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By Linda Crampton. By Colin Quartermain. The turn of the 20th century saw the emergence of two dominate trends in theatre: the dramatisation of contemporary, moral and social issues, and an interest in a simpler and more abstract staging of plays.
Innovative work from abroad, particularly playwrights such as Henrik Ibsen and Anton Chekhov, was also influential in the shaping of this new drama. Harley Granville-Barker's management of the Royal Court between and saw the popularisation of the work of George Bernard Shaw.
Bernard Shaw was one of the most successful writers of the early 20th century and an outspoken member of the Fabian Society , an organisation committed to social reform and considered by many at the time to be subversive. He challenged the morality of his bourgeois audiences with his satirical and often humorous writing that included uncomfortable topics such as religion and prostitution.
Many of his plays were censored by the Lord Chamberlain, including Mrs Warren's Profession , first public performance in England , which centred on a former prostitute and her attempt to come to terms with her disapproving daughter. At a more grass roots level, theatre groups aimed at promoting the socialist cause and the Labour Party sprang up across the country. Between and the Workers' Theatre Movement WTM , which was allied with the Communists, used theatre to agitate for social change.
WTM developed an 'agit-prop' style that took songs and sketches onto the streets in an attempt to incite change. Unity Theatre grew out of the WTM. It's aim was 'to foster and further the art of drama in accordance with the principle that true art, by effectively presenting and truthfully interpreting life as experienced by the majority of people, can move the people to work for the betterment of society'.
Unity pioneered new forms of theatre, presenting factual information on current events to audiences, as well as satirical pantomimes that challenged the Lord Chamberlain's censorship. Committed to removing the bourgeois trappings of theatre, they wanted to create a more physical theatre that reflected the machine age. Founded in , the Actresses' Franchise League supported the suffrage movement by staging events and readings. By , membership numbered and there were groups in all major UK cities.
The Pioneer Players was founded by Edith Craig, daughter of Ellen Terry, the renowned English actress of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The company aimed to present plays of 'interest and ideas' and particularly those which dealt with current social, political and moral issues, including suffrage.
The Pioneer Players performed at the Little Theatre which operated as a club theatre to avoid the censorship of the Lord Chamberlain. The repertory theatre movement was forged out of the passion and conviction of Barry Jackson and Annie Horniman, who believed that a wide variety of theatrical experience should be made available to people at a price they could afford.
Horniman believed that by subsidising theatres you could both raise the standards of performance and broaden the programme a theatre could offer to its community.
Horniman was the daughter of a wealthy tea merchant with no family connections to the theatre but she recognised the cultural value of the state-subsidised repertory companies in Germany. In just ten years they produced over plays at the Gaiety but were forced to close in because of financial difficulties. Its founder Barry Jackson, like Horniman, was passionate about the need to offer the people of Birmingham a wide variety of theatrical experience, and personally subsidised the building of the Rep Theatre as a base for his company.
In the Stage Society was founded with the aim of supporting a theatre of ideas. Frustrated with the conservative nature of more commercial theatres, it presented private Sunday performances of experimental plays that had not been granted licences by the Lord Chamberlain. After a police raid on their first production Bernard Shaw's You Never Can Tell it was argued that because these were private performances, the Lord Chamberlain's restrictions on Sunday performances and licensed plays were not applicable.
The Stage Society won the case and other 'club' theatres opened with members paying a small subscription rather than an entrance fee.
These theatres became the home of unlicensed, experimental and controversial plays — a situation that lasted until when censorship was finally overturned. The Arts Theatre opened as a club theatre in and quickly developed a reputation for innovative and exciting work.
Plays by French and German writers such as Racine and Goethe were staged there, as well as new writing from British playwrights. Actors such as John Gielgud and Sybil Thorndike worked at the Arts Theatre even when they were well known in the West End — such was their commitment to presenting more experimental work.
West End theatre between the wars was a strange mixture. For the most part theatres were impoverished by the Depression and remained conservative both in the content of their work and the staging.
Whilst Priestley and Shaw had a strong left-wing agenda, the plays were essentially conservative in form. Shakespeare's plays virtually vanished from the West End. His home now was the Old Vic Theatre and the regional repertory theatres which experimented with contemporary dress productions. Coward's Cavalcade first production in was an epic play which traced the history of the early years of the 20th century through the lives of one family. Coward remained one of the popular writers of this period with comedies such as The Vortex , Fallen Angels and Present Laughter The Second World War saw a surge of interest in the arts with many civilian and military audiences experiencing drama, opera and ballet for the first time.
This interest led to the establishment of the Arts Council by the government in with an annual grant to distribute among the arts. This grant ensured the survival of companies like the Sadler's Wells Ballet and Opera and the eventual establishment of the Royal Opera, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, as well as supporting theatre in the regions and the work of individual artists and companies.
By the Arts Council was subsidising 40 companies across the country and between and 15 new theatres had been constructed with public money. Farces and 'who-dunnits' became popular, the most famous being The Mousetrap , an adaptation of an Agatha Christie novel that opened in and is still going today.
The glamorous productions of the s, produced by Binkie Beaumont and H M Tennent, soon became economically unviable. Actors moved into TV to make more money and West End productions shrank in size. Small venues continued to promote and support new writing as more experimental productions moved into the mainstream theatres, including George Devine's Royal Court.
The phrase 'In yer face theatre' has been applied to many of the young writers who were produced by the Royal Court in the s. This aggressive and confrontational style was designed to assault the audience's sensibilities. It explored the gut-wrenching extremes of the human condition and rammed the excesses of contemporary society down its throat.
One of the most successful 'In yer face' productions was Mark Ravenhill's Shopping and Fucking, which opened at the Royal Court in The company Joint Stock pioneered a process of collaborative working, with writers workshopping their ideas with the company to develop a script. Joint Stock was responsible for developing many of Caryl Churchill's early plays.
The end of theatre censorship in saw a surge in the alternative theatre movement in Britain. No longer restricted by the Lord Chamberlain's censorious eye, companies were free to express any agenda they chose. Feminist theatre companies like Red Ladder and the Women's Theatre Group now the Sphinx began to put on plays that expressed the political agenda of the feminist movement and questioned the male dominance of writers and directors in British theatre.
Women writers like Caryl Churchill and Pam Gems wrote for companies like Joint Stock before moving onto success in mainstream theatre. Companies also explored new ways of creating theatre, devising work which aimed to be more democratic by involving the whole company in all aspects of the creative process from initial concept to final performances.
In the funding crisis of the s many 'alternative' companies had their meagre subsidy cut and could no longer afford to continue. However, others successfully developed into the mainstream like Hull Truck and Mike Leigh who later moved successfully into film and television.
Throughout the s and 90s companies began to experiment with a more physical type of theatre. They wanted to get away from the restraints of realistic and naturalistic drama and create an energetic visual theatre that combined strong design with choreography and physical imagery. Influenced by the work of Philippe Gaulier and Jacques Lecoq, companies such as Theatre de Complicite applied their style to the reworking of classic texts and created new work in collaboration with writers.
This departure was not completely new — in the s Peter Brook had become interested in a more physical and visual theatre. Earlier innovators in this area included Bauhaus, Dadaist and surrealist performers, choreographer Rudolf Laban and directors Meyerhold and Jerzy Grotowski and Richard Schechozer. They seem to be dancing in ecstasy celebrating the appearance of the Great Goddess who is symbolized be the small figure on the top left part of the ring.
How was drama born in ancient Greece? In ancient Greece, the drama is rooted in the rituals and fairs in honour of Dionysus, god of fertility and vegetation. His believers were disguised, danced frantically and sang the cult song of the god, the dithyramb.
In the 6th century B. In Attica, around the middle of the same century, Thespis brought another even more important change. As the leader of a dithyramb chorus, he separated himself from the others, and wearing a mask, he started conversing with them. Thus, a dialogue between the person and the group started and then evolved. The myths stopped being narrations of acts and became action, imitation, representation, theatrical act.
The new form of dithyramb spread immediately across Attica. In the middle of the 6th century B. So, he added dithyramb competitions to the Great Dionysia, which became an institution in Athens, and later on turned into the most impressive celebration in honour of Dionysus, as well as the most impressive celebration of theatre.
Wine jug chous, a type of oinochoe depicting Dionysus and a Satyr B. After the overthrow of the oligarchic and tyrannical regimes, the democratic regime is gradually established in Athens in the 5th century B. In the middle of the same century Athens was the most powerful of all the other Greek city-states, and its democratic organization also marked the course of the dramatic poetry. The theatre became one more space for preoccupation and confrontation, which contributed to the formation of political conscience of the Athenian citizens.
In the 5th century B. They formed part of the celebrations in honour of god Dionysus. The most important celebration, the Great or City Dionysia, included competitions of tragedy, satirical drama and comedy. The citizens participated with great enthusiasm. Their celebration helped them bond with their city and with each other. It was a festival open to all, attended by official representatives of other city-states, by metoikoi foreign residents , and by numerous visitors.
It was a good opportunity to demonstrate the Athenian democracy and the supremacy of the city among allies and competitors. As regards women, we do not surely know whether they attended the theatrical performances or not. The state assumed the responsibility for organizing the drama competitions. It assigned the expenses of the plays to wealthy citizens, the sponsors.
To give the opportunity of watching the performances to the poorer Athenians, Pericles established the institution of the Theorica: part of the state funds was given to the poor to pay for their ticket.
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