud’s thesis was sensory, it exists in the work’s capacity to shock and
confront the audience, to go beyond words and connect with the emotions: to
wake up the nerves and the heart. He believed gesture and movement to be more
powerful than text. Sound and lighting could also be used as tools of sensory
disruption. The audience, he argued, should be placed at the centre of a piece of
performance. Theatre should be an act of ‘organised anarchy'.

In "Comedy of Menace", as Merritt observes, on the basis of his experience of

The Birthday Party and others' accounts of the other two plays, Wardle proposes
that "Comedy enables the committed agents and victims of destruction to come
on and off duty; to joke about the situation while oiling a revolver; to display
absurd or endearing features behind their masks of implacable resolution; to
meet … in paper hats for a game of blind man's buff"; he suggests how
"menace" in Pinter's plays "stands for something more substantial: destiny," and
that destiny, "handled in this way—not as an austere exercise in classicism, but
as an incurable disease which one forgets about most of the time and whose
lethal reminders may take the form of a joke—is an apt dramatic motif for an
age of conditioned behaviour in which orthodox man is a willing collaborator in
his own destruction.” David Campton, Nigel Dennis, N. F. Simpson, and Harold
Pinter are examples of a few dramatists who wrote Comedies of Menace.

Dramatists
1. Samuel Beckett (1906-1989)
Samuel Beckett, born near Dublin, educated at Portora Royal School and
Trinity College.and since 1937, a permanent resident in Paris cannot be
slickly or imperially fitted into a narrowly ‘english’ tradition of english
writing and english theatre. He was a Secretary to James Joyce during his
Parisian days. Beckett remained a part of the polyglot and polyphonic
world of literary innovation. His earliest publications suggest a type of
modernist tradition which transcended frontiers and the impassable
barriers of language. He continued to write in English and French but
French took precedence over English. His trilogy of novels Molloy,
Malone Meurt (1951) and L’Innommable established Beckett as among
the most discussed Parisian authors of the 1950s. It was Waiting for
Godot that catapulted him into international fame. His other titles are
Endgame - 1957, Karpp’s Last Tape - 1960, Happy Days - 1962, Radio
Dramas- All that Fall-1957, Embers - 1959, Words and Music - 1962 and
Cascando - 1963, BBC Television - Eh, Joe - 1965, Ghost Trio - 1977,
Cinema - Film (dedicated to Buster Keaton, 1964. The Film is remarkable
for its nod to comedy roots in music hall, visual puns on the philosophical
ideas of being and seeing and its silence only being broken by a voice
saying ‘sssh’. Beckett’s dialogue in Waiting for Godot is particularly
remarkable as it is energetic, densely layered and supple in comparison
any 20th c. playwright. His comedy, whether visual, verbal, ritual or even
at times slapsticks, is amongst the most supple and surprising. The set of
Waiting for Godot require simply the suggestion of ‘country road’, ‘tree’
whereas endgame may take place in a bare interior and the designer of
happy days may be instructed to aim for a maximum simplicity and
symmetry in the representation of an expanse of scorched glass rising
centre to low mound but the static baldness of Beckett’s visual statement
serves as both as a counterpoise and complement to the animation of his
verbal ones.
Beckett wrote Waiting for Godot (1952) which was firstly written in
French and titled En attendant Godot. Aristotle says that drama is the
imitation of an action, but in Waiting for Godot nothing actually happens
and the two characters only wait for Godot. It is a conversation between
Vladimir and Estragon, while they wait for the arrival of the mysterious
Godot. Godot continuously sends word that he will appear, but never
does. They encounter other characters with whom discuss their miseries
and their lots in life even consider hanging themselves, but they wait.
Vladimir and Estragon are people who do not know why they were put on
 earth, they try to find the point in their existence and they look to Godot
for enlightenment. Because they hold out hope for meaning and direction,
they acquire a kind of nobility that enables them to rise above their futile
existence. In Godot, we see a form of allegorical theater, where we see
man as wretched, sordid, helpless and alone. The name “Godot” itself has
a french diminutive to “God”, but whoever Godot is never arrives and the
play ends. Godot, for whom we are waiting never comes and is sure to be
nonexistent except under the form of his name. It is equally a grotesque
farce in which the mingled influence of Jarry and Kafka is apparent. The
hero becomes a victim of the absurd and of the age. He is disguised as a
herdsman, a species of clown whose rudimentary jokes, whose attitudes,
dress, filthiness and ridicule compose a grinning mask. This thus creates
a Ubesque and phantasmagorical but formidably solid duality. The idea of
the absurd was first put forward by Camus (Albert) in his The Myth of
Sisyphus (1942), was a philosophical reaction to the unintelligibility of
life., which under the German occupation of Paris had become greater
than usual. Waiting for Godot, can be misunderstood by people who
haven’t seen it. The subtitle “ a tragicomedy in two acts” is mood is one
of gaiety as the characters are clowns as well as tramps. “Life is first
boredom, then fear” Larkin wrote later, Beckett thought this formulation
to be too solemn.
The dialogue rises at moments to a very high degree of poetic incantation,
which is a part of Beckett’s admirable skill in making use of all the visual
and auditory processes at his disposal.
When he suggests the idea of blindness and he does with Ham in
Endgame, it is indicative of a kind of deprivation which alerts the
audience to alternative modes of perceiving. By contrast, he uses silence
as in Films and the mime play called Act Without Words II (1967), he
seems to be directing audiences to explore the value of new sensory and
physical formulations. Beckett never plays with minimalism and
reductionism simply for the sake of the aesthetics. In parallel to the work
of certain modernists architects and composers, if without their puritan
frugality, radically explored the potential of the idea that “less is more”.
Samuel Beckett’s writing is representative of the culmination of prose
drama. He won a Nobel Prize in (1969).

2. Harold Pinter(1930-2008)
Harold Pinter was born in 1930, and wrote when the English dramatic
renaissance was in full swing. The Birthday Party (1958) was his first
production. This play was inspired by Eugene Ionesco and Samuel
Beckett, this play is a mixture of almost actionless naturalism with
disturbing and deliberately vague symbolism. The dialogue is deadpan
and aimless, aggressively colloquial, with pauses and repetition
 suggesting a relentlessly slow build-up of cumulative meaning. The play
may be symbolic of the forces of respectability lying in wait for a man
who tries to skip out on middle class sensibilities, and it possesses a sort
of Joycean wit and imaginative buoyancy which helps it transcend any
such theme and lends the play an air of meaning more than it actually
does. It is dramatically remarkably successful, and his dialogue bothe
deadpan and sinister , works with uncanny effect. Other plays written by
Pinter are- The Room (1957), The Dumb-Waiter (1957), The Night
Out(1960), The Caretaker (1960), Homecoming (1964), No man’s Land
(1975), Old Times(1971) etc.
It is said that for all his symbolic undertones his characters lack
dimension, the level between surface realism and background symbolism.
The middle level of action that is capable of changing any drama into
memorable action.
Harold Pinter has a distinct style which he employs in his writing, he
employs the words more so for justification of the speaker’s self to
himself than transmission. More precisely communication and as
weapons against others living not for relationships but for themselves.
His characters seem to be egotistical, myopic, and possess narcissistic
interest. Fear and mistrust are their two main traits. His characters seem
to be sheltered from their outwards social ambience, dominated by
bourgeoisie capitalists. He was awarded the nobel prize for literature in
2001. Like Samel Beckett, Pinter’s language and idioms were influenced
by 2 authors- Anton Chekov (Russia) and August Strindberg (Sweden).
Like Arnold Wescer, Osbourne , Pinter was another post-war
socially-conscious dramatist who was dreaming of a radical social
revolution that would bring about wholesale change to contemporary
capitalist society. Protecting people from injustices and exploitation
eating into mankind.

3. John Osborne (1929-1994)

John Osborne, born in 1926, made a splash in the British drama scene
with his 1956 play Look Back in Anger in the Royal Court Theatre.
Look Back in Anger, follows the protagonist Jimmy Porter. He is a
provincial graduate of a humble social background, and is married to a
woman who comes from a higher social background. He treats her with a
mixture of self-pity and sadism. The play itself is confused in its themes
and uncertain in its emotional emphases, but it managed to make an
impression on the minds of the English Theatre goers with vitality in its
dialogue and by managing to touch on the deepest anxieties and
frustration of the new educated class. In the aftermath of world war 11,
the Education act of 1944 was passed.This brought for the men and
women of the time limited education and a humble social standing. These
universities were called ‘red-brick’ universities. They were not oxford
and cambridge. Even though the middle class man could afford
University education, the prizes were still reserved for those with a public
school and ‘oxbridge’ education. The university education didn’t raise the
middle class to soaring heights but introduced severe mediocrity, leaving
them as misfits who even though well- educated, eloquent were unable to
get a job. Centred around the theme of the frustrated, anti-establishment
young man in the provinces who has already been treated with a mixture
of ironic comedy and high farce, is Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, but
where Amis is comic Osborne’s treatment if the subject is savage.
Examples of menace in Osbourne’s plays can be seen in the distinction
between the provinces; described as dull, drab and lacking in opportunity
compared to London, Oxford or Cambridge. Look Back in Anger
produces a picture of confusion with uncanny accuracy present in the
young people of the generation. Self-pity was not admirable, neither is
sadism, but in Look Back, we see Osbourne holding up Jimmy Ported to
our sympathetic understanding. The dialogues of the play draw on the
sharp rhythmic pattern of the English Music Hall. Look Back is deeply
layered with nostalgia of the world his young characters never knew,
coexisting with anger at what the past has done.The Look Back here is to
the death of the high culture that died during WW1, which had
determined the values and quality of education Porter had received. It was
irrelevant to their needs and dishonest about the values of the
establishment.Look Back in Anger can be seen more of a cultural
phenomena than an important work of literature. It dealt with the first
generation that grew up in the shadows of atom bombs, and thus brought
new vitality to the english dramatic dialogue.The sharp, mocking staccato
language of Jimmy revivified the english drama.
Other works include- The Entertainer (1957); Luther (1961)- an
ambitious play, taking on a very psychological air through the exploration
of Luther’s personality and the development moving towards a larger
symbolic atmosphere; A Patriot for Me(1965); Inadmissible
Evidence(1965); Lope de Vega, A Bond Honoured (1966)-
experimentation with new technique, new dramatic action and new ways
of counterpointing symbolic and and realistic actions; screenplay for Tom
Jones (1964). He also wrote many scripts- The Chairman’s Wife and
Flash Gordon.
Osbourne was known for a specific type of drama called the
‘Kitchen-Sink Drama’.The Kitchen Sink Drama or Kitchen Sink Realism
was an artistic movement that rose in the 1950s and 60s portraying young
men disillusioned from modern society. Exploring social realism, Kitchen
sink dramas tell the story of the working class Britons and their struggles,
trials and tribulations. This arose in harsh criticism of the previous
generation’s escapist, ‘well-made plays’. They involved class discourse,
and involved different accents- specifically Northern England accents.
The films and movies of this school never shied away from discussing
seemingly taboo topics of abortion, premarital sex, crime and adultery.
The term ‘Kitchen Sink School’ was first used by David Sylvester in
1954, to describe a group of painters calling themselves Beaux Arts
Quartet depicting a social realist type of domestic life.The term ‘Kitchen
Sink’ comes from the modern expressionist artist John Bratsby.

He won an oscar for the screenplay of Tom Jones by Henry Fielding and
also a Tony award for Luther.
Osbourne’s restless, innovative mind, his feeling for spoken prose, and
his highly theatrical craftsmanship showed great promise for the
development of English drama.