Characteristics Of The Theatre Of The Absurd In Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot

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CHARACTERISTICS OF THE THEATRE OF THE ABSURD

IN SAMUEL BECKETT’S WAITING FOR GODOT

A THESIS

BY:

RIZKYANA

REG. NO. 040705023

UNIVERSITY OF SUMATERA UTARA

FACULTY OF LETTERS

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

MEDAN

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Alhamdulillah, my greatest attitudes to Allah SWT that blessing me so that I can accomplish my thesis. My praise to The Prophet Muhammad SAW who giving all Moslems in the world the spirit to wake up and pursue the dream through education in order to get the blessing from Allah SWT.

Next, I would like to express my greatest honour and appreciation to my supervisor Drs. Razali Kasim, M. A. and my co-supervisor Drs. Parlindungan Purba, M. Hum for their serious attention in giving me the best correction and greatest input so that my thesis being so much better.

On this special occasion, I also want to express my greatest debt of appreciation to the Dean of Faculty of Letters of University of North Sumatra, Drs. Syaifuddin, M.A, Ph.D including the staffs; The Head of English department, Dra. Swesana Mardia Lubis, M. Hum and The Secretary of English Department, Drs. Yulianus Harefa, MEd TESOL for helping me in my academic affairs.

Then, to my beloved family I want to say that they are my best in life. Their deepest love and tender care has given me too much so I can face the world with dignity. To my beloved father Bustanuddin and my beloved mother Siti Murgana thank you for your loving care and encouragement. To my little sisters Dina and Mimi and my little brother Zikri, thank you guys for supporting the eldest sister, I love you so much…

And the last but not least, I want to express my grateful to all my friends in 04. To Ika whom I profoundly indebted for the correction and input; To Lily, Novi and Yoan I would like to say thank you very much for the friendship and the patience dealing with my egoistic during these four years together; To my nicest friends who do care and share with me Catherine, Zahara, Syaiful, Erlin, Maitri, Nurul, and the other that I can not mention name by name, thanks…^_^

Rizkyana

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ABSTRAK

Skripsi yang berjudul ‘Characteristics of the Theatre of the Absurd in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot’ ini adalah suatu analisa kesusatraan yang menggambarkan ciri-ciri Teater Absurditas didalam drama Waiting for Godot. Waiting for Godot adalah objek yang elemen-elemennya dikaji berdasarkan karakteristik aliran sastra baru yang muncul diawal 1960-an yang disebut Teater Absurditas. Waiting for Godot adalah sebuah karya sastra drama 2 babak yang menceritakan 2 orang bernama Vladimir dan Estragon yang sedang menunggu seorang pria misterius bernama Godot. Selama menunggu mereka berbicara dan melakukan hal yang tidak logis. Ketidaklogisan inilah yang kemudian ditelaah lebih lanjut berdasarkan karakteristik dari Teater Absurditas dari Martin Esslin. Skripsi ini menelaah elemen-elemen penting drama Waiting for Godot seperti plot, penokohan, latar dan dialog untuk menunjukkan bahwa drama benar-benar sesuai dengan karakteristik dari Teater Absurditas. Plot dari drama ini merefleksikan karakteristik minus plot dalam Teater Absurditas dimana terjadi sedikit sekali peristiwa dan even, sehingga bisa dikatakan bahwa plotnya hanya berkisar pada hal yang sama. Penokohan dalam drama ini menunjukkan bahwa karakter-karakternya tidak dapat dikenali karena tidak memiliki latar belakang apapun kecuali fakta dalam teks bahwa mereka sedang menunggu kedatangan tuan Godot. Latar tempat dan waktu dalam drama ini menunjukkan bahwa sedikit sekali informasi mengenai tempat kejadian dan waktu terjadinya peristiwa sehingga latarnya hanya tampak seperti perwujudan berbagai mimpi dan mimpi buruk. Elemen terakhir yang dianalisa adalah dialog atau percakapan antar tokoh. Elemen ini benar-benar menunjukkan bahwa dialognya mengandung unsur absurditas yang mana antara satu dialog dengan dialog lainnya sering tidak berkaitan dan merefleksikan ketidaklogisan dan ketidakcocokan. Akhirnya diperoleh kesimpulan bahwa karakteristik dari Teater Absurditas seperti minus plot, tokoh yang tidak dapat dikenali, mencerminkan mimpi dan mimpi buruk dan menghadirkan dialog yang tidak koheren dan rumit benar-benar terwujud dalam drama yang berjudul Waiting for Godot ini.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

page

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………i

ABSTRAK………...ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS………..iii

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION……….1

1.1. Background of theAnalysis………...1

1.2. Problem of the Analysis………...5

1.3. Objective of the Analysis………..5

1.4. Scope of the Analysis………...5

1.5. Significance of the Analysis………..6

1.6. Method of the Analysis………...6

1.7. Review of Related Literature………...7

CHAPTER 2 AN OVERVIEW OF DRAMA AND THEATRE…………..10

2.1. Drama and Theatre………..10

2.1.1 The Definition………...10

2.1.2 The Development………...11

2.1.2.1 Earliest Drama………12

2.1.2.2 Medieval Drama……….14

2.1.2.3 Eighteenth and Nineteenth c. Drama…..18

2.1.2.4 Modern Drama………21

2.1.3 The Genres……….26

2.1.3.1 Tragedy………...26

2.1.3.2 Comedy………...28

2.1.3.3 Melodrama………..30

2.1.3.4 Farce………...30

2.1.3.5 Other Genres………...31

2.2. Ingredients of Drama………...35

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2.3.1. Its Development………..37

2.3.2. Its Main Characteristics………..40

CHAPTER 3 ANALYSIS OF CHARACTERISTICS OF THE THEATRE OF THE ABSURD IN SAMUEL BECKETT’S WAITING FOR GODOT………...41

3.1. Plot………41

3.2. Characters……….43

3.3. Setting………...54

3.4. Dialogue………55

CHAPTER 4 CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION………..69

4.1. Conclusion……….69

4.2. Suggestion………..71

BIBLIOGRAPHY………....iv

APPENDICES BIOGRAPHY, WORKS, SUMMARY AND MATERIAL FROM INTERNET………...v

APPENDIX 1 Biography and Works of Samuel Beckett………..v

APPENDIX 2 Summary of Waiting for Godot……….ix

APPENDIX 3 Drama and Theatre in Internet………x

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ABSTRAK

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Analysis

Literature is identical with the words: the expression of human feeling, imaginative process, and creativity (Wellek, 1971: 2) Literature is said to express human feeling because of its powerful meaning which conveys human sense, thoughts, feeling in order to share ideas and experiences. Literature is made to express and communicate the feeling of the artist through imagination in imaginative process which needs creativity. Every artist shares the same process to make literary works, but they have such different way to express and communicate their ideas and feeling to the audience. For example, the author communicates his ideas through words, while the painter may express his feeling through his painting.

According to Wellek and Warren in their book Theory of Literature (1977:15) “Literature is said to be creative, an art, what an author has produced.” This statement explains explicitly that literature is something which

needs creativity and creative process so that the result would be an art, creative things. Meanwhile, Taylor in his book Understanding the Element of Literature (1981:13) states that “Literature is often said to be school of life in that authors tend to comment on the conduct of the society and of individuals in society.” This

definition seemingly tends to view literature from its nature in case of the relationship between individual and society. Individual and society, doubtlessly, are material which has two sides, so they can not be separated. Individual learns

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from society and society itself is established by individuals. According to Taylor’s definition above, literature can be said as the medium to comment about the conduct of society and also the conduct of individuals in society.

Furthermore, literature has three major generic divisions, i.e. poetry, narrative fiction and also drama. Poetry is a sort of literature which has fewest lines and it is said to be the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. Narrative fiction is a sort of literature that belongs to prose (novel, short story etc.) and it

refers to a work that telling something imaginatively based on unreal story. And then the last is drama; drama based on Webster New Ninth Collegiate Dictionary is a composition in verse or prose intended to portray life or character or to tell a story usually involving conflicts and emotions through action and dialogue and typically designed for theatrical performance.

Drama as well as theatre has many genres that can be distinguished one to another. One of them is the Theatre of the Absurd. The terminology of the Theatre of the Absurd is a term coined by Martin Esslin, a critic; who made that terminology as the title of his book in 1961. This term is intended to point out the phenomenon of particular type of drama which became popular during post World War II (1950s and 1960s). At that time, Esslin caught a phenomenon of a tendency of many dramatists who rejected realism in theatre. He portrays the turning point of many dramatists who state that the usage of the traditional art forms and standards is no longer possible because it has already lost its validity. Thus, Esslin categorizes those dramatists as ‘absurdist’, dramatist who makes an absurd play.

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One of absurdist playwrights and probably the most controversial one is Samuel Beckett. Samuel Beckett is said to be the controversial playwright because of his extraordinary manner in expressing his idea through his drama, Waiting for Godot. Samuel Beckett makes Waiting for Godot as the violation of the

conventional drama and as the direction of expressionism and surrealism experiment in drama and theatre. He became one of the pioneers of absurdist playwrights beside Eugene Ionesco and Jean Genet.

Martin Esslin in his book The Theatre of the Absurd (1961: xviii) states that “Absurd originally means ‘out of harmony’, in a musical context. Hence its dictionary definition: “out of harmony with reason or propriety; incongruous, unreasonable, illogical”. This statement indicates that ‘absurd’ deals with something which out of harmony, out of context and beyond the limit. Absurd serves unconventional perspectives which can lead to nowhere and meaningless. Every single thing in ‘absurd’ is illogical and yet unreasonable, so it will remain big question mark and many interpretation all the time.

Waiting for Godot is a play which evokes much criticism and

interpretation from its unconventional style and characteristics which serves absurdity. Waiting for Godot considered as the violation of the conventions of realism in drama because of refusing to create the images of human being who acts plausible behavior in familiar scenes within the appropriate and chronological time. Waiting for Godot serves absurdity within its theme, plot, characterization, setting and it is specified in the dialogue throughout the play. From its theme as well as reflected by the plot, serves uncertain arrangement of events and there is no identifiable beginning, middle, and end. From its characterization, the lack of

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detailed information about the characters: Vladimir, Estragon, Pozzo, Lucky, and the boy exemplifies that the characterization do not coalesce into a unified representation of human behavior and it does mean absurdity. Setting, also serves absurdity because of its abnormal condition and atmosphere, we can see that throughout the play that there is no clue or hint that can point out the location of the whole act except the author just states that two men are waiting on the country road by a skeletal tree (Act 1, p.9) and that Estragon sits on a low mound (Act 1, p.9). Last, the dialogue specifically contains absurdity, we can see it throughout the play that Estragon and Vladimir talk incoherently and in the middle of the play (act 1, p.p 42-45) Lucky conveys his speech grotesquely and incoherently.

Since Waiting for Godot serves absurdity, so the way to approach it is by using the characteristics of the Theatre of the Absurd by Martin Esslin; those characteristics encompassing plotless, no recognizable characters, the theme is never fully explained or resolved, reflects dreams and nightmares and also serves incoherent and incomprehension dialogue (Esslin, 1961: XVII). Assuming that every absurd play shares the same characteristics of the Theatre of the Absurd, I wonder whether those characteristics above really exist in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Thus, I will analyze Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot

based on its ideas and theme which is reflected in the situation of plot, characters, setting, and also its dialogue in order to prove that this play truly reflects the characteristics of the Theatre of the Absurd.

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1.2 Problem of the Analysis

Fundamentally, research and scientific inquiry are intended to answer some question in life in order to improve and enrich our knowledge. Referring to this statement, my curiosity about drama deals with the Theatre of the Absurd and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot leads me to some questions, they are:

1. How are the characteristics of the Theatre of the Absurd described as the element of absurdity in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot through the plot, characterization, setting and also dialogue?

2. Which characteristics appear as the most significant elements in the Theatre of the Absurd found in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot? 1.3 Objective of the Analysis

In line with the problem above, this thesis tries to find out the answers of those questions, they are:

1. To find out how the characteristics of the Theatre of the Absurd described through the plot, theme, characterization, and setting and also dialogue as the element of absurdity in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.

2. To uncover which characteristics appear as the most significant elements in the Theatre of the Absurd found in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.

1.4 Scope of the Analysis

To prevent vagueness and subjectivity, it is important to make such limitations in order to get objective result and make such comprehensive analysis.

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Since this play is the absurd one so the analysis may involve and focus on the literary elements that implicitly show the characteristics of the Theatre of the Absurd. However, not all elements may analyze in this thesis; I limit the analysis on the elements such as the theme which is reflected in its plot, characterization, and setting. This thesis will also analyze the form of this play in case of its dialogue.

1.5 Significance of the Analysis

The significances of this analysis, they are as follow:

1. Helps people who are interested in learning drama to understand the ideas, perspectives and characteristics of the Theatre of the Absurd as a trend and phenomenon in 1950s – 1960s.

2. Enriches the study of literature generally, and the study of drama and theatre specifically in term of new genre of drama in 1950s – 1960s. 1.6 Method of the Analysis

In accomplishing this thesis, I use intrinsic approach and also apply descriptive analytical method which combined with interpretation. Intrinsic approach is one of two approaches in literature proposed by Wellek and Warren which focusing the analysis on the text itself without having any relationship with other disciplines, while descriptive analytical method is conducted by describing and analyzing the data which come from the text of play that I have selected and then quote it; and within the same time I try to give explanation and interpretation. Interpretation deals with clarifying the meaning of the play by analyzing its form and also its content.

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The procedures of this research are: First, I read Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot carefully and then I select and quote some text and dialogue

which related with the characteristics of the Theatre of the Absurd as the data; Second, I analyze the text supported by secondary sources (book, journal, material from internet), and; Third, I interpret the text that I have analyzed.

The primary source of my analysis is the play itself. I use Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot which published in 1954 while the secondary source is the books that contain the statement about the Theatre of the Absurd and its relationship with Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. The theory and statement that encourage me to choose the title ‘Characteristics of the Theatre of the Absurd in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot’ comes from the book by Martin Esslin entitled The Theatre of the Absurd in 1961. This book influences me profoundly in case of doing my analysis because it gives me framework of research to carry on my analysis deals with the new genre of drama in 1950s-1960s, the Theatre of the Absurd.

1.7 Review of Related Literature

In writing this thesis, I need to concern and traces back the preceding research about absurdity in drama and theatre that substantially relates to the topic I dealt with, the Theatre of the Absurd and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.

A century before Albert Camus’ notion about absurdity, Danish Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote extensively on the absurdity of the world. In his journal in 1849, Kierkegaard (in Dru, Alexander. 1938. The journals of Soren Kierkegaard. Oxford University Press as quoted by wikipedia.com) states:

“What is the Absurd? It is, as may quite easily be seen, that I, a rational being, must act in a case where my reason, my powers on

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reflection, tell me: you can just as well do the one thing as the other, that is to say where my reason and reflection say: you cannot act and yet here is where I have to act… The Absurd, or to act by virtue of the absurd, is to act upon faith… I must act, but reflection has closed the road so I take one of the possibilities and say: This is what I do otherwise because I am brought to a standstill by my powers of reflection.”

From that quotation above, we can see that the terminology of the absurd is not the new term eventhough its relation and application with drama and theatre are significantly introduced by the works of Beckett, Adamov, Ionesco, Pinter and Genet; and Camus through his essay seemingly has provoked these playwrights.

Albert Camus’ essay The Myth of Sisyphus in 1942 became the first philosophy which articulates the present of terminology the Theatre of the Absurd. In this essay Camus tries to diagnose human condition and then he concludes that human condition is basically meaningless.

Camus (in Esslin, 1961: xix) states that:

“A world that can be explained by reasoning, however faulty, is a familiar world. But in a universe that is suddenly deprived of illusions and of light, man feels a stranger. His is an irremediable exile, because he is deprived of memories of a lost homeland as much as he lacks the hope of a promised land to come. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, truly constitutes the feeling of absurdity.”(Taken from Camus, 1942:18)

In the quotation above, Camus concludes that humanity have to resign itself in recognizing that a fully satisfying rational explanation of the universe is beyond its reach; in that sense, the world must ultimately be seen as absurd, in other words Camus emphasizes on man’s absurd hope and on the absurd insignificance of man.

Ionesco (in Esslin, 1961: xix) defines the terminology of absurd as follows:

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“Absurd is that which is devoid of purpose…cut off from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, and useless.”

As well as those statements from Camus and Ionesco, Esslin tries to categorize the dramatist who has same perception and ideas deal with human condition that tends to be meaningless as ‘absurdist’. Through his book entitled The Theatre of the Absurd (1961) he states that he finds same basic principal,

perception, and ideas of most dramatists in the post-World War II in viewing the world and indeed they express it in their works. He states that:

“… sense of metaphysical anguish at the absurdity of human condition is, broadly speaking, the theme of the plays of Beckett, Adamov, Ionesco, Genet and other writers ... A similar sense of senselessness of life, of the inevitable devaluations of ideals, purity, and purpose, is also the theme of much the work of dramatists like Giraudoux, Anouilh, Salacrou, Satre and Camus itself.” (Esslin, 1961: xix)

Thus, referring to those statements above, I would like to support the statements and findings by Martin Esslin. I will analyze Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in order to prove that this play has same characteristics with other

absurdist’s works at that time based on Esslin category.

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CHAPTER 2

AN OVERVIEW OF DRAMA AND THEATRE

2.1 Drama and Theatre 2.1.1 The Definition

Drama is a composite art (Sinha, 1977:53), as one of the genres of literature; while Theatre is a dramatic art and performances that dependent upon the stage. Drama and theatre essentially is the same thing but theatre is more identical to the performance. As explained by Esslin in his book the Theatre of the Absurd:

Theatre is always more than mere language. Language alone can be read, but true theatre can become manifest only in performance (1961:230-231)

Drama etymologically comes from Greek words ‘dran’ and ‘draonai’ which mean ‘to do’ and ‘to act’. Drama as defined by The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (2004) is “the general term for performance in

which actors impersonate the actions and speech of fictional or historical

characters (or non-human entities) for the entertainment of an audience, either on

a stage or by means of a broadcast, or a particular example of the art, i.e. play.

As that definition of dictionary, a well-known definition proposed by a seventeenth century playwright and critic, John Dryden as follows:

A play ought to be, a just and lively image of human nature, reproducing the passions and humours, and the changes of fortune to which it is subject, for the delight and instruction of mankind. (Dryden in Tennyson, An Introduction to Drama, 1967:1)

Meanwhile, theatre derives from an ancient Greek word ‘theatron’, meaning literally "an instrument for (-tron) viewing (thea-).” By its definition, a

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theatron refers to only the audience’s part of the theatre, where the seats are, the

actual “instrument for viewing,” that is the place which spectators watch the drama. Theatre as defined by The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia (2003) is “a building, structure, or space in which dramatic performance take place.” The

broadest sense of the theatre, as proposes by The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, that theatre can be defined as including everything connected with

dramatic art – the play itself, the stage with its scenery and lighting, make-up, costumes, acting and actors.

Drama and theatre as the definitions above, ‘to do’ and ‘to see’ are complementary define the area of the study of the drama in its largest sense, the sense that includes both the play and the performances (Tennyson, 1967:1)

2.1.2 The Development

Drama and theatre are older than religion. They begin with the first man who thinks that by imitating animals around the camp fire he can increase the game and insure the good hunting. Drama and theatre grow and become more elaborate as man moves beyond imitative magic (Macgowan and Melnitz, The Living Stage, 1955:2).

Imitation is the root of what we called “theatre” nowadays in its broadest sense of the study of the drama itself. Aristotle proposes in Poetics that the genesis of the theatre deals with “imitation”. In two sentences in Poetics, he laid the basic understanding of the beginnings of theatre:

Imitation is natural to man from childhood, one of his advantages over the lower animals being this, that he is the most imitative creature in the world, and learn first by imitation. And it is also natural for all to delight in works of imitation (Aristotle’s Poetics as quoted by Macgowan and Melnitz, 1955:4)

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2.1.2.1 Earliest Drama

In the western world, as cited in The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia (2003), dramatic tradition has its origins in ancient Greece. According to Aristotle, Greek Drama, or more explicitly, Greek Tragedy, originated in the dithyramb. Dithyramb was a choral hymn to the god Dionysus and involved exchanges between a lead singer and the chorus. It is thought that the dithyramb was sung at the Dionysia, an annual festival honoring Dionysus.

Tradition began at the Dionysia of 543 B.C., during the reign of Pisistratus. The lead singer of the dithyramb from Attica named Thespis added to the chorus an actor with whom he carried on the dialogue, thus he initiating the possibility of dramatic action. Eventually, Aeschylus introduced a second actor to the drama and then Sophocles introduced the third format in which Euripides continued and followed.

Generally, the earlier Greek tragedies place more emphasis on the chorus than the later ones. In the majestic plays of Aeschylus, the chorus serves to underscore the personalities and situations of the characters and to provide ethical comment on the action. Much of Aeschylus’ most beautiful poetry is contained in the choruses of his plays. The increase in the number of actors resulted in less concern with communal problems and beliefs and more with dramatic conflict between individuals.

Accompanying this emphasis on individuals’ interaction, from the time of Aeschylus to that Euripides, there was a marked tendency toward realism. Euripides’ characters are ordinary, not god-like, and the gods themselves are introduced more as devices of plot manipulation than as strongly felt

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representations of transcendent power. Utilizing three actors, Sophocles developed dramatic action beyond anything Aeschylus had achieved with only two and also introduced more natural speech. However, he did not lose a sense of the god-like in man and man’s affairs, as Euripides often did. Thus, it is Sophocles who best represents the classical balance between the human and divine, the realistic and the symbolic.

Greek Comedy is divided into Old Comedy (5th century B.C.), Middle Comedy (c.404-c.321 B.C.), and New Comedy (c.320-c.264 B.C). The sole literary remains of Old Comedy are the plays of Aristophanes, characterized by obscenity, political satire, fantasy, and strong moral overtones. While there are no extant examples of Middle Comedy, it is conjectured that the satire, obscenity, and fantasy of the earlier plays were much mitigated during this transitional period. Most extant examples of New Comedy are from the works of Menander. Menander’s comedies are realistic and elegantly written, often revolving around a love-interest.

The development of drama and theatre in Roman Empire were never achieved what had reached by the Greek. The earliest Roman dramatic attempts were simply translations from the Greek. Gnaeus Naevieus (c.270-c.199 B.C.) and his successors imitated Greek in Tragedies that never transcended the level of violent melodrama. Even the nine tragedies of the philosopher and statesman Seneca are gloomy and lurid, emphasizing the sensational aspects of Greek Myth. Seneca became an important influence of Renaissance tragedy, but it is unlikely that his plays were intended for more than private readings.

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Eventhough Roman tragedy produced little of appreciation; a better judgment may be passed on the comedies of Plautus and Terence. Plautus incorporated native Roman elements into the plots and themes by Greek playwright, Menander in which he producing plays characterized by farce, intrigue, romance and sentiment.

The Roman preference for spectacle and the Christian suppression of drama led to a virtual cessation of dramatic production during the decline of the Roman Empire. Pantomimes accompanied by a chorus developed out of tragedy, and comic mimes were popular until 4th century A.D. This mime tradition, carried on by traveling performers that provided the theatrical continuity between the ancient world and the medieval.

2.1.2.2 The Medieval Drama

The medieval drama taking time when the Christian church did much to suppress the performance of play but paradoxically it is in the church where the medieval drama began. The first record of this beginning is the trope in the Easter service known as the Quem quaeritis. Tropes, originally musical elaborations of the church service, gradually evolved into drama; eventually the Latin lines telling of the Resurrection were spoken rather than sung, by priests who represented the angels and the two Mary’s at the tomb of Jesus. Thus, simple interpolations developed into grandiose cycles of mystery plays, depicting biblical episodes from the Creation to Judgment Day. The most famous of this play is the Second Shepherds’ Play.

Another important type that developed from church liturgy in medieval times was the miracle play, based on the lives of saints rather than on a scripture.

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The miracle play reached its glory in France and mystery play in England. Both types gradually became secularized, passing into the hands of grade guilds or professional actors. The Second Shepherds’ Play, for all its religious seriousness, is most noteworthy for its elements of realism and farce, while the miracle plays in France often emphasized comedy and adventure.

The morality play, a third type of religious drama, appeared early in the 15th century. Morality plays were religious allegories. Another type of drama popular in medieval times was the interlude. Interlude can be generally defined as a dramatic work with characteristics of the morality play that is primarily intended for entertainment.

The Renaissance in the 15th and 16th century had influenced almost all the European countries. In this time most of European countries had established traditions of religious drama and farce and contended with the impact of the newly discovered Greek and Roman plays.

In Italy, there were a various attempts to translate and imitate the drama based on Roman playwrights’ models such as from Terence, Plautus and Seneca. There were also a various attempts to construct the theatre based on Roman theatre. The Italian strictly applied their interpretation of Aristotle’s rules for the drama, and this rigidity was primarily responsible for the failure of Italian Renaissance drama. Some liveliness appeared in the comic sphere, particularly in the works of Ariosto and in Machiavelli’s satiric masterpiece, La Mandragola (1524). The pastoral drama in which it sets in the country and depicting the romantic affairs of rustic people, usually shepherds, was more successful than

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either comedy or tragedy. Notable Italian practitioners of this genre were Giovanni Battista Guarini (1537-1612) and Torquato Tasso.

The true direction of the Italian stage was toward the spectacular and the musical. A popular Italian Renaissance form was the intermezzo, which presented music and lively entertainment between the acts of classical imitations. The native taste for music and theatricality led to the emergence of the opera in the 16th century and the triumph of this form on the Italian stage in the 17th century. Similarly, the commedia dell’arte, emphasizing comedy and improvisation and featuring character types familiar to a contemporary audience, was more popular than academic imitations of classical comedy.

In France, the imitation on Roman models and Italian imitations has made the French drama initially suffered from the same rigidity as the Italian. Estienne Jodelle’s Senecan tragedy Cleopatre Captive (1553) marks the beginning of classical imitation in France. However, in the late of 16th century, there was a romantic reaction to classical dullness, led by Alexander Hardy. This romantic trend was stopped in the 17th century by Cardinal Richelieu, who insisted that drama must return to classic forms.

Drama and theatre in Spain and England during the Renaissance were more successful than in Italy and France because the two former nations were able to transform classical models with infusions of native characteristics. In Spain, the two leading Renaissance playwrights were Lope de Vega and Pedro Calderón de la Barca. Earlier, Lope de Rueda had set the tone for future Spanish drama with plays that are romantic, lyrical, and mostly mixed with tragicomic form. Lope de Vega wrote an enormous number of plays of many types, emphasizing

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plot, character, and romantic action. His well-known work such as La Vida es sueño. Pedro Calderón de la Barca was a more controlled and philosophical writer

than Lope de Vega. In England, it was showed from the beginning that the English drama would not be bound by classical rules. The elements of farce, morality, and a disregard for the unities of time, place, and action inform the early comedies Gammer Gurton's Needle and Ralph Roister Doister (c.1553) and the Senecan tragedy Gorboduc (1562). William Shakespeare's great work was foreshadowed by early essays in the historical chronicle play, by elements of romance found in the works of John Lyly, by revenge plays such as Thomas Kyd's Spanish Tragedy (c.1586) and by Christopher Marlowe's development of blank verse and his deepening of the tragic perception.

Shakespeare stands as the supreme dramatist of the Renaissance period, equally adept at writing tragedies, comedies, or chronicle plays. His great achievements include the perfection of a verse form and language that capture the spirit of ordinary speech and yet stand above it to give a special dignity to his characters and situations; an unrivaled subtlety of characterization; and a marvelous ability to unify plot, character, imagery, and verse movement.

During the reign of James I the English drama began to decline until the closing of the theaters by the Puritans in 1642. This period is marked by sensationalism and rhetoric in tragedy, as in the works of John Webster and Thomas Middleton, spectacle in the form of the masque, and a gradual turn to polished wit in comedy, begun by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher and furthered by James Shirley. The best plays of the Jacobean period are the

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comedies of Ben Jonson, in which he satirized contemporary life by means of his own invention, the comedy of humours.

Drama in the second half of the 17th century was distinguished by the achievements of the French neoclassicists and the Restoration playwrights in England. Jean Racine brought clarity of perception and simplicity of language to his love tragedies, which emphasize women characters and psychological motivation. Molière produced brilliant social comedies that are neoclassical in their ridicule of any sort of excess. In England, Restoration tragedy degenerated into bombastic heroic dramas by such authors as John Dryden and Thomas Otway. Often written in rhymed heroic couplets, these plays are replete with sensational incidents and epic personages. But Restoration comedy, particularly the brilliant comedies of manners by George Etherege and William Congreve, achieved a perfection of style and cynical upper-class wit that is still appreciated. The works of William Wycherley, while similar in type, are more savage and deeply cynical. George Farquhar was a later and gentler master of Restoration comedy.

2.1.2.3 Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Drama

In this time the influence of Restoration Comedy can be seen explicitly in the plays of Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. This century also ushered in the middle-class or domestic drama, which treated the problems of ordinary people. The works of George Lillo's London Merchant or The History of George Barnwell (1731) is an important example of this type of play because it

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The playwrights such as Sir Richard Steele and Colley Cibber from England and Marivaux from France contributed to the development of the genteel, sentimental comedy while the political satire in the plays of Henry Fielding and in John Gay's Beggar's Opera (1728) seemed to offer a more interesting potential than the sentiment of Cibber. The Italian Carlo Goldoni, who wrote realistic comedies with fairly sophisticated characterizations, also tended toward middle-class moralizing. His contemporary, Count Carlo Gozzi, was more ironic and remained faithful to the spirit of the commedia dell'arte.

Related to the appearance of German Romanticism in the late of 18th century, two playwrights stood apart from the trend toward sentimental bourgeois realism. Voltaire tried to revive classical models and introduced exotic Eastern settings, although his tragedies tend to be more philosophical than dramatic. Similarly, the Italian Count Vittorio Alfieri sought to restore the spirit of the ancients to his drama, but the attempt was vitiated by his chauvinism.

The Sturm und Drang in Germany represented a romantic reaction against French neoclassicism and was supported by an upsurge of German interest in Shakespeare, who was viewed at the time as the greatest of the romantics. Gotthold Lessing, Friedrich von Schiller, and Goethe were the principal figures of this movement, but the plays produced by the three are frequently marred by sentimentality and replete with philosophical ideas.

The romantic movement blossom in French drama in the 1820s, and can be seen primarily in the work of Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas père, while in England the great Romantic poets did not produce important drama, although both Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley were practitioners of the

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closet drama. Burlesque and mediocre melodrama reigned supreme on the English stage.

The concern for generating excitement led to a more careful consideration of plot construction, reflected in the smoothly contrived climaxes of the “well-made” plays of Eugène Scribe and Victorien Sardou of France and Arthur Wing Pinero of England. The work of Émile Augier and Alexandre Dumas fills combined the drama of ideas with the “well-made” play. Maybe, realism had its most profound expression in the works of the great 19th century Russian dramatists such as Nikolai Gogol, A. N. Ostrovsky, Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, and Maxim Gorky. These Russian dramatists emphasized character and satire rather than plot in their works.

Related to realism is naturalism. The elements of naturalism can be found in the works of Georg Büchner's through his powerful tragedy Danton's Death (1835), and in the romantic tragedies of Heinrich von Kleist. Friedrich Hebbel wrote grimly naturalistic drama in the middle of the 19th century, but the naturalistic movement is most commonly identified with the theory of Émile Zola, which had a profound effect on 20th century playwrights.

Henrik Ibsen of Norway brought to a climax the realistic movement of the 19th century and also served as a bridge to 20th century symbolism. His realistic dramas of ideas surpass other such works because they blend a complex plot, a detailed setting, and middle-class yet extraordinary characters in an organic whole. Ibsen's later plays, such as The Master Builder (1892), are symbolic, marking a trend away from realism that was continued by August Strindberg's dream plays, and by the plays of the Belgian Maurice Maeterlinck.

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While the antirealistic developments took place on the Continent, two playwrights were making unique contributions to English theater. Oscar Wilde produced comedies of manners that compare favorably with the works of Congreve, and George Bernard Shaw brought the play of ideas to fruition with penetrating intelligence and singular wit.

2.1.2.4 Modern Drama

As cited in The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia (2003), Western drama in the 20th century (especially after World War I) became more internationally unified and less the product of separate national literary traditions. Throughout the century realism, naturalism, and symbolism (and various combinations of these) continued to inform important plays. Among the many 20th century playwrights who have written what can be broadly termed naturalist dramas are Gerhart Hauptmann (German), John Galsworthy (English), John Millington Synge and Sean O'Casey (Irish), and Eugene O'Neill, CliffordOdets, and Lillian Hellman (American).

An important movement in early 20th century drama was expressionism. Expressionist playwrights tried to convey the dehumanizing aspects of 20th century technological society through such devices as minimal scenery, telegraphic dialogue, talking machines, and characters portrayed as types rather than individuals. Notable playwrights who wrote expressionist dramas such as Ernst Toller and Georg Kaiser (German), Karel Čapek (Czech), and Elmer Rice and Eugene O'Neill (American). The 20th century also saw the attempted revival of drama in verse, but although such writers as William Butler Yeats, W.

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H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, Christopher Fry, and Maxwell Anderson produced effective results, verse drama was no longer an important form in English.

Based on The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia (2003), three vital figures of 20th century drama are the American Eugene O'Neill, the German Bertolt Brecht, and the Italian Luigi Pirandello. O'Neill's body of plays in many forms—naturalistic, expressionist, symbolic, psychological—advocated the coming-of-age of American drama. Brecht wrote dramas of ideas, usually promulgating socialist or Marxist theory. Pirandello, too, it was paramount to fix an awareness of his plays as theater, indeed, the major philosophical concern of his dramas is the difficulty of differentiating between illusion and reality.

World War II and its attendant horrors produced a widespread sense of the utter meaninglessness of human existence. This sense is brilliantly expressed in the body of plays that have come to be known collectively as the Theater of the Absurd. By abandoning traditional devices of the drama, including logical plot development, meaningful dialogue, and intelligible characters, absurdist playwrights sought to convey modern humanity's feelings of bewilderment, alienation, and despair. In their plays human beings often portrayed as dupes, clowns who, although not without dignity, are at the mercy of forces that are inscrutable. Perhaps, the most famous plays of the theater of the absurd are Eugene Ionesco's Bald Soprano (1950) and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (1953). The playwrights whose works can be roughly classed as belonging to the theater of the absurd are Jean Genet (French), Max Frisch and Friedrich Dürrenmatt (Swiss), Fernando Arrabal (Spanish), and the early plays of Edward Albee (American). The pessimism and despair of the 20th century also

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found expression in the existentialist dramas of Jean-Paul Sartre, in the realistic and symbolic dramas of Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and Jean Anouilh, and in the surrealist plays of Jean Cocteau.

Similar to the Theatre of the Absurd, there was the Theatre of Cruelty. This theatre derived from the ideas of Antonin Artaud. After the violence of World War II and the subsequent threat of the atomic bomb, his approach seemed particularly appropriate to many playwrights. Elements of the theater of cruelty can be found in the brilliantly abusive language of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (1956) and Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962), in the ritualistic aspects of some of Genet's plays, in the masked utterances and enigmatic silences of Harold Pinter's “comedies of menace,” and in the orgiastic abandon of Julian Beck's Paradise Now! (1968).

Realism in a number of guises—psychological, social, and political— continued to be a force in such British works as David Storey's Home (1971), Sir Alan Ayckbourn's Norman Conquests trilogy (1974), and David Hare's Amy's View (1998); in such Irish dramas as Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa (1990) and Martin McDonagh's 1990s Leenane trilogy; and in such American plays as Jason Miller's That Championship Season (1972), Lanford Wilson's Talley's Folly (1979), and John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation (1990).

The late decades of the 20th century were also a time of considerable experiment and iconoclasm in drama and theatre. Experimental dramas of the 1960s and 1970s by such groups as Beck's Living Theater and Jerzy Grotowski's Polish Laboratory Theatre were followed by a mixing and merging of various kinds of media with aspects of postmodernism, improvisational

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techniques, performance art, and other kinds of avant-garde theater. Some of the era's more innovative efforts included productions by theater groups such as New York's La MaMa (1961–) and Mabou Mines (1970–) and Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Co. (1976–); the Canadian writer-director Robert Lepage's intricate, sometimes multilingual works, e.g. Tectonic Plates (1988); the inventive one-man shows of such monologuists as Eric Bogosian, Spalding Gray, and John Leguizamo; the transgressive drag dramas of Charles Ludlam's Ridiculous Theater, e.g., The Mystery of Irma Vep (1984); and the operatic multimedia extravaganzas of Robert Wilson, e.g. White Raven (1999).

Thematically, the social upheavals of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s— particularly the civil rights, women's movements, gay liberation, and the AIDS crisis—provided impetus for new plays that explored the lives of minorities and women. Beginning with Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun (1959), drama by and about African Americans emerged as a significant theatrical trend. In the 1960s plays such as James Baldwin's Blues for Mr. Charley (1964), Amiri Baraka's searing Dutchman (1964), and Charles Gordone's No Place to Be Somebody (1967) explored black American life; writers such as Ed Bullins (e.g., The Taking of Miss Janie, 1975), Ntozake Shange (e.g., For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf, 1976) and Charles Fuller (e.g., A Soldier's Play, 1981) carried these themes into later decades. One of the most distinctive and prolific of the century's African-American playwrights is August Wilson, debuted on Broadway in 1984 with Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and continued to define the black American experience.

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In 1970s also, the feminist and other women-centered themes dramatized by contemporary female playwrights. Significant figures of these themes such as England's Caryl Churchill (e.g., Top Girls, 1982), the Cuban-American experimentalist Maria Irene Forńes (e.g., Fefu and Her Friends, 1977) and American realists including Beth Henley (e.g., Crimes of the Heart, 1978), Marsha Norman (e.g., Night Mother, 1982), and Wendy Wasserstein (e.g., The Heidi Chronicles, 1988). Skilled monologuists also provided provocative

female-themed one-woman shows such as Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues (1996) and various solo theatrical performances by Lily Tomlin, Karen Finley, Anna Deveare Smith, and Sarah Jones.

Gay themes (often in the works of gay playwrights) also marked the later decades of the 20th century. Homosexual characters had been treated sympathetically but in the context of pathology in such earlier 20th century works as Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour (1934) and Robert Anderson's Tea and Sympathy (1953). Gay subjects were presented more explicitly during the

1960s, notably in the English farces of Joe Orton and Matt Crowley's witty but grim portrait of pre-Stonewall American gay life, The Boys in the Band (1968). In later years gay experience was explored more frequently with greater variety and openness, notably in Britain in Martin Sherman's Bent (1979) and Peter Gill's Mean Tears (1987) and in the United States in Jane Chambers' Last Summer at Bluefish Cove (1980), Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song Trilogy (1981), Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart (1986), David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly (1988), which also dealt with Asian identity, and Paul Rudnick's Jeffrey (1993). Tony Kushner's acclaimed two-part Angels in America (1991–92) is generally

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considered the century's most brilliant and innovative theatrical treatment of the contemporary gay world.

2.1.3 The Genres

Drama as well as theatre is traditionally divided into genres or types to categorize them based on its main characteristics that may differentiate one genre to another. The major genres of the drama as cited by G.B Tennyson in his book An Introduction to Drama (1967:59) are: Tragedy, Comedy, Melodrama, and

Farce.

2.1.3.1 Tragedy

The oldest genre of the drama as explained in many books of literature is tragedy. Tragedy is that a play that ends with the death of main character (Peck and Coyle, Literary Terms and Criticism, 1984:96); and also refers to a form of a drama that presents a man of a certain nobility who is attempting to achieve his highest aspirations but who, confronted by forces stronger than his greatest capacities, fails in his struggle (Goldstone, Context of the Drama, 1968:96)

The word “tragedy” comes from Greek word “tragos” which is translated to “goat”. The original meaning of tragedy may come from the mystery plays of the cult of Dionysus, which centered on the God being killed and his body ripped to pieces, and with a goat or other animal as a proxy for the bloodshed.

There are three types of tragedy, they are as follow: 1. Greek Classical Tragedy

Greek classical tragedy is the earliest tragedy or in a largest sense is the earliest drama’s manuscript which has been discovered. The definition of the Greek tragedy is drawn from the extant plays of

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Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Greek classical tragedy reflects the belief that all men are fated to suffer; that the greatest man suffer greatly; that suffering is exacted by the gods from men whose faults, errors or ignorance require retributive justice; and that the depiction of man’s errors and manifestation of divine justice in drama ameliorate the state of man (Goldstone, 1968:10)

2. Elizabethan Tragedy

Elizabethan tragedy refers to the tragedies of Marlowe, Webster, and Shakespeare, incorporate the principal characteristics of Greek tragedy. Nevertheless, since the plays of these dramatists are the product of a vastly different culture, as well as of a different stage tradition, they are striking differences. The chorus has all but disappeared; the unities of time, place, and action are disregarded; the classical restraints requiring the off-stage enactment of violence and passions are dismissed.(Goldstone, 1968:10) Still, according to Goldstone, the most important thing of Elizabethan tragedy is that this sub-genre expresses the Christian idea that suffering is conducive redemption, that out of disorder caused by the existence of some evil force, order can be restored after the protagonist has properly expiated either his own crimes associated with his mortal state, and that the death of the protagonist brings him to a state either of grace or of damnation.

3. Modern Tragedy

Modern tragedy may refer to the works of such playwrights as Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, Eugene O’neill and Arthur Miller. The

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hero in modern tragedy has been diminished in stature by the fact that he no longer transgresses against divine law as in Greek tragedy, nor does he defy outrageous fortune and his corporeal enemies as in Elizabethan tragedy. Instead, the protagonist of modern tragedy, denizen of an infinite universe, achieves meaning in protest against his insignificance, bravely insisting that his existence has a meaning at least for himself. (Goldstone, 1968:10-11)

2.1.3.2 Comedy

Comedy is a genre of drama that provoking laughter, encouraging us to maintain a sense of a proportion, a sense of fairness. Comedy consists of laughing at people caught in a difficult situations which we know will usually be resolved. Traditional comedy ends with marriage or a dance, the disorder that threatened the social concord having been overcome (Peck and Coyle, 1984:80)

Comedy comes from the Greek word “komos” which means celebration, revel, or merry making. Comedy has a Greek origin in which it signifies a festive musical and dancing procession and the ode sung on such an occasion. Comedy also has a ritual origin, not one associated with the death of a god (like tragedy) but conjoined with the marriage of a youthful god of a vegetation of life cult.

According to Peck and Coyle in their book Literary Terms and Criticism (1984:80), there are several types of dramatic comedy

encompassing romantic comedy, satiric comedy, and comedy of manners while Goldstone (1968:12) adds one more type is that comedy of ideas.

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1. Romantic Comedy

Romantic comedy is a comedy usually deals with how seriously young people take love and how foolishly love makes them behave. Such characteristics can be found in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595), and in The Merchant of Venice (1596)

2. Satiric Comedy

Satiric comedy might appear to be more constructive than the other forms of comedy in that it claims to laugh mankind out of folly through caricature. This type can be seen in the works of Ben Jonson such as in Volpone (1606) and in Every Man in His Humour (1598).

3. Comedy of manners

Comedy of manners is set in polite society, the comedy arising from the gap between the characters’ attempts to preserve the standards of polite behaviour and their actual behaviour. This type can see in the works of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard (1903) and in Shakespeare’s Much Ado about

Nothing and Twelfth Night. 4. Comedy of Ideas

Comedy of ideas primarily associated with the plays of George Bernard Shaw and Chekhovian drama. In this type, Shaw deals with the logic of a system in relation to human practice and, as Shaw demonstrates through his plays, that life always wins over any logical system.

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2.1.3.3 Melodrama

Melodrama is a dramatic play which presents an unambiguous confrontation between good and evil. This is a sentimental drama with musical underscoring and the plot concerns the suffering of the good at the hands of the villains but ends happily with good triumphant. This type featuring stock characters such as the noble hero, the long-suffering heroine, and the cold-blooded villain. According to Peck and Coyle (1984:87) melodrama is “a sensational, romantic play full of impossible events where the good are always rewarded and

the wicked always punished”. The practitioners of this type such playwrights as

Eugene O’neill through his most plays, Lilian Helman, Clifford Odets, Maxwell Anderson, and also Tennessee Williams. Explicitly, melodrama can be seen in Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi and in Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy.

2.1.3.4 Farce

Farce is the oldest form of comedy and it is a light entertainment that relies largely on visual humor, situation and relatively uncomplicated characters. (Tennyson, 1967:74) Farce has few, intellectual pretensions; it aims to entertain to provoke laughter; its humour is the result primarily of physical activity and visual effects and it relies less on language and wit than do so-called higher forms of comedy.(Wilson, The Theatre Experience, 1987:324)

Farce derives from the Latin word “farcire’’ which means “to stuff”. Related to its etymological sense, farce may means the type of drama which is stuffed with absurd and improbable situations, characters and dialogue which are all intended to make the audience burst into full-throated laughter.(Sinha, 1977:127)

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The elements of farce can be seen in some of Shakespeare’s comedies such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595) and The Merry Wives of Windsor. In Sheridan and Goldsmith’s works also we can see the appearance of farce but only as detached episodes. (Sinha, 1977:127)

2.1.3.5 Other Genres

There are miscellaneous genres of drama and theatre which can’t be categorized as the member of the four major genres above, but actually they are the improvement of the major genres, they are as follow:

1. Tragicomedy

Tragicomedy is a genre of drama which generally defined as a drama that has a bitter or sweet quality, containing elements of tragedy and also comedy. Tragicomedy has tragic themes and noble characters, yet which ended happily. It is usually combines serious and comic elements.

As quoted by Sinha, the best definition of tragicomedy may come from Fletcher as the first English dramatist who cultivates the species of drama. Fletcher (in Sinha, 1977:125-126) states:

“A tragicomedy is not so-called in respect of mirth and killing, but it respect it wants death which is enough to make it no tragedy, yet brings some near it which is enough to make it no comedy which must representation of familiar people, with suck kind of trouble as no life be questioned, so that a God is as lawful in this as in tragedy and mean people as in a comedy.”

Tragicomedy can be seen in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Measure for Measure, and The Merchant of Venice.

2. The Masque

The masque is a form of dramatic entertainment which involves dances and disguises and in which the spectacular and musical elements

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predominate over plot and character. As defined by Saintsbury (in Sinha, 1977:128) “is a dramatic entertainment in which plot, character and even, to a great extent dialogue, are subordinated on the one hand to

spectacular illustration , and on the other to musical accompaniment.”

The masque has reached its glory in Jacobean period. The dramatic writers such as Beaumont, Middleton and Chapman wrote masques. Johnson’s Masque of Blacknesse and Milton’s Comus also masques and both were successful at that time.

3. Commedia dell’arte

Commedia dell’arte is a form of comic theatre which originated in Italy in the sixteenth century in which the dialogue was improvised around a loose scenario calling for a set of stock characters, each with a distinctive costume and traditional name. Best known characters of this type such as Zannis and Lazzis. (Wilson, 1987:322)

4. Morality Play

Morality play is one of the two basic types of medieval drama. Morality play is allegorical play in which both plot and character are used to illustrate an abstract moral lesson. The examples of this play are Everyman and The Castle of Perseverance. (Peck and Coyle, 1984:86) 5. Miracle Play

Miracle play is one of the two basic types of medieval drama which deals with Christian history of mankind from the Creation to The Last Judgment. An example of this play is The Crucifixion. (Peck and Coyle, 1984:86)

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6. Heroic Drama

Heroic drama is a form of serious drama that written in verse or elevated prose, featuring noble or heroic characters caught in extreme situations or undertaking unusual adventures (Wilson, 1987: 324).

Generally, heroic drama is a term which is applied to the tragedies of Restoration period (seventeenth century). The feature of this form can be found such as in John Dryden’s All for love and Thomas Otway’s Venice Preserved.

7. Epic Drama / Theatre

Epic drama or theatre is a form of drama which attempts to tackle the larger problems of modern history. This form is aimed at the intellect, seeking to present evidence regarding social question in such a way that they may be objectively considered and an intelligent conclusion reached. The chief advocator of this form is Bertolt Brecht and the example of this form can be seen in his work Mother Courage (1941).

8. Musical Theatre

Musical theatre is a term to point out a broad category which includes opera, operetta, musical comedy and other musical plays. This form told the story through the performance of singing (with instrumental music), spoken dialogue, and often dance.

9. Pantomime

Pantomime a form musical drama in which elements of dance, mime, puppetry, slapstick, and melodrama are combined to produce an entertaining and comic theatrical performance. Pantomime genuinely is a

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Roman entertainment in which a narrative was sung by a chorus while the story was acted out by the dancers.

10. Black Comedy

Black comedy is a form of comedy that tests the boundaries of good taste and moral acceptability by juxtaposing morbid or ghastly elements with comical ones.

11. Poor Theatre

Poor theatre is a term coined by Jerzy Grotowski to describe his ideal of the theatre stripped to its barest essentials. The lavish sets, lights and costumes generally associated with this theatre. Jerzy was insisted that if theatre is to become rich spiritually and aesthetically, it must first be “poor” in everything that can distract from the actors relationship with the audience (Wilson, 1987: 327).

12. Theatre of Fact

Theatre of fact is a term encompasses a number of different types of documentary drama which have developed in the twentieth century. Theatre of Fact using realistic approach usually deals with social problems. The example of this form such as The Deputy and The Investigation (Wilson, 1987:328)

13. Theatre of Cruelty

Theatre of Cruelty is a term advocated by Antonin Artaud through his concept of theatre. Artaud’s visionary concepts of theatre based on music and rituals which would liberate deep, violent, and erotic impulses. 14. Theatre of the Absurd

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Theatre of the Absurd is a term coined by Martin Esslin through in 1961, The Theatre of the Absurd. This term is intended to categorize the number of plays by Beckett, Genet, Ionesco, Albee, and etc which generally contain the absurdity.

2.2 Ingredients of the Drama

According to G.B Tennyson in his book An Introduction to Drama (1967:9), the way of approaching the drama is to examine the component parts of the play. As quoted by Tennyson, Aristotle cites six elements as essential to a play: plot, thought, character, diction, music, and spectacle. Plot generally is a narrative of motivated involved some conflicts which are finally resolved. (Kasim, 2005: 28) Thought may refer to the ideas of the story or the theme. Characters refer to the actors who act the play. Characterization is the author’s way of describing his characters in a literary work; or it is the author’s means of differentiating one character to another. (Kasim, 2005:34) while diction in this context may refer to the dialogues or the script of the drama itself. Then, as claimed Tennyson, nowadays music is no longer considered as indispensable elements in a play. But in a broad sense, music can stand for rhythm and harmony, the features we still seek in the drama. The other ingredients are equally necessary both diction and spectacle. By diction, we would understand language in general and by spectacle, we would understand drama as the area of staging, scenery, costumes, properties and sound effects.

The important thing about the ingredients of a play, claimed Tennyson, is that the elements must be presented in the proper amounts. All the elements must cohere and they must be directed to a single purpose is that “the whole action of

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the play.” The variety that joins to make a unity is the most distinctive feature of a play. The various elements of a play within the same time make that play as a literary, a performing, a visual, an auditory, and a temporal art because many of the indispensable elements do not exist on paper but only in a production of the play.

According to Tennyson, when we think of the term drama as meaning the whole area of theatrical art, seemingly, we have overemphasized the importance of the play as a document. Perhaps, this not the intention, however, for drama in its broadest sense is not only the play, but also the performance of it in a theatre. Thus, while action and imitation has been directed primarily toward clarifying the nature of the play and the playwright, the drama includes also the playhouse and the player. The action of the playwright’s script has imitated, meaningfully by actors performing in a theatre. An adequately historical approach to the drama would pay as much attention to the changes in acting technique and in the structure of the playhouses as it does to shifts in taste and styles of writing. As often as not, changes in the acting technique and in the structure of the playhouses are substantially conditioned by the variations in acting technique and in architecture. Then, Tennyson states that it is possible to develop an understanding of the drama from the study of plays themselves, however, the students or the reader should not lose sight of the intimate connection that always exists between the play and the playhouse or between the playwright and the performers, since all these comprise the nature of the drama.

Furthermore, as stated by Tennyson, the more we consider the nature of the drama, the more varied and complex it seems to become. If we keep the

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Absurd; however, to call it Existentialist theatre is problematic for many reasons. It gained this association partly because it was named (by Esslin) after the concept of "absurdism" advocated by Albert Camus, a philosopher commonly called Existentialist though he frequently resisted that label. Absurdism is most accurately called Existentialist in the way Franz Kafka's work is labeled Existentialist: it embodies an aspect of the philosophy though the writer may not be a committed follower. Many of the Absurdists were contemporaries with Jean-Paul Sartre, the philosophical spokesman for Existentialism in Paris, but few Absurdists actually committed to Sartre's own Existentialist philosophy, as expressed in Being and Nothingness, and many of the Absurdists had a complicated relationship with him. Sartre praised Genet's plays, stating that for Genet "Good is only an illusion. Evil is a Nothingness which arises upon the ruins of Good" ("Introduction" ); but Sartre and Ionesco were still at times bitter enemies.[citations needed]

Ionesco accused Sartre of supporting Communism but ignoring the atrocities committed by Communists; he wrote Rhinoceros as a criticism of blind conformity, whether it be to Nazism or Communism; at the end of the play, one man remains on Earth resisting transformation into a rhinoceros (Ionesco, Fragments). Sartre criticized

Rhinoceros by questioning: "Why is there one man who resists? At least we could learn why, but no, we learn not even that. He resists because he is there" ("Beyond Bourgeois Theatre" 6). Sartre's criticism highlights a primary difference between the Theatre of the Absurd and Existentialism: The Theatre of the Absurd shows the failure of man without recommending a solution.[citations needed] Samuel Beckett's primary focus was on the failure

of man to overcome "absurdity"; as James Knowlson says in Damned to Fame, Beckett's work focuses "on poverty, failure, exile and loss — as he put it, on man as a 'non-knower' and as a 'non-can-er' ." Beckett's own relationship with Sartre was complicated by a mistake made in the publication of one of his stories in Sartre's journal Les Temps Modernes.[citations needed]

History

The "Absurd" or "New Theater" movement was originally a Paris-based (and Rive Gauche) avant-garde phenomenon tied to extremely small theaters in the Quartier Latin. Some of the Absurdists were born in France such as Jean Genet, Jean Tardieu, Boris Vian, and Romain Weingarten. Many other Absurdists were born elsewhere but lived in France, writing often in French: Samuel Beckett from Ireland; Eugene Ionesco from Romania; Arthur Adamov from Russia; and Fernando Arrabal from Spain. As the influence of the Absurdists grew, the style spread to other countries–with playwrights either directly influenced by Absurdists in Paris or playwrights labeled Absurdist by critics. In England some of whom Esslin considered practitioners of "the Theatre of the Absurd" include: Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, N. F. Simpson, James Saunders, and David Campton; in the United States, Edward Albee, Sam Shepard, Jack Gelber, and John Guare; in Poland, Tadeusz Różewicz, Sławomir Mrożek, and Tadeusz Kantor; in Italy, Dino Buzzati and Ezio d'Errico; and in Germany, Peter Weiss, Wolfgang Hildesheimer, and Günter Grass. In India, both Mohit Chattopadhyay and Mahesh Elkunchwar have also been labeled Absurdists. Other international Absurdist playwrights include: Tawfiq el-Hakim from Egypt; Miguel Mihura from Spain; José de Almada Negreiros from Portugal; Yordan Radichkov from Bulgaria; and playwright and former Czech President Václav Havel, and others from the Czech Republic and Slovakia.[citations needed]

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Jean Genet’s The Maids (Les Bonnes) premiered in 1947. Eugene Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano (La Cantatrice Chauve) was first performed on May 11, 1950 at the Théâtre des Noctambules. Ionesco followed this with "The Lesson" ( "La Leçon") 1951 and The Chairs (Les Chaises) in 1952. Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot was first performed on the 5th of January 1953 at the Théâtre de Babylone in Paris. In 1956 Genet’s The

Balcony (Le Balcon) was produced in London at the Arts Theatre. The following year,

Beckett’s Endgame was first performed, and that may Harold Pinter’s The Room was presented at The Drama Studio at the University of Bristol. Pinter’s The Birthday Party

premiered in the West End and Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story premiered in West Berlin at the Schiller Theater Werkstatt – both in 1958. On the October 28th of that year,

Krapp's Last Tape by Beckett was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London.

Fernando Arrabal's Pique-nique en campagne (Picnic on the Battlefield) also came out in 1958. Genet’s The Blacks (Les Nègres) was published that year but was first performed at the Théatre de Lutèce in Paris on the 28th October, 1959. 1959 also saw the completion of Ionesco’s Rhinocéros. Beckett’s Happy Days was first performed at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York on the 17th of September 1961. Albee’s Who's Afraid of Virginia

Woolf? also premiered in New York the following year, on October 13th. Pinter’s The

Homecoming premiered in London in 1964. Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade (The Persecution

and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of

Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade) was first performed in West

Berlin in 1964 and in New York City a year later. Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1966. Arrabal's Le

Cimetière des voitures (Automobile Graveyard) was also first performed in 1966.

Beckett’s Catastrophe–dedicated to then-imprisoned Czech dissident playwright Václav Havel, who became president of Czechoslovakia after the 1989 Velvet Revolution–was first performed at the Avignon Festival on July 21, 1982; the film version (in Beckett on Film [2001]) was directed by David Mamet and performed by Harold Pinter, Sir John Gielgud, and Rebecca Pidgeon.

Echoes of elements of "The Theatre of the Absurd" can be seen in many later playwrights, from more avant-garde or experimental playwrights like Susan-Lori Parks– in The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World and The America Play, for example–to relatively realistic playwrights like David Mamet–in Glengarry Glen Ross, which Mamet dedicated to Harold Pinter.[citations needed]

Essential traits

Most of the bewilderment absurdist drama initially created was because critics and reviewers were used to the Realism of more conventional drama.[citations needed] In practice, The Theatre of the Absurd departs from realistic characters, situations and all of the associated theatrical conventions.[citations needed] Time, place and identity are ambiguous and fluid, and even basic causality frequently breaks down.[citations needed] Meaningless plots, repetitive or nonsensical dialogue and dramatic non-sequiturs are often used to create dream-like, or even nightmare-like moods.[citations needed] There is a fine line, however, between the careful and artful use of chaos and non-realistic elements and true, meaningless chaos.[citations needed] While many of the plays described by this title seem to be quite random and meaningless on the surface, an underlying structure and meaning is usually found in the midst of the chaos.[citations needed] According to Martin Esslin, Absurdism is "the inevitable devaluation of ideals, purity, and purpose" (Esslin [1961] 24). Absurdist Drama asks its audience to "draw his own conclusions, make his own errors" (Esslin [1961] 20). Though Theatre of the Absurd may be seen as nonsense, they have something to say and can be understood" (Esslin [1961] 21). Esslin makes a

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distinction between the dictionary definition of absurd ("out of harmony" in the musical sense) and Drama’s understanding of the Absurd: "Absurd is that which is devoid of purpose.... Cut off from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless" (Esslin [1961] 23).

Characters

The characters in Absurdist drama are lost and floating in an incomprehensible universe and they abandon rational devices and discursive thought because these approaches are inadequate (Watt and Richardson 1154). Many characters appear as automatons stuck in routines speaking only in cliché (Ionesco called the Old Man and Old Woman in The Chairs "uber-marrionettes"). Characters are frequently stereotypical, archetypal, or flat character types as in Commedia dell'arte.

The more complex characters are in crisis because the world around them is incomprehenisible. Many of Pinter's plays, for example, feature characters trapped in an enclosed space menaced by some force the character can't understand. Pinter’s first play

was The Room – in which the main character, Rose, is menaced by Riley who invades her

safe space though the actual source of menace remains a mystery – and this theme of characters in a safe space menaced by an outside force is repeated in many of his later works (perhaps most famously in The Birthday Party). Characters in Absurdist drama may also face the chaos of a world that science and logic have abandoned. Ionesco’s reoccurring character Berenger, for example, faces a killer without motivation in The Killer, and Berenger’s logical arguments fail to convince the killer that killing is wrong.

In Rhinocéros, Berenger remains the only human on Earth who hasn’t turned into a

rhinoceros and must decide whether or not to conform. Characters may find themselves trapped in a routine or, in a metafictional conceit, trapped in a story; the titular characters in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, for example, find themselves in a story (Hamlet) in which the outcome has already been written.

The plots of many Absurdist plays feature characters in interdependent pairs, commonly either two males or a male and a female. The two characters may be roughly equal or have a begrudging interdependence (like Vladamir and Estragon in Waiting for Godot or the two main characters in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead); one character may be clearly dominant and may torture the passive character (like Pozzo and Lucky in Waiting for Godot or Hamm and Clov in Endgame); the relationship of the characters may shift dramatically throughout the play (as in Ionesco’s The Lesson or in many of Albee’s plays,

The Zoo Story for example)[citations needed]. Language

Despite its reputation for nonsense language, much of the dialogue in Absurdist plays is naturalistic. The moments when characters resort to nonsense language or clichés–when words appear to have lost their denotative function, thus creating misunderstanding among the characters (Esslin [1961] 26)–make Theatre of the Absurd distinctive. Language frequently gains a certain phonetic, rhythmical, almost musical quality, opening up a wide range of often comedic playfulness. Distinctively Absurdist language will range from meaningless clichés to Vaudeville-style word play to meaningless nonsense. The Bald Soprano, for example, was inspired by a language book in which characters would exchange empty clichés that never ultimately amounted to true communication or true connection.[citations needed] Likewise, the characters in The Bald Soprano–like many other Absurdist characters–go through routine dialogue full of clichés

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without actually communicating anything substantive or making a human connection. In other cases, the dialogue is purposefully elliptical; the language of Absurdist Theater becomes secondary to the poetry of the concrete and objectified images of the stage. Many of Beckett's plays devalue language for the sake of the striking tableau. Harold Pinter–famous for his "Pinter pause"–presents more subtly elliptical dialogue; often the primary things characters should address is replaced by ellipsis or dashes. The following exchange between Aston and Davies in The Caretaker is typical of Pinter:

ASTON. More or less exactly what you...

DAVIES. That's it ... that's what I'm getting at is ... I mean, what sort of jobs ... (Pause.)

ASTON. Well, there's things like the stairs ... and the ... the bells ...

DAVIES. But it'd be a matter ... wouldn't it ... it'd be a matter of a broom ... isn't it?

Much of the dialogue in Absurdist drama (especially in Beckett's and Albee's plays, for example) reflects this kind of evasiveness and inability to make a connection. When language that is apparently nonsensical appears, it also demonstrates this disconnection. It can be used for comic effect, as in Lucky's long speech in Godot when Pozzo says Lucky is demonstrating a talent for "thinking" as other characters comically attempt to stop him: LUCKY. Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without extension who from the heights of divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and suffers like the divine Miranda with those who for reasons unknown but time will tell are plunged in torment...

[

Nonsense may also be used abusively, as in Pinter's The Birthday Party when Goldberg and McCann torture Stanley with apparently-nonsensical questions and non-sequiturs:

GOLDBERG. What do you use for pyjamas? STANLEY. Nothing.

GOLDBERG. You verminate the sheet of your birth. MCCANN. What about the Albigensenist heresy? GOLDBERG. Who watered the wicket in Melbourne? MCCANN. What about the blessed Oliver Plunkett?

GOLDBERG. Speak up Webber. Why did the chicken cross the road?

As in the above examples, nonsense in Absurdist theatre may be also used to demonstrate the limits of language while questioning or parodying the determinism of science and the knowability of truth. In Ionesco's The Lesson, a professor tries to force a pupil to understand his nonsensical philology lesson:

PROFESSOR. ... In Spanish: the roses of my grandmother are as yellow as my grandfather who is Asiatic; in Latin: the roses of my grandmother are as yellow as my grandfather who is Asiatic. Do you detect the difference? Translate this into ... Romanian

PUPIL. The ... how do you say "roses" in Romanian?

PROFESSOR. But "roses," what else? ... "roses" is a translation in Oriental of the French word "roses," in Spanish "roses," do you get it? In Sardanapali, "roses"...

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Plot

Traditional plot structures are rarely a consideration in The Theatre of the Absurd. Plots can consist of the absurd repetition of cliché and routine, as in Godot or The Bald Soprano. Often there is a menacing outside force that remains a mystery; in The Birthday

Party, for example, Goldberg and McCann confront Stanley, torture him with absurd

questions, and drag him off at the end, but it is never revealed why. Absence, emptiness, nothingness, and unresolved mysteries are central features in many Absurdist plots: for example, in The Chairs an old couple welcomes a large number of guests to their home, but these guests are invisible so all we see is empty chairs, a representation of their absence. Likewise, the action of Godot is centered around the absence of a man named Godot, for whom the characters perpetually wait. In many of Beckett's later plays, most features are stripped away and what's left is a minimalistic tableau: a woman walking slowly back and forth in Footfalls, for example, or in Breath only a junk heap on stage and the sounds of breathing.

The plot may also revolve around an unexplained metamorphosis, a supernatural change, or a shift in the laws of physics. For example, in Ionesco’s Amédée, or How to Get Rid of It, a couple must deal with a corpse that is steadily growing larger and larger; Ionesco never fully reveals the identity of the corpse, how this person died, or why it’s continually growing, but the corpse ultimately – and, again, without explanation – floats away.

Like Pirandello, many Absurdists use meta-theatrical techniques to explore role fulfillment, fate, and the theatricality of theatre. This is true for many of Genet's plays: for example, in The Maids, two maids pretend to be their masters; in The Balcony brothel patrons take on elevated positions in role-playing games, but the line between theatre and reality starts to blur. Another complex example of this is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead: it's a play about two minor characters in Hamlet; these characters, in turn, have various encounters with the players who perform The Mousetrap, the play-with-in-the-play in Hamlet.

Plots are frequently cyclical: for example, Endgame begins where the play ended – some lines at the beginning responding to some lines at the end – and it can be assumed that each day the same actions will take place.

Notes

1. ^ ab cd Martin Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1961). (Subsequent references to this ed. appear within parentheses in the text.) 2. ^ a b Martin Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd, 3rd ed. (New York: Vintage

[Knopf], 2004). (Subsequent references to this ed. appear within parentheses in the text.)

Works cited

• Artaud, Antonin. The Theatre and Its Double. Tr. Mary Caroline Richards. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1958.

• Esslin, Martin. Absurd Drama. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1965. • –––. The Theatre of the Absurd. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1961.

• –––. The Theatre of the Absurd. 3rd ed. With a new foreword by the author. New York: Vintage (Knopf), 2004. ISBN 9781400075232 (13).

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• Jacobus, Lee A. The Bedford Introduction to Drama. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford, 2005.

• Ionesco, Eugene. Fragments of a Journal. Tr. Jean Stewart. London: Faber and Faber, 1968.

• Knowlson, James. Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett. New York: Grove P, 1996.

• Sartre, Jean-Paul. "Beyond Bourgeois Theatre", Tulane Drama Review 5.3 (Mar. 1961): 6.

• –––. "Introduction". The Maids and Deathwatch, by Jean Genet. Tr. Bernard Frechtman. New York: Grove P, 1954.

• Watt, Stephen and Gary A. Richardson, eds. American Drama: Colonial to

Contemporary. Boston: Thompson, 2003.

• Worthen, W. B., ed. The Wadsworth Anthology of Drama. 5th ed. Boston: Thompson, 2007.

Further reading

• Ackerley, C. J. and S. E. Gontarski, ed. The Grove Companion to Samuel Beckett.

New York: Grove P, 2004.

• Baker, William, and John C. Ross, comp. Harold Pinter: A Bibliographical

History. London: The British Library and New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll P, 2005.

ISBN 1584561564 (10). ISBN 9781584561569 (13).

• Brook, Peter. The Empty Space: A Book About the Theatre: Deadly, Holy, Rough,

Immediate. Touchstone, 1995. ISBN 0684829576 (10).

• Caselli, Daniela. Beckett's Dantes: Intertextuality in the Fiction and Criticism. ISBN 0-7190-7156-9.

• Cronin, Anthony. Samuel Beckett: The Last Modernist. New York: Da Capo P, 1997.

• Gaensbauer, Deborah B. Eugene Ionesco Revisited. New York: Twayne, 1996. • Lewis, Allan. Ionesco. New York: Twayne, 1972.

• McMahon, Joseph H. The Imagination of Jean Genet. New Haven: Yale UP, 1963.

• Mercier, Vivian. Beckett/Beckett. Oxford UP, 1977. ISBN 0-19-281269-6. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_of_the_Absurd"

Characteristics Of The Theatre Of The Absurd In Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot