Bertolt Brecht’s (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956) early dramas are anarchic, nihilistic, and antibourgeois. In them, he glorifies antisocial outsiders such as adventurers, pirates, and prostitutes; the tone of these works is often cynical. In the years after… Read More ›
Though he is touted sometimes as the chief American practitioner of the absurd in drama, Edward Albee (March 12, 1928 – September 16, 2016) only rarely combines in a single work both the techniques and the philosophy associated with that… Read More ›
The word ‘tragedy’ in common usage today means little more than a sad or unnecessarily unpleasant event: a motorway crash in which several people died is described as a ‘tragedy’ in the newspapers; a promising career cut short by cheating… Read More ›
Performance Studies is a new academic discipline, developed largely out of university departments of drama or of theatre studies, and driven mostly in USA, especially by Richard Schechner (b. 1934). Schechner was something of a polymath: theatre director with his… Read More ›
Shakespeare need not be abandoned by the postmodern world.Indeed; the postmodern world does and continues to embrace his works wholeheartedly. Hugh Grady rightly observes “we are now witnessing the emergence of a postmodernist Shakespeare through the development of critical paradigms… Read More ›
Murder in the Cathedral is a historical fiction play with strong Christian themes by the American-born British writer T.S. Eliot. It was first performed in Canterbury Cathedral on June 15, 1935 as part of the annual Canterbury Festival.The play is inspired by the murder… Read More ›
In the millennium year, Harold Pinter reached his seventieth birthday. Looking back over his achievements (as actor, pacifist, playwright, poet, critic, director, creator-adaptor of scripts that have sensitively translated the artistry of novelists into the medium of film, campaigner for… Read More ›
Like many other male writers, Eugene O’Neill created a world populated primarily by men. From the sea plays at the beginning of his career to such late works as The Iceman Cometh and Hughie, men dominate his theatrical space. A… Read More ›
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