Modern Drama : The Reflection of Life

by Nurin Nafisah

The modern drama was started during the late 19th century, it is about by the end of the Victorian period in the English literature history. After Shakespeare, drama indeed seems to be declined for two centuries. However, it was reemerged in the late of 19th century, then the modern drama was firstly made. There are two important factors for the emergence of the modern drama.

The first factor is the influence of Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906). Ibsen was the prolific playwright, with his 25 plays during the late of 19th century. He had a clever way to express his social ideas through art works. His works have reflected the actual picture of life and gave up the sense of melodramatic romanticism. This is how the realism came up as the marker of modern era of drama. Ibsen had inspired many of the great playwrights like George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce and American playwright, Eugene O’Neill. Like Ibsen, they presented their masterpieces of modern dramas.

Pygmalion, a play written by Bernard Shaw, 
has become the most famous play
from the early 20th century.

The second factor is the existance of the cynical atmosphere as the effect of the industrial revolution, so that there is a desire to revive the Comedy of Manners. The comedy of manners is a genre that wittily satirize the attitude or manner of a social class. So that is why the modern drama was often made as the critics to a certain group of society in politely funny ways. This atmosphere was reflected in comedies by Oscar Wilde and also Anton Chekov, the Russian famous playwright. In addition, the sceptical atmosphere as the result of world war I and the economical depressed in European Countries at that time, is also influencing the isms of the plays.

As the development of the modern drama, so it makes the enormous creative playwrights have their own ways to create their masterpieces. It is reflected from the new isms from time to time. They are realism greatly boomed in 1875-1915, dadaism, surrealism and expressionism  in 1915-1940, and absurdism in 1940-1968.

The modern realism plays are enriched by the sense of treating social morals. Besides, it is also noticed with the emotional situations, real settings and characters, witty act againts political, romance, capitalism, and parental authority, also it often deals with the problem of sex and youth. This ism was adopted in the plays by Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw, Arthur Pinero, W. B.Yeats, Alexandre Dumas from France, also comedies by Oscar Wilde and Russian playwright, Anton Chekov.

The dadaism plays reflect the social rage towards the political situation and the social mess. It was adopted by Ernst Toller in his play Man in The Masses. The surrealism plays believe that nothing in this world makes sense, so that there are some fiction plays by the France playwright, Georges Neveux in his play Juliette which has a dream-like setting. While expressionism plays present the subjective perspective to express meaning or emotion rather than physical reality. It was adopted in the plays by the American playwright, Eugene O’Neill.

The last is absurdism plays which shows the events when the effort of humanity to find meaning or explanation in this universe is finally fail. Absurd here does not mean “logically impossible” but “humanly impossible”. This ism was adopted in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.

Vaudevillian cross-talk and silent-screen comedy.
Vladimir (left), Pozzo (center) and Estragon (right)
in Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. 

Beside the variety of isms in the modern plays, the themes are also various. It can be love, sex, youth, intelectual, heroic, social-political, social-cultural, religion, virtues, imaginative world, and many others. It can be said that almost all sides of our life and our ideas can be adopted as a theme of modern drama. As the modernist, the characters in modern drama are required to have the acts or mimics as natural as possible, so that the audience will be more convinced by the actors/actresses.

Furthermore, unlike the classical drama that uses the beautiful, poetic, and full-of-figurative-language words, the modern drama tends to use the normal and natural speech although it is poetical sometimes. The language use in modern drama was made as natural as possible and reducing the flowery words, so that the audiences will get the moral values and get the point easily.

In the post-war time, although the staged plays did not show the great numbers of masterpieces like before, it seemed the modern drama had the massive movement. Indeed, by showing vices and virtues through a natural act of daily life, the modern drama had successfully made a great changes towards its audiences.


sources:
wikipedia 
http://www.cwu.edu/~robinsos/ppages/resources/Theatre_History/Theahis_16.html
photos:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2004/12/15/arts/Pygmalion650.jpg
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2009/5/7/1241684338433/Waiting-for-Godot-at-the--002.jpg