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Development
of American Drama After 1945
In the 19 th century, the American public
was seeking for entertainment rather
than art through the American theatre.
With the beginning of modernization
and strong desires for entertainment,
the taste was also rapidly changing.
And the change most of the time is reflected
in the field of drama as well. The recent
critics of the United States believe
that American drama was born in The
Prince town Playhouse in 1916. But actually
it was way earlier that American drama
came in to existence.
EUGENE
O' NEILL
Eugene O’ Neill, an American dramatist,
who is internationally reputed in the
field of drama, also got the noble prize
in 1936. He was influenced by Henric
Ibsen, August Strindberg and
Maurice Maeterlinck.
He is remembered for realist, naturalist
and expressionist drama. Moreover the
credit goes to Eugene O’Neill
for his realist and naturalistic play.
Before O’Neill in American theater,
there were melodrama which were sentimental
and having the sense of excitement.
But
when O’ Neill came with the philosophical
subject matter , he became out of reach
from the audience, because he got the
subject matter from ancient Greek time
and mix it with Freudian psychoanalysis.For
example Desire Under the
Elms is completely realistic
drama set in 19 th century New England
(America). Its theme is sexual desire
and the desire of land. O’Neill’s
Iceman Cometh
is very much philosophical and gloomy
play that was staged in Broadway in
1946. It was not much liked by audience.
It became only popular in off Broadway
in the year 1956.
Another finest play of O’Neill
is Long Day’s Journey
in to Night (1956) is
considered by many critics to be a triumph
of realistic drama and O’Neill’s
finest play. It is about human responsibility
and love-hate with in a family. The
father and his son bitterly discuss
the past, while waiting for their drug-
addict mother to come down stains.
O’Neill
also started writing autobiographical
play and before him there is no one
to write in such trend, and being autobiographical,
the subject of the play is O’
Neill’s early childhood with unrealized
hope. This drama simply tries to deny
the authenticity of American dream.
American society was shocked by this
drama because that society sought the
subject matter of money.
TENNESSE
WILLIAMS
If
Eugene O’ Neill, Susan Gospel,
Thornton Wilder Clifford Odets dominated
the first half of the twentieth century.
Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, Lawrance
Hensbery, Sam Shepard, David Moment
dominated the second half of the twentieth
century, but Tennessee Williams is very
much important between this two ages
.
Tennesse Williams
was brought up in the South, we can
clearly see element of the southern
literary tradition in his work. The
elements like complicated
feelings about time and the past. The
past is usually looked up on with sadness,
guilt or fear. He describes his society
as a kind of hell of brutality and race
hatred.
After the arrival of Eugene O’
Neill, the practice of realism and naturalism
and was established as a trend for sometime
in the field of plays and among the
many play wrights; one of them is Tennessee
Williams. The language of his play is
sometimes close to poetry. Therefore
he is the poet of unpoetic land. Because
of the poetic use of language we realize
he is influenced by Ibsen’s drama.
Tennessee
Williams tries to express, internal
reality and that make him near to Anton
Chekhov. In Chekhov’s drama the
realization of action is there which
is eternal and in Tennesse Williams
drama the realization of tension and
anxiety which is internal.
Tennesse Williams reached his peak relatively
early in his career- in the 1940 with
The Glass Menagerie (1945)
and A Streetcar Named Desire
(1947). None of the works that followed
over the next two decades and more reached
the level of success and richness of
those two pieces.
Williams
wrote more than twenty full- length
dramas, many of them autobiographical.
Even the drama The Glass
Menagerie is taken as
autobiographical drama.This drama does
not only stand for autobiographical
drama but it stands as fertile land.
The life of the character in The
Glass Menagerie when becomes
hot liveable or not acceptable then
the characters turn themselves to live
in the illusion. Tennesse Williams revealed
the pain and suffering inside the heart
of his characters. He tries to explore
the internal hurt which is opposite
to the behavior to day life.
In A
Strectcar Named Deiere the
character Blanche Dubois is suffering
from nymphomaniac, who has excessive
sexual desire. When she is married her
unfulfilled sexual desire is not fulfilled.
In this drama Williams try to show how
the human beings are victimized by their
excessive sexual desire. Here Dubois
is not corrupted by love but by the
life she has. Tennesse Williams experiment
non – realistic technique to present
the mental conflict and tension. Read
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