Modern Drama:

 After the great Elizabethan period, drama began a period of decline which
was already recognizable in the decadence of the late Jacobean era which led
to the closing of the theatres. The Restoration is a period when drama was
somewhat revived especially the comedy.

 All along the 18th and 19th centuries, drama was nearly absent from the
literary scene and the Romantics’ focus on poetry is one factor that may
explain this.

 The change came from outside England with the plays of Henrick Ibsen
(Norway) who was a pioneer and is now considered as the father of modern
drama. Also August Strindberg (Sweden) and Anton Chekov (Russia).

 The plays of these writers became popular and influential in many countries
including England and they largely contributed to the revival of Modern
drama.

 The main element introduced by these playwrights is the element of

realism: which means writing about everyday life, characters taken from
reality and from the middle and even lower classes of society.

 In England George Bernard Shaw wrote a book of criticism The

Quintessence of Ibsenism in which he explained Ibsen’s new style of drama,
before he himself started writing plays following Ibsen’s tradition while
giving his personal approach and interests.

 Shaw’s plays show his idea or theory of ‘Life force’: the power that drives
people to value life as a great gift and fight for a better world. For example
women want to have children so that life can be continued in them. In Man
and Superman (1903) a woman’s aim in life is to find the man that is the
right father for her children. His most important play is Pygmalion (1912).

 Sean O’Casey is an important Irish playwright of the 1920s mainly with his
play Juno and the Paycock.
 Post World War II Drama:

 John Osborne: wrote plays of social realism represented mainly by Look

Back in Anger (1956).
 Samuel Beckett: Irish playwright who started his career as playwright and
novelist in France and then back to Ireland, the chief figure of a completely
new style called Theatre of the Absurd.
 His most important plays are: Waiting for Godot (1954) and Endgame
(1957).
 Beckett breaks with all norms of traditional drama and replaced realism with
surrealism. His plays are deeply pessimistic and are marked by the dark
mood and disillusion of post war Europe along with the influence of French
philosophers of Existentialism.
 Harold Pinter: The most important British playwright of the 1960s up to
the 1980s. His most important plays are The Birthday Party (1957), The
Caretaker (1960), The Homecoming (1964).
 While influenced by Beckett, he created an extremely successful and
original type of realistic drama aiming at deeply understanding the nature of
modern society and the condition of the modern individual in it.