History Of English Drama Colonial Theater and Drama
Drama is a literary composition, which
is performed by professional actors on
stage (or theatre), before an audience. It
involves conflicts, actions and a
particular theme. Eye-catching make up,
facial expressions and body language of
the artists are prominent features of a
live performance. Although the art form
exists in different countries, drama in
England deserves special mention,
because some of the legendary
dramatists, including William
Shakespeare, are associated with it. Go
through the following lines and get
some interesting information on the
history, background and origin of
English drama.
Interesting Information On
Background & Origin Of English
Drama
Emergence
The Romans introduced drama to
England, during the medieval period. A
number of auditoriums were constructed
for the performance of the art form,
when it came to the country. Mummers'
plays, associated with the Morris dance,
became a popular form of street theatre
during the period. The performances
were based on the old stories of Saint
George, Robin Hood and Dragon. The
artists moved from town to town, to
perform these folk tales. They were
given money and hospitality, in return
A. Drama in the Colonies
1. The First American Play in English -
possibly The Lost Lady (1641) by Sir
William Berkeley, Governor of
Virginia.
2. Early American Plays on Stage:
a. Ye Bare and Ye Cubb by William
Darby, 1665;
b. Other Plays written and performed
3. First Play printed in
America: Androborus by Robert Hunter,
1714
B. Actors and Acting Companies in
the Colonies
1. Problems of the Actors in America
2. Early Theaters and Acting
Companies: Walter Murray and Thomas
Kean
3. A Company of Comedians from
London: Lewis Hallam
4. The American Company: David
Douglass
C. Drama in the Colonies
1. First Play written by an American and
performed in America by Professional
Actors - The Prince of Parthia (1759?)
by Thomas Godfrey
for their performance. The mystery and
morality plays, performed during 2. Other Early Native Drama
medieval period - at religious festivals,
carried the Christian theme. 3. College Drama in the Colonies

4. First Play to treat a native subject

English Renaissance - Ponteach or The Savages of
The English Renaissance, a cultural and America by Robert Rogers (1766)
artistic movement in England country
Drama During the Revolution and the
that lasted from 16th to early-
Post Revolutionary Period to 1800
17th century, paved the way for the
dominance of drama in the country. A. Plays Reflecting Patriot Views
Queen Elizabeth I ruled during the during the Revolution
period, when great poetry and drama
were produced. The renowned B.Plays Reflecting Loyalist Views
playwrights of this time included during the Revolution
William Shakespeare, Christopher
Marlowe, Ben Jonson and John C. Nonpartisan Drama
Webster. The dramatists wrote plays
based on themes like history, comedy D. The Beginnings of American
and tragedy. While most of the Comedy: Royall Tyler's The Contrast,
playwrights specialized in only one of 1787 (first comedy)
the themes, Shakespeare emerged as an
artist who produced plays based on all E. The Father of American Drama:
the three themes. William Dunlap

F. Post-Revolutionary Drama: Varied

Interregnum (1649-1660) Directions
During the period of Interregnum, the
Puritans closed English theatres for their Theater During the Revolution and
own religious purposes and ideological the Post Revolutionary Period to 1800
reasons. However, the theatres in
A. Theater during the Revolution
London were reopened soon after the
'Restoration of the Monarchy' in 1660. B. Theater from the Revolution to 1800
With the support of Prince Charles II,
the theatres continued to flourish in the Drama of a New Nation, 1800-1865
country. The topical writing of the
dramatists and the introduction of A. Plays from the Town Crier:
professional female actors to drama Nationalism on Stage
(until then, all the female characters
 were played by men) gained the
attention of the audience.
The Restoration gave rise to the
inclusion of new genres in drama, such
as heroism and Restoration comedy.
George Etherege's 'The Man of Mode'
(1676), William Wycherley's 'The
Country Wife' (1676), Aphra Behn's
'The Rover' (1677) John Dryden's 'All
for Love' (1677) and (Aureng-Zebe)
(1675) and Thomas Otway's 'Venice
Preserved' (1682) were some of the
popular plays of the period. Sexual
explicitness was the highlight of the
comic plays during the Restoration.
Price Charles II and the aristocratic
ethos of his court encouraged such
plays, which started from 1660 and
continued until 1685.
18th Century
The Restoration comedy in England,
which had started in the later half of the
17th century, faded away with the advent
of the 18th century. Domestic tragedy
and sentimental comedy became the
new flavor of the period. Fair-booth
burlesque and musical entertainment,
which preceded the English music hall,
flourished during the period,
suppressing the popularity of legitimate
English drama.
Victorian Era (1837-1901)
Musical burlesques and comic operas
competed with the plays written by
B. Poetic Drama: The Serious Dramatist
at Work
C. Native American Character Types:
Jonathan, Sambo, and Metamora
D. A Mirror of the Times
E. Yankee Originality: American's
Contribution to World Theater
F. Theater before the Civil War
American Drama from the Civil War
to World War I
A. The Rise of Realism in American
Drama
B. The Beginnings of Social Drama:
Comment, Comedy, and Melodrama
C. The Age of Melodrama
D. The Popular Farce
E. Poetic Drama
F. A New Seriousness
G. Beginnings in Dramatic Criticism
H. A Developing Theater
(from Meserve, Walter J. An Outline
History of American Drama. Totowa,
NJ: Littlefield, Adams, 1965.)
Top Modern American Drama
Drama lags behind other genres because
Shakespeare, during the Victorian Era.
The German Reed Entertainments took
efforts to give a boost to the musical
theatre in Britain, in 1855. In 1890, the
first series of Edwardian musical
comedies were introduced to the
country. Improved transportation
resulted in the movement of the
audience, who could now afford to
travel to the theatres late in the night as
well. The number of potential patrons of
English theatre saw a significant
growth. As a result, plays started
running for longer duration in the
theatres.
of its demands of collaboration between
the playwright and the producer, a
largely conservative audience, and the
requirements of a theatre, actors, set
design, and a director.
By the end of the WWI, the hold of
greedy businessmen, who peddled
inferior plays for profit, came to an end.
This was signaled by the strike by
Actors' Equity in 1917, which shut all
New York theaters.
The Little Theater Movement

1912 The Little Theatre in New

With time, more and more people York,founded by Winthrop Ames;
started coming to theatres. This resulted Chicago's Little Theatre, founded by
in drama being a profit making business. Maurice Brown; Toy Theatre in Boston,
The increase in the audience resulted in founded by Mrs. Lyman Gale.
the improvement in the production value
of drama. The art form recorded 1915 New York:
consecutive performance, due to the
The Neighborhood Theatre, 466
increase in its popularity. The late
Victorian Era saw the growing fame of Grand Street (Lower East Side),
W. S. Gilbert and Oscar Wilde, leading founded by Alice and Irene Lewisohn.
First production: Jephthah's Daughter,
poets and dramatists of the period. The
February 12, 1915. Offered American
plays written by Wilde had close
plays as well as those from Europe,
resemblance to those written by the
Edwardian dramatists, such as George Japan, and India. Closed in 1930
Bernard Shaw (an Irishman) and Henrik The Provincetown Players, began in
Ibsen (a Norwegian). the artist-colony at Cape Cod, was
devoted to offering only works by
Emergence Of New Medium American writers. Its fame is tied with
its support of young Eugene O'Neill.
The Edwardian musical comedy,
Other prominent participants were the
together with foreign operetta imports,
couple, George "Jig" Cram Cook and
occupied the London stage until World
Susan Glaspell, John Reed and Louise
War I, when they were replaced by the
Bryant, Max Eastman and Ida Rauh, and
 increasing popularity of American
musical theatre and comedies. Noel
Coward, Ivor Novello and their
contemporaries soon replaced the
Edwardian musical comedy. It was
during this time that a new medium -
motion picture - started gaining
popularity. Initially, the motion pictures
comprised of silent movies.
With the passing time, the movies were
premiered with sound tracks. This posed
a challenge to the live theatre
performance, which faced a downfall. In
the 1920s, films like 'The Jazz Singer',
released with synchronized sound track,
made the critics assume that the 'new
medium' would soon replace live
theatre. However, the English drama
didn't vanish away altogether.
Playwrights continued to exist, though
some of the dramatists started writing
for the new medium.
The Present Time
The majority of musical dramas of the
20th century were written by Andrew
Lloyd Webber, who dominated the
scene during the period. His works
gained immense popularity.
Consequently, the dramas traveled to
Broadway in New York and around the
world. Some of them were turned into
feature films as well. Postmodernism
had a serious effect on the existence of
English drama, in the end of
th
20  century. However, a large number
of theatres still exist around Shaftesbury
Edna St. Vincent Millay. In Fall, 1916
they opened, in New York,
the Playwrights Theatre at 139
MacDougal Street and moved to 133
MacDougal for 1918-19 season. For six
seasons through 1921-22, this group
presented 16 plays by O'Neill, 11 by
Glaspell, and a total of 93 works by
nearly 50 American writers.
The Washington Square
Players organized themselves to
producing plays of merit which were
ignored by the commercial Broadway
producers. Compared to the above two
groups, their plays received critical
praise for their professional productions.
Authors presented were Europeans
Ibsen, Chekov, Shaw, Wilde, and
Americans Elmer Rice, John Reed,
Alice Gerstenberg, Glaspell, and
O'Neill. After a three season run, it
became the Theatre Guild.
1916 The Cleveland Playhouse;
Pasadena Community Playhouse,
founded by Gilmore Brown; Detroit
Arts and Crafts Theatre, founded by
Sam Hume.
1919 Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre, New
Orleans.
Top Literary Aesthetics and Styles
Realism (for introduction and
bibliography, checkout Chapter 5)
Stage realism is the use of ordinary
people, in ordinary settings, using
Avenue, in the western part of London.
The Royal Shakespeare Company,
operating from Stratford-upon-Avon
(Shakespeare's hometown), currently
produces most of the plays written by
the legendary dramatist.
commonplace dialect. The stage props
represent a camera photograph. Realistic
plays show aspects of real people
playing out conflicts and intrigues
which refelect the ordinary experiences
of American middle class life.
Recognizable heroes and villains were
replaced with ordinary characters
showing ordinary strengths and
weaknesses. The replacement of gas
light by electricity helped in the creation
of realistic ambience.
Naturalism (for introduction and
bibliography, checkout Chapter 6)
A commonly interchangeable term with
realism, naturalism assumes that
humans are controlled by their
environment, fate, psychology, chance
or coincidence; realistic characters are
in control of their destinies. Naturalistic
situations are generally pessimistic and
deterministic. Trapped and controlled,
human behavior is instinctual and
animalistic; there is heroism in a
human's desire to survive against
insurmountable odds.
Expressionism
In expressionistic plays, the playwright's
subjective sense of reality finds
expression. The characters and the
milieu may be realistic, but their
presentation on stage is controlled by
the writer's personal biases and
inclinations. No longer a camera
photograph, the stage could be higly
elaborate or bare; the accompanying
lighting, costumes, music, and scenery
could be similarly non-realistic. More
like a dream, expressionistic writing has
no recognizable plot, conflicts, and
character developments. However, the
threads are still audience friendly;
expressionism is not absurdism or an
exercise in obscurity.
(Information on Modern American
Drama is from Miller &
Frazer. American Drama between the
Wars: a Critical History. Boston:
Twayne, 1991. PS351 .M5)