The performance of modern drama texts

Modern plays for modern theatres

Through July Crossref-it.info has launched a range of articles about the form and expectations of theatre in the UK during various epochs.

Our Developments in Drama section already has information about performance from medieval times through to the acting style of the Victorian.

This week material about acting styles and theatre dynamics is being added. Check out the following:

Realism and naturalism

The ‘forth wall’ is explained, along with the ideas of Stanislavsky and the drama of Chekhov, Ibsen, Strindberg et al. This new information is particularly helpful for anyone is studying dramas including:

• A Doll’s House
• All My Sons
• Journey’s End
• Dancing at Lughnasa
• The Crucible
• A Streetcar named Desire

Expressionism and beyond

Alongside the ‘well made play’, the influence of Brechtian theatre is explored, and there are handy pointers about how to recognize symbolic, expressionistic and surreal elements in drama. This material is relevant if you are covering plays such as:

• A Woman of No Importance
• Absurd Person Singular
• A Man for All Seasons
• Top Girls
• Equus
• Death of a Salesman

Postmodern theatre

From the Second World War onwards, British Drama witnessed Absurdism, kitchen sink drama, protest theatre and the rise of female perspectives, with far greater fluidity in staging. You can get a handle on this to help you understand texts like:

• Waiting for Godot
• The Birthday Party
• Death and the King’s Horseman
• Translations
• Arcadia
• The History Boys

Of course, if you can get to see a performance of your drama text, that’s the best way of all to understand the experience the playwright was aiming for. But that’s not always possible – which is when it helps that Crossref-it.info’s free information is there for you.

How drama texts work

Plays for performance

Any drama text studied for English A level has got something missing.
It is only a written record of what was always designed to be a multi-sensory event. The experience of a play is a combination of script, movement, sound effects, lighting effects, music, setting, costume, theatre dynamics and the unique contributions of individual actors and directors.

So merely looking at the written words uttered by characters bypasses a huge amount of what the playwright intended to be understood.

Added advantage

Some students studying A Level Eng. Lit. or Lit./Lang. have an added advantage if they are also undertaking the A Level Theatre studies or Performing Arts – Acting syllabuses. They will have a grounding in what it means to transform a play-script into a live performance.

Now help is at hand for the rest of us who need to get a handle on Eng. Lit. drama texts.

Developments in drama

Launching through July is a range of articles about how British theatre operated in various literary eras.

The Crossref-it.info Developments in Drama pages already have information about the Shakespearean and Jacobean stage.

This week material about acting styles and theatre dynamics is being added on:

• Restoration theatre
• Commedia del’Arte
• Eighteenth century comedies of manners
• Victorian melodrama

So if anyone is studying one of the following, they will find the new information particularly helpful:

• The Rover
• She Stoops to Conquer
• The School for Scandal
• The Way of the World

If you are studying a more modern text, look out for further additions to the series later this summer!