Essays on Drama

Henrik Ibsen was born in 1828 to a merchant family in the small Norwegian town of Skien. After his family fell into poverty, he was forced out of his education and, at 15, worked as an apprentice in a pharmacy. It was here that he...

Out of the many villains in the X-men movies William Stryker is the only one to have his origin story rebooted from his comic origins. God loves man kills tells the story of a religious conservative figure—a televangelist by the name of reverend William Stryker—who...

In the contemporary world, living life simply is awesome as it gets. Earlier, I thought living a life that necessitated constant fulfillment for instance shopping, status or different types of drama would result to happiness, but in the real sense leaves an unorganized mess that...

An explosive trial leads the moderately quiet town of Hillsboro to question their faith in Brady and thinking factually. Belief is pitted against evolution, and Brady vehemently believes that religion is the only valid sect of the case. In the play Inherit the Wind written...

In the political hierarchy depicted by Milton and Virgil, power rightly belongs in the hands of a man, not a woman. During the times when men are the sole leaders of the nation, a woman’s possession of power and influence is viewed as unnatural and...

The enforcement of specific gender roles by societal standards in 19th century married life proved to be suffocating. From the very outset the reader can feel that this seemingly simple family drama may turn into a kind of tragedy which may arise some serious questions....

William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet (1599) is a play that centres on the forbidden love between two tragic heroes. This tragedy was written during the Elizabethan Era (1558-1603), which is considered to be the golden age in English history, and was a time when...

George Santayana’ s oft-quoted aphorism—“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”—has entered cultural ubiquity and become a cliché, paraphrased ad nauseam by politicians and philosophically-inclined college students. Still, the over-saturation of this sentiment does not make it any less true, and...

Recast as a fair-weather Hollywood rebel with Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys – breaking the rules only just enough to accrue a superficial glaze of strangeness – Chris Marker’s La Jetee is the real deal. It’s as aesthetically radical as any film this side of, well,...

Adapted from the novel by Craig Silvey, Kate Mulvany’s Jasper Jones deals with dark topics of racism, rape, suicide and the stereotypes of gender roles in a light and whimsical manner through a 13-year-old Charlie’s perspective. Directed by Nescha Jelk, the play is layered with...

The presumption of a benevolent and omnipotent God makes the existence of evil problematic. This dilemma, known as theodicy, is often used to prove the lack of a God. The Book of Job as well as the South Park episode “Cartmanland” explore this theme, but...

Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon is a film that effectively depicts the struggle of Philippine independence, and the life of an ordinary boy trying to explore and discover more of the country. The death of his mother and his acquaintance with Padre Gil, a...

Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and her Children shapes the audience’s perspectives on war and capitalism by exploring the interactions of an individual (the eponymous Mother Courage) with and in war. The presentation of war as an entity that has the capability to destroy anything, even...

Samson Agonistes is Milton’s attempt to bring together the seemingly opposing worldviews of Christianity and tragedy. While some would contest that tragedy has no place in Christianity, Milton observed the tragedy in Judges 12-16, and, as an astute student of human nature, imagined the emotions...

Raina and Sergius, the young aristrocratic couple in the play, seem to be very much in love. They talk and they behave like characters in a heroic romance. the gallant young hero, much like a knight in a romance, dedicates his millitary achievements to his...

Contemporary drama is revolved around current problems or issues within society. It is relevant to the era that was composed in attempted to relate with the audiences. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw and The Lion and The Jewel by Wole Soyinka are popular contemporary drama...

The question I am setting out to answer the question of why ‘television dramas about schools and schooling are more than entertainment. Discuss, using examples’ and so this essay will set out to analyze the number of programmes and movies that are shown regularly on...

In “Lady Bird” Greta Gerwig tells a coming-of-age story centering around a catholic high school senior in Sacramento, set during the 2002-2003 school year. But what’s most significant about “Lady Bird” is the details in which the story was created. Not a single line or...

The theatre production that the audience viewed was Jasper Jones, presented by the State Theatre Company South Australia and Flinders University. Based on the book by Craig Silvey, and adapted by Kate Mulvany. The style of the performance was a combination of both Naturalism (Stanislavski),...

Journey’s End’ by R.C, Sherriff was written in the late 1920s when attitudes towards the First World War began to change and people began to realise the horrors of the war and face them. This play offers different view than most about the commanding officers...

Henrik Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People” is a great drama that challenges political ideas such as democracy. Throughout the play, Ibsen dissects how democracy can be exploited and how dehumanizing it can be. It is amazing how Ibsen tackled it by using Dr. Stockmann...

Brecht’s source for the play “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” evolves from the play that he saw in Berlin: Li Qianfu’s medieval Chinese play “The Circle of Chalk” in an adaptation by the German poet Klabund. Brecht wrote the play during the World War II in...

There is something inherently cathartic, inherently exciting about the ‘travel literature’ genre that emerged in the later 17th and early 18 th centuries. The lands viewed were never accurately depicted; instead, the author would embellish local details and cultures to bring the reader into unexplored...

In the memoir, The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, she reflects back on her indigent and malnourished life. Due to unfortunate circumstances, Jeannette never had a real childhood and was forced to mature at a very young age. Constantly moving from city to city because...

The parallel and overall relation of time is a phenomenon that has been explored from both creative and philosophical perspectives. By forming a connection between the impacts of action, in hand with the various possible outcomes, Tom Stoppard creates a dramatic piece that challenges the...

Taming of the Shrew and 10 Thing I Hate About You are two very similar films. One just so happens to be made in 1967 and the other in 1999. The characters in 10 things are put in a number of indistinguishable situations to those...

Who knew that wearing a flashy suit was capable of completely change one’s cultural identity? Zoot Suit is a play written by Luis Valdez that demonstrates the Trial of the Sleepy Lagoon Case of 1942 in which the courts charged a group of “Pachucos” with...

Some stories depend more heavily on their environment to advance their plots and themes than others. Such is the case with Juno and the Paycock by Sean O’Casey. The play follows the plight of a working class family in Ireland during the civil war that...

Women’s roles in film are changing significantly as a way to reflect society’s changing attitude towards them. This is beautifully illustrated in the film House of Flying Daggers, where the director, Zhang Yimou, portrays the changing roles of women, in this Chinese Wuxi martial-arts action-adventure...

Bertolt Brecht is regarded as one of the most important figures of twentieth century. He was born in Bavaria in the year 1898.He brought a great transformation in the traditional literary and theatrical form, through his ‘epic theatre’. He attempted to bring a revolutionary change...