Early 20th Century Theater
Modern Theatre
The Modern Theatre movement began in the late 19th century. Causing controversy and challenging the audience directly characterized the Modern Theatre. Innovation and change were trademarks of this time in the larger world and theater followed suit. Movements like Marxism, Darwinism, and Freudianism had profound impacts on the theater of this time. Notable playwrights from this early modern period are Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw, August Strindberg, and Anton Chekhov. Traditional forms of theater were being altered and dramatic rules were slowly being broken.
As we entered the 20th century the divides between movements in the theater became more apparent and many movements made names for themselves. Expressionism gained a following in Germany, characterized by its external representations of inner life as opposed to realistic representation. This movement influenced American playwrights such as Eugene O’Neill and Sophie Treadwell.
Futurism emerged in Russia and Italy in response to the industrialization that was occurring in these countries. This movement saw a movement away from life actors and towards puppets and machines.
Dadaism pushed futurism even further and gained an international following into the 1920s. It often consisted of nonsense poems or masked performances happening simultaneously to over stimulate the audience.
After Dadaism saw its decline in Paris in the 1920s, Surrealism came to the forefront with many Dada artists in its tow. This movement was greatly influenced by Freud and focused on dream imagery as well as drifting association. Alfred Jarry and Antonin Artaud are some of the best known Surrealist playwrights of this time. Artaud’s Theater of Cruelty also gained popularity during this time.
These movements are often grouped together under the title of “avant-garde.” Many of these movements are also strongly tied to the political atmosphere of their time and should be viewed through this lens. They did not develop merely as experiment, they were developing in direct response and sometimes support of the political climate around them.
Clockwise from top left: G.B. Shaw, H. Ibsen, A. Chekhov, A. Strindberg
Postwar Theatre
Jean Genet and Samuel Beckett
With the end of World War II we also see the end of Modern Theatre. The post war era in France, when Ionesco was still writing many of his plays, is characterized by Ionesco’s specialty, Theatre of the Absurd. The term “absurdism” was coined in 1961, years after the movement had established itself as an important post war art form. Theater of the Absurd is characterized by rejection of accepted dramatic structures and a lack of rational and logic. One author describes it as featuring “nonlinearity, antirealism, lack of traditional coherence, nonsensical language, metadramatic awareness, and the mixture of tragedy, comedy, and farce in a modern form of tragicomedy.” It drew on the Surrealist and Dadaist movements of the early 20th century to create a response to the World Wars. Eugene Ionesco and Jean Genet are the most prominent playwrights of this movement in France while Samuel Beckett is the most influential writer of this movement, working in Ireland.
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The postwar period also greatly shaped the theater of many other countries. In Germany, Brecht’s influence was still strongly felt in the very political theater that followed the wars. In Britain, Brecht’s influence was also felt after a period of reconstruction and a political and social theater emerged here as well. In America, Expressive realism and method acting took to the forefront and many of the playwrights of this era have a lasting legacy still today. This includes people such as Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, and Eugene O’Neill.
Works Cited:
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Gainor, J. Ellen, et al. The Norton Anthology of Drama. 2nd ed., vol. 2, W. W. Norton & Company, 2014.
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