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The Playwright’s Role: Production
• Once script is written, playwright takes a
backseat to director, designers, actors,
producers.
• Exceptions:
– Playwrights who direct
(e.g., David Mamet)
– Playwrights who act/produce
(e.g.,Shakespeare)
• Playwright may contribute to production
through script revisions.
Core Concepts
• When theatrical process starts – assuming
it starts with a script,
– The playwright is most essential artist in
a production
• Playwright builds the world of the play:
– Events
– Characters
– Meaning
More of the Modern Masters
Henrik Ibsen(1828-1906)
• Norwegian playwright, poet
• the father of modern drama
• dramas of protest against social
conditions, the conditions of life and
issues of morality
• domestic dramas
• realistic plays → naturalistic plays →
symbolic plays
Henrik Ibsen: Notable Works and
contributions to the modern theater
• Ibsen was a very important influence in opening up
the discussion of the position of women in
society
• Nora in A Doll’s House (1879) started a discussion
about the position of women in Victorian marriage;
• Mrs Alving in Ghosts (1881)drew attention to the
double standards of morality for men and women;
and
• Hedda Gabler (1890) ultimately constitutes a plea
to allow women to develop their creativeness.
Ibsen’s contribution to modern drama
• Ibsen has been called ‘the father of
modern drama’ because he was the first
to use the stage to debate contemporary
social dilemmas, as in his best known
play, about a claustrophobic marriage, A
Doll’s House.
• Ibsen’s plays offers ‘Lessons’ on the
hypocrisy and dual standards of society
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Ibsen’s contribution to modern drama
• The Theatre of Ideas: ‘Ibsenites’ – young
enthusiastic intellectuals for the new plays
inspired by Ibsen – seized on the idea of
theatre as a political force.
• Social comment, drawing audiences with
realistic controversial drama concerning
ordinary people
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Anton Chekhov(1860-1904)
• Russian playwright
• Four-act realistic plays
• The Cherry Orchard
• Three Sisters
• Uncle Vanya
• The Seagull
Chekhovian drama
• Chekhov uses the drama, with the author
functioning only as an impartial witness.
• Chekhov will introduce political, social, and
philosophical discussions into his work,
because these are threads in the fabric of
reality. But he is careful neither to take sides
nor to hint at solutions.
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Oscar Wilde(1854-1900)
• Irish-born playwright, poet
• a spokesman for the late 19thcentury Aesthetic movement
(Aestheticism) in England, which
advocated art for art’s sake
• the object of celebrated civil and
criminal suits involving homosexuality
and ending in his imprisonment
(1895–97).
Oscar Wilde
The life of Oscar Wilde was as theatrical as his
plays, and his downfall and death more
melodramatic than the stage of the Victorians who
first celebrated him and then condemned him.
Oscar Wilde’s Works
his only novel:
• The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
comic masterpieces:
• Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892)
• An Ideal Husband (1895)
• The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
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art-for-art’s-sake
• a slogan translated from the French l’art pour
l’art, which was coined in the early 19th
century by the French philosopher Victor
Cousin.
• The phrase expresses the belief held by many
writers and artists, especially those associated
with Aestheticism, that art needs no
justification, that it need serve no political,
didactic, or other end.
(Britannica Online Encyclopedia)
Lillian Hellman
• Famous American playwright.
• Born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1905.
• She spent most of her childhood there as
well as in New York.
• In the 20’s she married the writer Arthur
Kober and moved with him to Hollywood.
• In the early 30’s she met mystery and
crime writer Dashiell Hammett and by
1932 she was divorced but had a close
relationship with Hammett until his death
in 1961.
• Her first critical success came at the age of 28 with the
play The Children’s Hours about two teachers falsely
accused of having a lesbian affair.
Despite the controversy surrounding the play’s subject,
The Children’s Hours launched her career after a
successful and massively popular debut on Broadway.
As a playwright and an author, Hellman was never afraid
to put her own political and social beliefs into her writing.
She often addressed such subject matter as capitalism,
fascism, revenge, and greed.
• Her plays, Watch on the Rhine and The Searching Wind,
were critical of the American Government’s role in
fighting fascism at the outset of World War II.
• Hellman’s membership in the Communist Party and her
outspoken political opinions resulted in a subpoena from
the United States Congress to appear in front of the
House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) led by
Sen. Joe McCarthy.
• Hellman was willing to provide the committee with details
about her own political life but refused to incriminate any
of her friends or co-workers. Her courageous testimony
set an inspirational precedent.
• At the age of 60, Hellman switched from writing plays to
publishing three popular memoirs.
• After a lifetime of writing and teaching, Hellman passed
away at the age of 79.