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Ibsen (1828-1906)

Ibsen was a playwright in the late 1800s, he wrote many plays but two in particular caused some controversy. These plays were: A Doll’s House (1881)​ and Ghosts (1882​) A Doll’s House explores the oppression of women. The female character Nora leaves her husband and children because she wants a life of her own. ​To 19th century Europe the thought of a woman forsaking her marriage vows as well as also displaying a mind of her own and renouncing her duty of absolute obedience to her husband was considered indecent and scandalous​ in those times. Ghosts touched on subjects that were completely forbidden, dealing with Syphilis, adultery, free love, incest and euthanasia. It caused a violent uproar and none of the theatres would stage it. ​

Samuel Beckett (1906-1996)

He was one of the twentieth century's most original and important writers, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. He was the author of 'Waiting for Godot' (1952), one of the few plays in theatrical history to redefine the possibilities of the medium. ​He was long fascinated by the cinema (especially silent comedies, a major influence on much of his work, including 'Godot')​. Some of his works were:

Waiting for Godot (1953)​

Endgame (1957​)

Krapp’s Last Tape (1958​)

Happy Days (1961)​

Not I (1973​)

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)

As a playwright, it was Henrik Ibsen who had the greatest impact on him. Williams learned the Scandinavian literary dialect used by Ibsen to understand his plays​ further. Tennessee Williams suffered from depression, and feared going mad. He was briefly institutionalised in 1969 after a severe nervous breakdown, and never forgave his younger brother Dakin for allowing him to be put into a 'madhouse'. ​Part of Williams' problem, aside from his alcoholism, was that in the 1960s, he had become addicted to prescription drugs.​ Some of his works were:

The Glass Menagerie (1945​)

A Streetcar Named Desire (1947​)

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955​)

Orpheus Descending (1957​)

Suddenly Last Summer (1958)​

Sweet Bird of Youth (1959​)

Pinter (1930-2008)

The early plays that made his reputation such as "The Homecoming" (1964) and his middle-period work such as "No Man's Land" (1976) have been called "comedies of menace." ​They use what at first seems like an innocent situation and develop it into an absurd and threatening environment through actions that usually are unusual  to the audience and sometimes even to the other characters in the play. ​

A Pinter drama is dark and claustrophobic. His language is full of menacing pauses. The lives of Pinter's characters usually are revealed to be stunted by guilt and horror. ​The duality and absurdity of Pinter's theatrical world-view gave rise to the adjective "Pinteresque." ​Some of his works were:

The Birthday Party (1958)​

The Caretaker (1960​)

The Homecoming (1965)​

Old Times (1971)​

No Man’s land (1975)​

Betrayal (1978​)

Alan Bennett (1934-C)

Alan Bennett’s diffident, mostly shy public persona has arguably been crucial to his sustained and ever growing success, but any perceived aura of cosiness belies a sharpness of intellect and wit that has proved adept at dissecting the mores of the English and their institutions across a variety of genres. ​He studied at Exeter College, Oxford, then after a period of National Service, became a lecturer for a short time at Oxford University. He co-wrote and starred in Beyond the Fringe (1963), a satirical review, along with Dudley Moore, Peter Cook and Jonathan Miller, at the Edinburgh Festival in 1960. Later the show travelled to the West End and to New York. After this, he started writing for the stage, and later, plays for television. To date he has been actor, director, broadcaster, and written for stage, television, radio and film. His work focuses on the everyday and the mundane; on people with typically British characteristics and obsessions.

His first stage play was Forty Years On (1969). Other well-known stage plays include Kafka's Dick (1987), The Wind In The Willows (1991), and The Madness of George III (1992). His first work for television was a sketch show, On the Margin, and he also wrote the television series Fortunes of War. His first television play was A Day Out, followed by several more television plays, five for the BBC, published as Objects of Affection and Other Plays for TV (1982), and five for London Weekend Television, published as The Writer in Disguise (1985).  His two series of monologues for television, Talking Heads I (1988) and Talking Heads 2 (1998), proved Bennett to be the master of television monologue, a genre he had first anticipated in A Woman Of No Importance (1982) - his first play starring a single actress.

Alan Bennett has also written for radio, including The Lady In The Van (1990), an autobiographical memoir of a deranged woman who parked her car in his garden and stayed for 15 years; and films, including A Private Function (1984), Parson's Pleasure, Prick Up Your Ears (1987), and The Madness of King George (1994), for which he was nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay adaptation. Alan Bennett has won many prestigious awards for his writing. His prose collection Writing Home (1994), was followed by a sequel, Untold Stories, in 2005. His recent play, The History Boys (2004), won the 2004 Evening Standard Award for Best Play of the Year and The Uncommon Reader (2007), is a novella in which the Queen develops a taste for reading. His most recent play is Cocktail Sticks (2012). Some of his works include numerous plays and monologues including:​

Forty Years On (1968​)

Habeus Corpus (1973​)

The Old Country (1978​)

Talking Heads (1988​)

The Madness of King George (1992​)

The History Boys (2004​)

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There are 3 main components to musical theatre:

Song

Dance

Dialogue

However, there are exceptions.

First musicals:
Musicals emerged from Opera’s via Operettas (mini operas). These were invented by Gilbert and Sullivan. ​Their works included ‘The Mikado’, ‘The Pirates of Penzance’ and ‘HMS Pinafore’. These are still popular performances today.

Gilbert and Sullivan:
Sir William Gilbert (1836 – 1911) was the dramatist and lyricist.
​Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842 – 1900) was the composer.
​Their works became known as the Savoy Opera’s .

1920's:
Most shows in urban areas were revues. Combining Vaudeville, Variety, Music Hall, and other disciplines .
The first proper Musical as we know it was ‘Showboat’ (1927). Showboat integrated book and score and was put together by P.G Wodehouse and Oscar Hammerstein II.

1930's:
Inspired by the success of Showboat, creative teams began following the same format. ​

​

Comedy​

A story​

Music ​

Visuals

Broadway:
Broadway became the centre for the genre. Shows were notably written by ​

Ira and George Gershwin​

Cole Porter​

Irving Berlin

Major musicals, 40's, 50's and 60's:
It began with Oklahoma in 1943. It was the first Blockbuster Musical, giving 2212 performances
Richard Rodgers (1902 – 1979) wrote the music. Oscar Hammerstein II(1895 – 1960) wrote the words ​

The duo wrote: Oklahoma (including ‘Oh What a Beautiful Morning’), Carousel (including ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’), South Pacific, The King and I (including ‘Getting to Know You’) and The Sound of Music.

By this time Musicals were big money. They also produced stars. ​By the late 1950’s Musicals were the mainstream of theatre. ​

My Fair Lady (Frederick Loewe 1956)​

West Side Story (Bernstein/Sondheim 1957)​

Gypsy (Steven Sondheim 1959)​

Steven Sondheim:
Sondheim was a childhood friend of Jimmy Hammerstein (son of Oscar). ​Hammerstein was a major influence on Sondheim, creating a remarkable ‘apprenticeship’. He advised Sondheim as to how to construct a musical leading West Side Story to be his first project.

Some practitioners went on to experiment with creating musicals around other styles:​

​

Jesus Christ Superstar (1970) = Rock​

Hair (1967) = Rock ​

Godspell (1971) = Rock ​

The Wiz (1975) = Gospel

The 'gritty' era- 70's:

Chorus Line (Michael Bennet 1976) was about people auditioning for a Musical.​

Cabaret (Kander/Ebb 1966) was about Nazi Germany​

Chicago (Kander/Fosse/Ebb 1975) was set during prohibition. ​

​

(The other major Broadway musical of the 70’s was ‘Annie’ – but was less controversial compared to others of the time)

80's and 90's:

Boublil and Schonberg (France) were important writers in this period. ​

They brought us:​

​

Miss Saigon ​

Les Miserables ​

Martin Guerre

Andrew Lloyd Webber:
Lloyd Webber’s first success was ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat’ with Tim Rice when he was 19 in 1968. ​He also did:

Jesus Christ Superstar (1970)  ​

Evita (1976)

Cats (1981)​

Starlight Express (1984)​

Phantom of the Opera (1986)

Aspects of Love (1990)​

Sunset Boulevard (1993) ​

Whistle Down the Wind (1996) ​

The Beautiful Game (2001) ​

Woman in White (2004)

Disney:
Disney saw the potential to move into the Musicals market after it had small scale successes with shows in their theme parks. ​

Beauty and the Beast (1994) was part written by Tim Rice.​

The Lion King  (1997 was a collaboration between Tim Rice and Elton John).

They have since then produced: ​

The Little Mermaid​

Tarzan ​

High School Musical 1&2​

Mary Poppins ​

And are currently working on:​

Dumbo ​

Aladdin ​

Alice in Wonderland​

The Hunchback of Notre Dame ​

Modern Musicals:

‘Rent’ was the most successful musical of the 90’s. ​

A trend of the ‘noughties’ was Musicals based upon the music of popular recording artists – Queen, Boy George, Elvis, The Beach Boys, Buddy Holly, Rod Stewart – and most notably ‘Mamma Mia’.

No one expected Musical Theatre to enjoy such success in the current economic climate, but there have been a number of successes:   ​

Bombay Dreams ​

The Producers​

Hairspray

Avenue Q​

The Witches of Eastwick ​

Sweet Charity ​

Billy Elliott ​

The Lord of the Rings ​

Dirty Dancing​

Legally Blonde ​

Sister Act ​

Priscilla Queen of the Desert

The major projects currently in production are:​

​

Moulin Rouge ​

Spiderman - now showing​

Nine​

American Idiot​

Shrek – now showing​

Sweeney Todd – now showing​

Karen: The Musical ​

Rasputin ​

Dreamgirls – now showing

Hamilton -- now showing

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He wrote at least 36 plays. These were either Comedies, Tragedies or Histories.

The comedies are:

All's Well That Ends Well ​

As You Like It ​

The Comedy of Errors ​

Love's Labour's Lost ​

Measure for Measure ​

The Merchant of Venice  ​

The Merry Wives of Windsor ​

A Midsummer Night's Dream ​

Much Ado About Nothing ​

Pericles, Prince of Tyre ​

The Taming of the Shrew ​

The Tempest ​

Twelfth Night ​

The Two Gentlemen of Verona ​

The Two Noble Kinsmen ​

The Winter's Tale

The tragedies are:

Romeo and Juliet ​

Coriolanus ​

Titus Andronicus ​

Timon of Athens ​

Julius Caesar ​

Macbeth ​

Hamlet ​

King Lear ​

Othello ​

Antony and Cleopatra ​

Troilus and Cressida (nowadays more likely to be classified as a comedy or Problem Play)

The Histories are:

King John, ​

Richard II, ​

Henry IV part 1, ​

Henry IV part 2, ​

Henry V, ​

Henry VI part 1, ​

Henry VI part 2, ​

Henry VI part 3, ​

Richard III​

Henry VIII.

He was very likely the most influential writer in all of English literature and  the most important playwright of the English Renaissance, William Shakespeare was born in 1564 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England. ​He attended grammar school, but his formal education went no further. ​
In 1582, he married an older woman called Anne Hathaway and proceeded to have three children with her. At around 1590, he left his family behind and travelled to London to work as an actor and playwright. Quickly, public and critical success followed, and Shakespeare eventually became the most popular playwright in England and part owner of the Globe Theatre. ​His career bridged the reigns of Elizabeth I (ruled 1558-1603) and James I (ruled 1603-1625); he was also a favourite of both monarchs. Wealthy and renowned from his successful career, Shakespeare retired to Stratford and died in 1616 at the age of 52. ​
By the early eighteenth century, his reputation as the greatest poet ever to write in English was well established. ​Many details of Shakespeare's personal history are shrouded in mystery. ​Some people have concluded from this fact that Shakespeare's plays in reality were written by someone else--Francis Bacon and the Earl of Oxford being the two most popular candidates--but the evidence for this claim is overwhelmingly circumstantial, and the theory is not taken seriously by many scholars as it cannot be proven.​In the absence of definitive proof to the contrary, Shakespeare must be viewed as the author of the 37 plays and 154 sonnets that bear his name. ​The legacy of this body of work is immense. A number of Shakespeare's plays seem to have transcended even the category of brilliance, becoming so influential as to affect profoundly the course of Western literature and culture ever after.

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Stanislavski

He was the earlier practitioner born in Moscow, Russia 1863.
He was an actor who moved on to become a director and teacher. He developed a completely new approach to acting which took years of experimenting to get to what is now known as the Stanislavski system.

He saw a lot of bad acting and termed it as artificial or fake. He wanted actors to work on characters from the inside to create a more real performance. His thought process differed from the way actors traditionally approached their roles.

The Stanislavski system worked on intense character development which is a process that strives to make a performance real.
1. The actors experiences were brought into the role.
2. The actors imagination was expanded.

He believed that the character should be approached from the inside through real life experiences. The life of the character also needs to be created with an inner thought, back story and beliefs like a real person. When the actor answers questions about the character, they should speak in first person.

Given circumstances are character details in the script which are facts for the actor.

What have they told us?
What is the location?
What is the time/period/year?
Who are the people in the play?

Naturalism is key.
The items on stage are  "no more than", "life like" and "outside-in".
Create a set or costume for a Stanislavski style, you would need to do a lot of research to show things should be as they would be in real life.

Brecht

He was a German playwright, theorist and director born in 1898. He wanted to use plays to engage his audience in political debates. He is well known for developing the alienation effect to remind the audience that they are watching a play.

Alienation uses specific devices to distance the audience so they could debate themes within the piece or meaning of the play. It follows the idea that theatre can never be real life. Less attention is paid to the set and the costumes. Brecht created devices to achieve this called Epic Theatre.

He wanted the audience to be entertained but also detached and critical. His aim for them was to be rational and to learn social lessons from what they were watching. He often used songs to tell the audience what was going to happen in order to disengage their emotions.

Alienating devices are:

Intemptions
No theatrical illusions
No realistic scenery or props.

Design is:
Expressionistic
"More than"
"Larger than life"
"Inside-out"
Exaggerated.

Things can be used in a representative way.

Artaud

He was a French actor, playwright, director and poet born in 1896. His dramatic theories inspired many others. He believed that theatre must break away from literary connections and become an exorcism in which the audience is frightened, bewitched and spiritually overwhelmed.
Theatre to him was an instrument of devastating power to free people from moral restraint and that drama is situated within man himself which transcends the need to understand the language. Through this, Artuad created the Theatre of Cruelty.

Design was:

Symbolic
"Other than"
"Stands for"
Mind over matter
Belief that things can completely become something else.

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c.1000-1600

The christian church who banned the theatre, was the cause of its rebirth. In the early middle ages, priests began to act out scenes during church services to bring alive the stories and teachings of Christ. They began as short stories with very few characters.

On Easter Sunday, priests dressed as the three Mary's who visited a mock up of Christ's tomb where the angels would tell of the resurrection.

This idea was effective. Several scenes were acted using temporary settings or mansions in various parts of the church.

There were so many actors and large crowds that churches couldnt hold them. The plays were then held outside, in front of the church door and in the streets.

As the plays became more elaborate, each guild of the town became responsible for one scene related to its trade. Eg. Bakers would do the last supper or the boat builders would do Noah's ark.

By the 15th century, the mansions filled market squares on church festival days and they were put on carts called pageants that took plays to audiences through town.

Costume

Elaborate, with demons wearing skins of wolves or domesticated animals.
Horns, animal heads, wigs beards masks.

Adam and Eve sometimes wore white leather to suggest nudity. Colours has associations with the murderer Cain being in red. Green represents truth.

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The chorus was around 15 in number and it represented the populous.
In comedies, the chorus were dressed as animals with masks and costumes.
The actors played many parts. They wore long, highly coloured costumes and masks and changed masks to change character.

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Aeschylus introduced the idea of the second actor. He wrote Oresteia.

Sophocles introduced the idea of the third actor. He wrote Oedipus Rex.
The message of Sophocles' plays was that man cannot escape his fate.

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Greeks believed in a range of Gods. Zeus was king of Gods. Dionysus was Zeus' son. He was the God of wine, theatre and masquerade. He was said to bring madness, sexuality, sensuality and possession. If you were possessed by Dionysus, you would feel a loss of your conscious self.
Plays delt with mans battle against the Gods, fate and the unknown.

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The three most well known tragedy playwrights were:

Aeschylus
Sophocoles
Euripides

Greek tragedies in 5th century BC were violent, explosive, dangerous, shocking and challenged taboos and complacency.

Four themes that were often explored were:

Lust for power (politically and personally)
Sexual jealousy
Tyrannical parents
Rebellion

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Origins came from observing peoples: religious rituals, everyday life, circle of life and humanity.

Aristophones was the greatest comic dramatist in classical Athens. In comedy plays, man is fighting against chance, confidence and fate.

The plays were symbolic with stock characters.

The lover, courtesan and slave celebrated life.The stern father, money grabbing pimp, cruel master and miser spoiled life.

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Origins:

Drama in ancient Greece grew out of religious ceremonies. Every year, people danced and sang to honor Dionysus, the God of Wine and Fertility. The songs were chanted by a group of men, called the Chorus.

In 534 BC, Thespis, a priest of Dionysus introduced a performer who exchanged comments with the leader of the chorus, producing the first actor and dialogue in the history of theatre.

The chorus performed in a circular area called the orchestra. This had an altar to Dionysus in the center. Actors entered from the Skene. The acting area before it was the proscenium.

The backgrounds were painted on the Skene which is the source of the word scenery. All actors were men and wore masks. These established the characters sex, age and feelings.

There are two types of  Greek play; Comedy and Tragedy.