Essays on Drama

Bertolt Brecht wanted his works to revolutionise theatre’s bourgeois values and generate a social and political shift. As an influential dramatist, he developed a firm impression that theatre should make us; ‘think about power and the way our society works and it does this with...

The play, “The Good Woman of Setzuan” by Bertolt Brecht is a work of epic theatre and revolves around the life of the protagonist Shen Te, that consists of marked elements of façade and survival in the society and the gender norms. The play aims...

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a film that was released in 1958 and was directed by Richard Brooks. The movie was derived from a play with the same title written by Tennessee Williams, the renowned playwright. The movie centers around the tumultuous relationship...

In the play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Tennessee Williams advocates the view that denial of the truth surrounding one’s circumstances disrupts the relationship dynamic between that person and others around him or her. Williams develops this view of denial through describing the dysfunctional...

Drama is the most powerful move of communication. It is seen as a way to improve young our reading and vocabulary skills. Shakespeare was one of the main influencers of this. He created drama as a way of communication while still being creative and making...

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...

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...

In David Ives’s Sure Thing, disagreements are avoided with a ringing bell, which serves as a device to shape consensus and allows the couple to fall in love at the end. Both characters are quick to judge and come close to giving up on each...

The essay consists of three parts. The first part deals with the explanation of a 2009 movie sin Nombre which is basically a crime movie about a Mexican based gang while the second deals with the concepts about nationalism in the two articles while the...

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...

Susan Glasper, one of the major dramatists of the 20th century whose masterpiece “trivia” has always been considered a classic feminist drama. Although the performance of this one-act play was only half an hour, it described a thought-provoking murder case and analyzed the spiritual world...

Sean O’Casey’s drama Juno and the Paycock details the slow, painful degradation of the Boyle family in war-torn Ireland in the early 1920s. Juno remains strong and calm throughout the course of the play, even though she suffers from a drunkard, good-for-nothing husband, an illegitimately...

The story of birth and the early development of English Drama are complicated. It has passed various stages and transitions. There was no drama in English before the Norman Conquest. The bulk of old English writings were overshadowed by the influence of Latin Christianity. The...

The Seagull is a typical Chekhovian drama, part of a sub-genre which could be referred to as an “undramatic drama”. It has little plot, and most of the plot’s place is taken up by psychological portraits, lyricism, and a certain, truly ungraspable atmosphere, built up...

Wertenbaker wrote Our Country’s Good in order to depict a developmental process for the characters. Through the Howardian theory of redemption, by learning from each other, and by acting in their production of The Recruiting Officer, they transform into what Phillip calls “members of society...

In his play “Waiting for Lefty” Clifford Odets attempts to stir up the weary American public of the 1930s by providing examples of everyday people who, with some coaxing, rise above the capitalist mess they’ve inherited and take control of their destinies. In his work,...

In the opening sequence of The Pillow Book, a small Japanese girl sits before her father on her birthday while he paints on her face and the back of her neck with calligrapher’s ink. As he writes on her he chants in Japanese: “When God...

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...

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...

An apple pressed precariously to her blushed lips, Lula from Leroi Jones’ existential drama Dutchman is the epitome of temptation. She snakes around the train car, spying Clay and eventually driving him to his outburst late in the second scene. Clay’s speech is spontaneously provoked,...

What is Drama? There are a few definitions of drama but the most common is that drama is to revive a word, a concept, an experience, an event by developing games or games. It is a kind of literature which is written in poetic, narrative...

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...

Fear in Morality Plays and Hope in Mystery Plays Both morality plays and mystery plays had important messages that the church hoped to teach the people. One of the most well-known mystery plays was The Second Shepherds’ Play while the most infamous moral play was...

‘The roote of my desire Was vertue cladde in constant louse attire.’ (Arcadia, III) Attire and appearance lie at the heart of Sir Philip Sidney’s The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia, (or simply Arcadia) with the plot hinging on ideas of costume, shifting identity, and deceit;...

“The Flying Dutchman” is a nautical myth about a ghost ship fated to traverse the ocean waves for all eternity. The story is rooted in the legend of Hendrik van der Decken, a 17th-century Dutch Captain who dared to sail beyond the Cape of Good...

‘The Theatre of the Absurd’ has become a catch-phrase, much used and much abused. What does it stand for? And how can such a label be justified? Perhaps it will be best to attempt to answer the second question first. There is no organised movement,...

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...

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...

Mary Tyrone is fifty four year old women. She is wife of James Tyrone and mother of Edmund and Jamie Tyrone. She has a thin face with beautiful long lashes and the brown eyes. As far as her physical appearance is concerned, she is suffering...

Genre theory is used in the study of films in order to facilitate the categorization of films. Genre are dependent on various factors such as story line, whom the director is, what are the audience expectations et cetera. In using genre theory, we create a...