Modern Drama

Modern drama has roots in the war torn sensibility of disillusioned, battered, and spiritually
sterile humanity. The cataclysm consequent to the two major wars dismantled reliable edifices of
religion, morality and family. The basic queries regarding existence and truth remained
unanswered and the disenchanted individual rejected traditional moral absolutes. Modern drama
offered expression to these realities of the post war period. However, the existing dramatic
structures failed to furnish requisite form to the burgeoning content now available as subject.
Contemporary avant garde dramatist discerned the urgency to debunk old canons and experiment
with new forms, styles and contents. Major modern playwrights rejected outmoded formulae and
endeavored with fresh constructions to portray multilayered reality and heterogeneity of human
personality.
Forms and attitudes, techniques and styles in drama do not occur automatically. They are
products of an accretion of resources contributed by playwrights of different ages. Modern drama
is far removed from being a mere facsimile of the ancient Greek and Roman drama, or the
stagecraft of middle ages and the renaissance, or other periods in the history of the theatre.
Modern drama is an outgrowth of a number of significant upheavals and development. It
represents an effort to make some sense out of the chaotic doctrines, and undeveloped ventures
in a century notably unstable and distressingly confusing in artistic as well as social aims.
Therefore, the story of the theatre is one of the rebellion and reaction, with new forms
challenging the old, and the old forms in turn providing the basis for the new. To adapt the
concept of art historian, E.H. Crombrich,
“drama originates in our reaction to the world, not in the world itself”
Modern drama has its genesis in the closing decade of nineteenth century, a period characterized
by discontent, restless criticism and an intense probing into disturbances and cleavages in the
modern world. The pioneers of the modern theatre, Ibsen, Hauptman and Gorki, Chekhov and
Shaw, were preoccupied with the ideological and social turmoil of their day.
Realism and Naturalism, Symbolism and Poetic drama, Expressionism and Existentialism, and
many other styles are found juxtaposed in modern theatre. The threads of many different styles
are interwoven within a single play. In practice it is difficult to find a play of pure Realism, or
naked Symbolism. Ibsen is a realist and a symbolist, Strindberg embraces both Naturalism and
Expressionism, O’Neill’s works fluctuates from Realism and Expressionism to the use of masks
in his later plays. Tennessee Williams employs several techniques including Brecht’s alienation
effect, in writing symbolist drama Pirandello becomes the progenitor of the Absurd, Weiss
arranges Artaudian cruelty within Brechtian Epic frame and so on. Attempts to blend disparate
techniques and forms have become more common than efforts to achieve formal or stylistic
purity.
Gassner believes the first ruling principle of modern theatre was the idea of freedom. The idea
was associated with the revolt against neoclassicist who believed that there are rules to which
theatre should adhere to. The importance of decorum, the idea that tragedy deals with the fate of
princes and nobles, and the primacy of unities of time, place and action, were banished from the
theatre. It was Victor Hugo’s diktat of complete emancipation of form, subject and style, in the
dramatization of reality which marks a watershed in the history of theatre. His romantic play
Hernani manifests the end of domination of the theatre by arbitrary rules, including the absolute
separation of comedy and tragedy. He opened the floodgates to every kind of tabooed material,
even the most sordid, and advocated the employment of any form and style. It was this freedom
that sparked the Naturalism of Zola, the critical Realism of Ibsen and Expressionism of
Strindberg.
In the twentieth century the psychological studies became fused with Realism and Naturalism.
Ibsen and Strindberg are important anticipations of this propensity. The later playwrights have
combined psychological Realism with the anatomy of the motives and values of the whole
society. This tendency is apparent particularly in modern American drama, and can be explicitly
seen in Eugene O’Neill. The playwrights such as Ibsen and Strindberg, Chekhov and Shaw,
Gorki and O’Casey, Miller, just to name a few transcend the dogmas of arbitrary rules and
theories to create a drama of imaginative power and deep human significance.
England was not unaffected by the departures and variations in drama and dramaturgy during the
two world wars. The efforts were dimmed during the hostilities of the two wars but immediately
after the armistice they started again with fresh zeal. This was a period of exaltation when
subjects and things never discussed before were being fervidly delineated. The ideas of Gordan
Craig, the technical brilliance of Appia, movements such as Impressionism and Expressionism
carrying a sense of social purpose; and claims that the stage should explore and experiment with
fresh forms and ideologies, led to an incredible extension of the horizons of theatre.
Consequently, very rich and effective series of plays began to be written in the realistic mode
which is reflected in the works of James Birdie, J. B. Priestly, T. S. Eliot, Christopher Frye, Noel
Coward, and G. B. Shaw.
At the turn of the century when Realism and Naturalism revitalized the theatre all through the
continent, other different approaches to drama were also in vogue. Symbolism, in which drama is
evocative and suggestive, brought to the stage rhythmic and introspective language of poetry.
The embellishments of the stage were reduced to a few draperies or a curtain of blue gauze, to
imply the vague and remote. De-theatricalisation together with the concern on language was the
center of dramatic expression. In order to show the soul of the drama and to sustain and enhance
the emotions, Adolph Appia, Gordan Craig, and Meyerhold, and the other scene designers
brought about the complex union of the art which Wagner had visualized by drawing upon the
flexible properties of light and color. The symbolist theatre gave a new emphasis to the creation
of new atmosphere and mood in modern drama.
The anarchy and the catastrophe of the two world wars give rise to a distrust of readymade
ideologies, and high sounding phrases in the theatre. Modem drama shows the revival of
grotesque indicating the dissolution of moral and spiritual absolutes of our times. Weird fantasies
and horrific nightmares far removed from reality. These call to vary question the existence of any
norms. Wedekind and Pirandello had discovered that the grotesque can mould the experiences
that are inaccessible to the light of common day. Viewed in the perspective of contemporary
history, the grotesque has a rational of its own Surrealism and Existentialism leads to the Theatre
of the Absurd.
The plays written in this theatre form by Beckett, Adamov, Pinter, Albee, Genet, Ionesco and
others share similar view that man lives in a universe which is empty of reason and logic. It is a
purposeless existence in which he remains bewildered disturbed and obscurely threatened. An
English lexicon describes the Theatre of the Absurd:
“A form of drama that emphasizes the absurdity of human existence by employing disjointed
repetitions, and meaningless dialogues, purposeless and confusing situations, and plots that
lack realistic or logical development.”
The situations that compel to relinquish reason have brought the Theatre of the Absurd to the
fore. The essential idea is the metaphysical anguish of the times. The sense of futility and
emptiness was reflected in an era where the mechanical nature of human beings leads them to
question the purpose of their living, where time was synonymous with a destructive force. Man
feels isolated in a world which is devoid of reason and logic. The Absurd theatre is a strategy to
come to terms with that universe. Jean Paul Sartre observes,
“we are nothing and in action become conscious of that original nothingness”.
It is surreal, illogical and without plot or necessary conflict. The dialogues seem unrelated and
nonsensical and defy comprehension. The devaluation of language is the most striking feature of
the technique of Absurd. Language is shown as an inadequate instrument of communication and
is reduced to meaningless exchanges.
The conflict between life and mask, broken personalities and disjuncted psyches become the
hallmark of the plays of Pirandello. He was dissatisfied with the conventional theatricality
because he felt that life which is constantly changing is distorted and killed when presented on
the stage. He believed that human motives cannot be reduced to simple formula; therefore, he
denied the validity of all drama or wants it to be as fragmentary as life itself.
The ‘modern dramatic techniques’ are thus the playwright’s ways, methods and devices to
achieve their desired ends. Baker quotes Sir Arthur Pinero to explain innovative methods and
their representation on stage:
“The art-the great and fascinating and most difficult art-of the modern dramatist is nothing
else than to achieve that compression of life which the stage undoubtedly demands, without
falsification.”
Steiner opined that probably no other literary form has been so burdened with the conflicts of
objectives and meaning. Modern drama effectively combines Realism and Naturalism,
Symbolism and Expressionism, Surrealism and Existentialism to ably express and depict a
sensibility torn apart by disillusionment and disintegration. The accomplishments of the masters
of modern drama are unforgettable not simply for the innovative techniques they employ, but for
the quality of perception that transforms their art into an unprecedented vital and rich expression.