The history of theatre charts the development of theatre over the past 2,500 years.

While performative elements are present in every society, it is customary to acknowledge a distinction between theatre as anart form and entertainment and theatrical or performative elements in other activities. The history of theatre is primarily concerned with the origin and subsequent development of the theatre as an autonomous activity. Since classical Athens in the 6th century BCE, vibrant traditions of theatre have flourished in cultures across the world.[1]
Contents
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o o o o o o o o o o o o o

1 Origins 2 Western tradition 2.1 Greek theatre 2.2 Roman theatre 2.3 Medieval European theatre 2.4 Commedia dell'arte 2.5 Renaissance theatre 2.6 Restoration comedy 2.7 Restoration spectacular 2.8 Neoclassical theatre 2.9 Nineteenth-century theatre 2.10 Twentieth-century theatre 3 African Theatre 3.1 Ancient Egyptian quasi-theatrical events 3.2 Yoruba theatre 4 Asian theatre 4.1 Indian theatre

4.1.1 Overview of Indian theatre 4.1.2 Sanskrit theatre 4.1.3 Rural Indian theatre 4.1.4 Kathakali 4.1.5 Modern Indian theatre

o o o o o

4.2 Chinese theatre 4.2.1 Shang theatre 4.2.2 Tang theatre 4.2.3 Sung and Yuan theatre 4.3 Thai theatre 4.4 Khmer and Malay theatre 4.5 Japanese theatre 4.5.1 Noh 4.5.2 Bunraku 4.5.3 Kabuki 4.5.4 Butoh

5 Middle-Eastern theatre 5.1 Medieval Islamic theatre 6 See also 7 Notes 8 Sources 9 External links

[edit]Origins

The most widely accepted theory on the origin of western theatre is that it arose out of myth and ritual.[2] This process can be summed up as follows: A society becomes conscious of forces that appear to sway or have power over its food supply and well being. Attributing these forces to supernatural or magical causes, they search for means to gain favour. Once an action is perceived as having a connection to desired results, the group repeats, refines and formalizes those actions into fixed ceremonies or rituals. Eventually those rituals come to include elements that entertain or give pleasure through spectacle and the skill of the performers.

Stories will then grow around rituals in order to explain their purpose. Performers begin to wear costumes and masks to represent certain mythical beings or supernatural forces. As time passes the group begins to abandon some rituals. The myths continue to shape the group's oral tradition and may come to be acted out under non-ritualistic conditions. If this occurs, the first steps towards theatre as an autonomous activity have been taken.
[3]

[edit]Western

tradition
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History of Western theatre

[edit]Greek

theatre

The best-preserved example of an classical Greek theatre, the Theatre of Epidaurus, has a circular orchstra and probably gives the best idea of the original shape of the Athenian theatre, though it dates from the 4th century BCE.[4]
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Classical Athenian drama

Main articles: Theatre of Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek comedy, and Satyr play Greek theatre, most developed in Athens, is the root of the Western tradition; theatre is in origin a Greek word. It was part of a broader culture of theatricality and performance in classical Greece that includedfestivals, religious rituals, politics, law, athletics and gymnastics, music, poetry, weddings, funerals, andsymposia.[5] Participation in the city-state's many festivalsand

attendance at the City Dionysia as an audience member (or even as a participant in the theatrical productions) in particularwas an important part of citizenship.[6] Civic participation also involved the evaluation of the rhetoric of orators evidenced in performances in the law-court or political assembly, both of which were understood as analagous to the theatre and increasingly came to absorb its dramatic vocabulary.[7] The theatre of ancient Greececonsisted of three types of drama: tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play.[8] Athenian tragedythe oldest surviving form of tragedyis a type of dance-drama that formed an important part of the theatrical culture of the city-state.[9] Having emerged sometime during the 6th century BCE, it flowered during the 5th century BCE (from the end of which it began to spread throughout the Greek world) and continued to be popular until the beginning of the Hellenistic period.[10] No tragedies from the 6th century and only 32 of the more than a thousand that were performed in during the 5th century have survived.[11] We have complete texts extant by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.[12] The origins of tragedy remain obscure, though by the 5th century it was institutionalised in competitions (agon) held as part of festivities celebrating Dionysos (the god of wine and fertility).[13] As contestants in the City Dionysia's competition (the most prestigious of the festivals to stage drama), playwrights were required to present a tetralogy of plays (though the individual works were not necessarily connected by story or theme), which usually consisted of three tragedies and one satyr play.[14] The performance of tragedies at the City Dionysia may have begun as early as 534 BCE; official records (didaskaliai) begin from 501 BCE, when the satyr play was introduced.[15] Most Athenian tragedies dramatise events from Greek mythology, though The Persianswhich stages the Persian response to news of their military defeat at the Battle of Salamis in 480 BCEis the notable exception in the surviving drama.[16] When Aeschylus won first prize for it at the City Dionysia in 472 BCE, he had been writing tragedies for more than 25 years, yet its tragic treatment of recent history is the earliest example of

drama to survive.[17]More than 130 years later, the philosopher Aristotle analysed 5th-century Athenian tragedy in the oldest surviving work of dramatic theoryhis Poetics (c. 335 BCE). Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods, "Old Comedy", "Middle Comedy", and "New Comedy". Old Comedy survives today largely in the form of the eleven surviving plays of Aristophanes, while Middle Comedy is largely lost (preserved only in relatively short fragments in authors such asAthenaeus of Naucratis). New Comedy is known primarily from the substantial papyrus fragments of plays by Menander. Aristotle defined comedy as a representation of laughable people that involves some kind of error or ugliness that does not cause pain or destruction.[18]
[edit]Roman

theatre

Roman theatre at Orange, France

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Roman and Byzantine theatre

Main article: Theatre of ancient Rome Western theatre developed and expanded considerably under the Romans. The Roman historian Livywrote that the Romans first experienced theatre in the 4th century BCE, with a performance by Etruscanactors.[19] Beacham argues that Romans had been familiar with "pre-theatrical practices" for some time before that recorded contact.[20] The theatre of ancient Rome was a thriving

and diverse art form, ranging from festival performances of street theatre, nude dancing, and acrobatics, to the staging of Plautus's broadly appealing situation comedies, to the high-style, verbally elaborate tragedies of Seneca. Although Rome had a native tradition of performance, the Hellenization of Roman culture in the 3rd century BCE had a profound and energizing effect on Roman theatre and encouraged the development of Latin literatureof the highest quality for the stage. Following the expansion of the Roman Republic (50927 BCE) into several Greek territories between 270240 BCE, Rome encountered Greek drama.[21] From the later years of the republic and by means of theRoman Empire (27 BCE-476 CE), theatre spread west across Europe, around the Mediterranean and reached England; Roman theatre was more varied, extensive and sophisticated than that of any culture before it.[22] While Greek drama continued to be performed throughout the Roman period, the year 240 BCE marks the beginning of regular Roman drama. [23] From the beginning of the empire, however, interest in fulllength drama declined in favour of a broader variety of theatrical entertainments.[24] The first important works of Roman literature were the tragedies and comedies that Livius Andronicus wrote from 240 BCE.[25] Five years later, Gnaeus Naeviusalso began to write drama.[25] No plays from either writer have survived. While both dramatists composed in both genres, Andronicus was most appreciated for his tragedies and Naevius for his comedies; their successors tended to specialise in one or the other, which led to a separation of the subsequent development of each type of drama. [25] By the beginning of the 2nd century BCE, drama was firmly established in Rome and a guild of writers (collegium poetarum) had been formed.[26] The Roman comedies that have survived are all fabula palliata (comedies based on Greek subjects) and come from two dramatists: Titus Maccius Plautus(Plautus) and Publius Terentius Afer (Terence).[27] In re-working the Greek originals, the Roman

comic dramatists abolished the role of the chorus in dividing the drama into episodes and introduced musical accompaniment to its dialogue (between one-third of the dialogue in the comedies of Plautus and two-thirds in those of Terence).[28] The action of all scenes is set in the exterior location of a street and its complications often follow from eavesdropping.[28] Plautus, the more popular of the two, wrote between 205 and 184 BCE and twenty of his comedies survive, of which his farces are best known; he was admired for the wit of his dialogue and his use of a variety of poetic meters.[29] All of the six comedies that Terence wrote between 166 and 160 BCE have survived; the complexity of his plots, in which he often combined several Greek originals, was sometimes denounced, but his double-plots enabled a sophisticated presentation of contrasting human behaviour.[29] No early Roman tragedy survives, though it was highly regarded in its day; historians know of three early tragediansQuintus Ennius, Marcus Pacuvius and Lucius Accius.[28] From the time of the empire, the work of two tragedians survivesone is an unknown author, while the other is the Stoic philosopher Seneca. [30] Nine of Seneca's tragedies survive, all of which are fabula crepidata (tragedies adapted from Greek originals); his Phaedra, for example, was based on Euripides'Hippolytus.[31] Historians do not know who wrote the only extant example of the fabula praetexta (tragedies based on Roman subjects), Octavia, but in former times it was mistakenly attributed to Seneca due to his appearance as a character in the tragedy.[30]
[edit]Medieval

European theatre

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Stage drawing from 15th-century vernacular morality playThe Castle of Perseverance.

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Medieval theatre

Main article: Medieval theatre In Europe in the courts of royalty and the aristocracy, scripted reenactments of the Arthurian legends and other romances, usually associated with jousting or tournaments, were popular the early 13th century and remained so until the middle of the 14th. By the 16th century, the practice had developed into staged theatrical events.[32] In the Middle Ages, after the fall of the Roman Empire, cities were abandoned and southern and western Europe became increasingly more agricultural. After several hundred years, towns re-emerged. TheRoman Catholic church dominated religion, education and often politics. Theatre was reborn as liturgical dramas performed by priests or church members. Then came vernacular drama spoken in the "vulgar tongues" (the language of the people as opposed to Church Latin); this was a more elaborate series ofoneact dramas enacted in town squares or other parts of the city.

There were three types of vernacular dramas. Mystery or cycle plays, such as the York Mystery Plays or Wakefield Cycle, were series of short dramas based on the Old Testament and New Testament organized into historical cycles. Miracle plays dealt with the lives of saints. Morality plays taught a lesson through allegorical characters representing virtues or faults. Plays were staged in "mansions" or in wagon stages, which were platforms mounted on wheels used to move scenery. Often providing their own costumes, amateur performers in England were exclusively male, but other countries had female performers. The platform stage, which was an unidentified space and not a specific locale, allowed for abrupt changes in location. Among the more notable religious plays were "The Summoning of Everyman" (an allegory designed to teach the faithful that acts of Christian charity are necessary for entry into heaven), passion plays, and the great cycle plays (massive, festive wagon-mounted processions involving hundreds of actors, and drawing pilgrims, tourists, and entrepreneurs). Since many of the more theatrically successful medieval plays were designed to teach Catholic doctrine, the Protestant Reformation targeted the English Renaissance theatre, in an effort to stamp out allegiance to Rome.[33] Whereas most churches carefully watched over the scripts of their dogmatic plays (in order to ensure that the faithful were being taught the accepted doctrine), by the end of the 16th century Queen Elizabeth I controlled the stage just as effectively through a system of patronage, licensing, and censorship. Hamlet's reference to a frenetic performance that "out-Herods Herod" refers to the tradition of presenting King Herod as a bombastic figure, suggesting that Shakespeare expected his audience to be familiar with this particular medieval tradition.
[edit]Commedia

dell'arte

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The greedy, high-status Pantalonecommedia dell'artemasked character.

Main article: Commedia dell'arte Commedia dell'arte troupes performed lively improvisational playlets across Europe for centuries. It originated in Italy in the 1560s.Commedia dell'arte was an actor-centred theatre, requiring little scenery and very few props. Plays did not originate from written drama but from scenarios called lazzi, which were loose frameworks that provided the situations, complications, and outcome of the action, around which the actors would improvise. The plays utilised stock characters, which could be divided into three groups: the lovers, the masters, and the servants. The lovers had different names and characteristics in most plays and often were the children of the master. The role of master was normally based on one of three stereotypes: Pantalone, an elderly Venetian merchant; Dottore, Pantalone's friend or rival, a pedantic doctor or lawyer who acted far more intelligent than he really was; and Capitano, who was once a lover character, but evolved into a braggart who boasted of his exploits in love and war, but was often terrifically unskilled in both. He normally carried a sword and wore a cape and feathered headdress. The servant character (called zanni) had only one recurring role: Arlecchino (also calledHarlequin). He was both cunning and ignorant, but an accomplished dancer and acrobat. He typically carried a wooden stick with a split in the middle so it made a loud noise when striking something. This "weapon" gave us the term "slapstick".

A troupe typically consisted of 13 to 14 members. Most actors were paid by taking a share of the play's profits roughly equivalent to the size of their role. The style of theatre was in its peak from 1575 1650, but even after that time new scenarios were written and performed. The Venecian playwright Carlo Goldoni wrote a few scenarios starting in 1734, but since he considered the genre too vulgar, he refined the topics of his own to be more sophisticated. He also wrote several plays based on real events, in which he included commediacharacters.
[edit]Renaissance

theatre

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A 1596 sketch of a performance in progress on the thrust stage of The Swan, a typical Elizabethan open-roof playhouse.

Main article: English Renaissance theatre Renaissance theatre derived from several medieval theatre traditions, such as the mystery plays that formed a part of religious festivals in England and other parts of Europe during the Middle Ages. Other sources include the "morality plays" and the "University drama" that attempted to recreate Athenian tragedy. The Italian tradition of Commedia dell'arte, as well as the elaborate masques frequently presented at court, also contributed to the shaping of public theatre.

Since before the reign of Elizabeth I, companies of players were attached to households of leading aristocrats and performed seasonally in various locations. These became the foundation for the professional players that performed on the Elizabethan stage. The tours of these players gradually replaced the performances of the mystery and morality plays by local players, and a 1572 law eliminated the remaining companies lacking formal patronage by labelling themvagabonds. The City of London authorities were generally hostile to public performances, but its hostility was overmatched by the Queen's taste for plays and the Privy Council's support. Theatres sprang up in suburbs, especially in the liberty of Southwark, accessible across the Thames to city dwellers but beyond the authority's control. The companies maintained the pretence that their public performances were mere rehearsals for the frequent performances before the Queen, but while the latter did grant prestige, the former were the real source of the income for the professional players. Along with the economics of the profession, the character of the drama changed toward the end of the period. Under Elizabeth, the drama was a unified expression as far as social class was concerned: the Court watched the same plays the commoners saw in the public playhouses. With the development of the private theatres, drama became more oriented toward the tastes and values of an upper-class audience. By the later part of the reign of Charles I, few new plays were being written for the public theatres, which sustained themselves on the accumulated works of the previous decades.[34] Puritan opposition to the stage (informed by the arguments of the early Church Fathers who had written screeds against the decadent and violent entertainments of the Romans) argued not only that the stage in general was pagan, but that any play that represented a religious figure was inherently idolatrous. In 1642, at the outbreak of the English Civil War, the Protestant authorities banned the performance of all plays within the city limits of London.

A sweeping assault against the alleged immoralities of the theatre crushed whatever remained in England of the dramatic tradition.
[edit]Restoration

comedy

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Main article: Restoration comedy

Refinement meets burlesque inRestoration comedy. In this scene fromGeorge Etherege's Love in a Tub (1664), musicians and well-bred ladies surround a man who is wearing a tub because he has lost his trousers.

English comedies written and performed in the Restoration period from 1660 to 1710 are collectively called "Restoration comedy". After public stage performances had been banned for 18 years by the Puritan regime, the re-opening of thetheatres in 1660 signalled a renaissance of English drama. Restoration comedy is notorious for its sexual explicitness, a quality encouraged by Charles II (16601685) personally and by the rakish aristocratic ethos of his court. The socially diverse audiences included both aristocrats, their servants and hangers-on, and a substantial middle-class segment. These playgoers were attracted to the comedies by upto-the-minute topical writing, by crowded and bustling plots, by the introduction of the first professional actresses, and by the rise of the first celebrity actors. This period saw the first professional woman playwright, Aphra Behn.
[edit]Restoration

spectacular

Main article: Restoration spectacular

The Restoration spectacular, or elaborately staged "machine play", hit the London public stage in the late 17thcenturyRestoration period, enthralling audiences with action, music, dance, moveable scenery, baroque illusionistic painting, gorgeous costumes, and special effects such as trapdoor tricks, "flying" actors, and fireworks. These shows have always had a bad reputation as a vulgar and commercial threat to the witty, "legitimate" Restoration drama; however, they drew Londoners in unprecedented numbers and left them dazzled and delighted. Basically home-grown and with roots in the early 17thcentury court masque, though never ashamed of borrowing ideas and stage technology from French opera, the spectaculars are sometimes called "English opera". However, the variety of them is so untidy that most theatre historians despair of defining them as a genre at all.[35] Only a handful of works of this period are usually accorded the term "opera", as the musical dimension of most of them is subordinate to the visual. It was spectacle and scenery that drew in the crowds, as shown by many comments in the diary of the theatre-lover Samuel Pepys.[36] The expense of mounting ever more elaborate scenic productions drove the two competing theatre companies into a dangerous spiral of huge expenditure and correspondingly huge losses or profits. A fiasco such as John Dryden'sAlbion and Albanius would leave a company in serious debt, while blockbusters like Thomas Shadwell's Psyche or Dryden's King Arthur would put it comfortably in the black for a long time.[37]
[edit]Neoclassical

theatre

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Further information: Neoclassicism

An 18th-century Neoclassical theatre inOstankino, Moscow

Neoclassicism was the dominant form of theatre in the 18th century. It demanded decorum and rigorous adherence to the classical unities. Neoclassical theatre as well as the time period is characterized by its grandiosity. The costumes and scenery were intricate and elaborate. The acting is characterized by large gestures and melodrama. Neoclassical theater encompasses the Restoration, Augustan, and Johnstinian Ages. In one sense, the neo-classical age directly follows the time of the Renaissance. Theatres of the early 18th century sexual farces of the Restoration were superseded by politically satirical comedies, 1737 Parliament passed the Stage Licensing Act which introduced state censorship of public performances and limited the number of theatres in London to just two.
[edit]Nineteenth-century

theatre

Main article: Nineteenth-century theatre Theatre in the 19th century is divided into two parts: early and late. The early period was dominated by melodrama andRomanticism. Beginning in France after the theatre monopolies were abolished in 1791 during the French Revolution, melodrama became the most popular theatrical form. Although monopolies and subsidies were reinstated under Napoleon, it continued to be extremely popular and brought in larger audiences than the statesponsored drama and operas. Although melodrama can can be traced back to classical Greece, the term mlodrame did not appear until 1766 and only became popular after 1800. August von Kotzebue's Misanthropy and Repentance (1789) is often

considered the first melodramatic play. The plays of Kotzebue andRen Charles Guilbert de Pixrcourt established melodrama as the dominant dramatic form of the early 19th century.[38] David Grimsted, in his book Melodrama Unveiled (1968), argues that: Its conventions were false, its language stilted and commonplace, its characters stereotypes, and its morality and theology gross simplifications. Yet its appeal was great and understandable. It took the lives of common people seriously and paid much respect to their superior purity and wisdom. [...] And its moral parable struggled to reconcile social fears and life's awesomeness with the period's confidence in absolute moral standards, man's upward progress, and a benevolent providence that insured the triumph of the pure.[39] In Germany, there was a trend toward historic accuracy in costumes and settings, a revolution in theatre architecture, and the introduction of the theatrical form ofGerman Romanticism. Influenced by trends in 19th-century philosophy and the visual arts, German writers were increasingly fascinated with their Teutonic past and had a growing sense of nationalism. The plays of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, and other Sturm und Drangplaywrights, inspired a growing faith in feeling and instinct as guides to moral behavior. Romantics borrowed from the philosophy of Immanuel Kant to formulate the theoretical basis of "Romantic" art. According to Romantics, art is of enormous significance because it gives eternal truths a concrete, material form that the limited human sensory apparatus may apprehend. Among those who called themselves Romantics during this period, August Wilhelm Schlegel and Ludwig Tieck were the most deeply concerned with theatre.[40] After a time, Romanticism was adopted in France with the plays of Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Alfred de Musset, andGeorge Sand. By the 1840s, however, enthusiasm for Romantic drama had faded in France and a new "Theatre of Common Sense" replaced it.

In Russia, Aleksandr Griboyedov, Alexander Pushkin, and Nikolai Polevoy were the most accomplished playwrights. As elsewhere, Russia was dominated by melodrama and musical theatre. More realistic drama began to emerge with the plays of Nikolai Gogol and the acting of Mikhail Shchepkin. Under close government supervision, the Russian theatre expanded considerably. Prince Alexander Shakhovskoy opened state theatres and training schools, attempted to raise the level of Russian production after a trip to Paris, and put in place regulations for governing troupes that remained in effect until 1917.
[41]

Edward George Bulwer-Lytton.

In Britain, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron were the most important dramatists of their time (although Shelley's plays were not performed until later in the century). In the minor theatres, burletta and melodrama were the most popular. Kotzebue's plays were translated into English and Thomas Holcroft's A Tale of Mystery was the first of many English melodramas. Pierce Egan,Douglas William Jerrold, Edward Fitzball, and John Baldwin Buckstone initiated a trend towards more contemporary and rural stories in preference to the usual historical or fantastical melodramas. James Sheridan Knowles and Edward George Bulwer-Lytton established a "gentlemanly" drama that began to re-establish the former prestige of the theatre with the aristocracy.[42]

In the United States, Philadelphia was the dominant theatrical centre until 1815. Thomas Wignell established the Chestnut Street Theatre and gathered a group of actors that included William Warren and Thomas Abthorpe Cooper (who later was considered the leading actor in North America). In its infancy, playwrights such as Royall Tyler, William Dunlap, and John Howard Payne laid the foundations for a native drama. Professional theatre was first established in the west in 1815 when Samuel Drake (1769-1854) took a company down the Ohio River and established a circuit that included Lexington, Louisville, and Frankfort. The later period of the 19th century saw the rise of two conflicting types of drama: realism and non-realism, such as Symbolismand precursors of Expressionism. Realism began in Russia much earlier than it did in the rest of Europe. Realism began earlier in the 19th century in Russia than elsewhere in Europe and took a more uncompromising form.[43]Beginning with the plays of Ivan Turgenev (who used "domestic detail to reveal inner turmoil"), Aleksandr Ostrovsky (who was Russia's first professional playwright), Aleksey Pisemsky (whose A Bitter Fate (1859) anticipated Naturalism), and Leo Tolstoy (whose The Power of Darkness(1886) is "one of the most effective of naturalistic plays"), a tradition of psychological realism in Russia culminated with the establishment of the Moscow Art Theatre by Konstantin Stanislavski and Vladimir NemirovichDanchenko.[44] Ostrovsky is often credited with creating a peculiarly Russian drama. His plays Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man (1868) and The Storm (1859) draw on the life that he knew best, that of the middle class. Other important Russian playwrights of the 19th century include Alexander Sukhovo-Kobylin and Mikhail Saltikov-Shchedrin. In Germany, drama entered a state of decline from which it did not recover until the 1890s. The major playwrights of the period were Otto Ludwig and Gustav Freytag. The lack of new dramatists was not keenly felt because the plays of Shakespeare, Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller were prominent in the repertory. The most

important theatrical force in later 19th-century Germany was that of Georg II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen and his Meiningen Ensemble, under the direction ofLudwig Chronegk. The Ensemble's productions are often considered the most historically accurate of the 19th century, although his primary goal was to serve the interests of the playwright. The Ensemble's productions utilised detailed, historically accurate costumes and furniture, something that was unprecedented in Europe at the time. The Meiningen Ensemble stands at the beginning of the new movement toward unified production (or what Richard Wagner would call theGesamtkunstwerk) and the rise of the director (at the expense of the actor) as the dominant artist in theatre-making.[45]

Richard Wagner's Bayreuth Festival Theatre.

Richard Wagner (1813-1883) rejected the contemporary trend toward realism and argued that the dramatist should be amyth maker who portrays an ideal world through the expression of inner impulses and aspirations of a people. Wagner used music to defeat performers' personal whims. The melody and tempo of music allowed him to have greater personal control over performance than he would with spoken drama. As with the Meininger Ensemble, Wagner believed that theauthor-composer should supervise every aspect of production to unify all the elements into a "master art work."[46]Wagner also introduced a new type of auditorium that abolished the side boxes, pits, and galleries that were a prominent feature of most European theatres and replaced them with a 1,745 seat fan-shaped auditorium that was 50 feet wide at the proscenium and 115 feet at the rear. This allowed every seat in the auditorium to enjoy a full view of the stage and meant that there were no "good" seats.

In France, the "well-made play" of Eugene Scribe became popular with playwrights. Its structure was employed by realist playwrights Alexandre Dumas, fils, Emile Augier, and Victorien Sardou. Sardou was one of the world's most popular playwrights between 1860 and 1900. He adapted the well-made play to every dramatic type, from comedies to historical spectacles. George Bernard Shaw thought that Sardou's plays epitomized the decadence and mindlessness into which the late 19th-century theatre had descended, a state that he labeled "Sardoodledom". Naturalism, a theatrical movement born out of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species (1859) and contemporary political and economic conditions, found its main proponent in mile Zola. His essay "Naturalism in the Theatre" (1881) argued that poetry is everywhere instead of in the past or abstraction: "There is more poetry in the little apartment of a bourgeoisthan in all the empty worm-eaten palaces of history." The realisation of Zola's ideas was hindered by a lack of capable dramatists writing naturalist drama. Andr Antoine emerged in the 1880s with his Thtre Librethat was only open to members and therefore was exempt from censorship. He quickly won the approval of Zola and began to stage Naturalistic works and other foreign realistic pieces. Antoine was unique in his set design as he built sets with the "fourth wall" intact, only deciding which wall to remove later. The most important French playwrights of this period were given first hearing by Antoine including Georges PortoRiche, Franois de Curel, and Eugne Brieux.[47]

Henrik Ibsen, the "father" of modern drama.

In Britain, melodramas, light comedies, operas, Shakespeare and classic English drama, Victorian burlesque,pantomimes, translations of French farces and, from the 1860s, French operettas, continued to be popular. The most successful dramatists were James Planch and Dion Boucicault, whose penchant for making the latest scientific inventions important elements in his plots exerted considerable influence on theatrical production. T. W. Robertson wrote popular domestic comedies and introduced a more naturalistic style of acting and stagecraft to the British stage in the 1860s. So successful were the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, such as H.M.S. Pinafore (1878) and The Mikado(1885), that they greatly expanded the audience for musical theatre. [48] This, together with much improved street lighting and transportation in London and New York led to a late Victorian and Edwardian theatre building boom in the West End and on Broadway. Later, the work of Henry Arthur Jones and Arthur Wing Pinero initiated a new direction on the English stage. While their work paved the way, the development of more significant drama owes itself most to the playwrightHenrik Ibsen. Ibsen was born in Norway in 1828. He wrote twenty-five plays, the most famous of which are A Doll's House (1879),Ghosts (1881), The Wild Duck (1884), and Hedda Gabler (1890). A Doll's House and Ghosts shocked conservatives: Nora's departure in A Doll's House was viewed as an attack on family and home, while the allusions to venereal disease and sexual misconduct in Ghosts were considered deeply offensive to standards of public decency. Ibsen refined Scribe's well-made play formula to make it more fitting to the realistic style. He provided a model for writers of the realistic school. In addition, his worksRosmersholm (1886) and When We Dead Awaken (1899) evoke a sense of mysterious forces at work in human destiny, which was the be a major theme ofsymbolism and the so-called "Theatre of the Absurd".

After Ibsen, British theatre experienced revitalization with the work of George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, John Galsworthy, William Butler Yeats, and Harley Granville Barker. Unlike most of the gloomy and intensely serious work of their contemporaries, Shaw and Wilde wrote primarily in the comic form. Edwardian musical comedies were extremely popular, appealing to the tastes of the middle class in the Gay Nineties[49] and catering to the public's preference for escapist entertainment during World War I. Several important technical innovations were introduced between 1875 and 1914. First gas lighting and then electric lights, introduced in London's Savoy Theatre in 1881, replaced candle light. The elevator stage was first installed in the Budapest Opera House in 1884. This allowed entire sections of the stage to be raised, lowered, or tilted to give depth and levels to the scene. The revolving stage was introduced to Europe by Karl Lautenschlger at the Residenz Theatre, Munich in 1896.
[edit]Twentieth-century

theatre

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This section requires expansion.

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Modern drama

See also: Twentieth-century theatre, Timeline of twentieth-century theatre, and Musical theatre While much 20th-century theatre continued and extended the projects of realism and Naturalism, there was also a great deal of experimental theatre that rejected those conventions. These experiments form part of the modernist and postmodernist movements and included forms of political theatre as well as more aesthetically-orientated work. Examples include: Epic theatre, the Theatre of Cruelty, and the socalled "Theatre of the Absurd".

The term theatre practitioner came to be used to describe someone who both creates theatrical performances and who produces a theoretical discourse that informs their practical work. [50] A theatre practitioner may be a director, a dramatist, an actor, or characteristicallyoften a combination of these traditionallyseparate roles. "Theatre practice" describes the collective work that various theatre practitioners do.[51] It is used to describe theatre praxis from Konstantin Stanislavski's development of his 'system', through Vsevolod Meyerhold's biomechanics, Bertolt Brecht's epic and Jerzy Grotowski's poor theatre, down to the present day, with contemporary theatre practitioners including Augusto Boal with his Theatre of the Oppressed, Dario Fo's popular theatre, Eugenio Barba's theatre anthropology and Anne Bogart's viewpoints.[52] Other key figures of 20th-century theatre include: Antonin Artaud, August Strindberg, Anton Chekhov, Frank Wedekind, Maurice Maeterlinck, Federico Garca Lorca, Eugene O'Neill, Luigi Pirandello, George Bernard Shaw, Ernst Toller, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Jean Genet, Eugne Ionesco,Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Friedrich Drrenmatt, Heiner Mller, and Caryl Churchill. A number of aesthetic movements continued or emerged in the 20th century, including:

Naturalism Realism Dadaism Expressionism Surrealism and the Theatre of Cruelty Theatre of the Absurd Postmodernism

After the great popularity of the British Edwardian musical comedies, the American musical theatre came to dominate the musical stage, beginning with thePrincess Theatre musicals,

followed by the works of the Gershwin brothers, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart, and later Rodgers and Hammerstein.
[edit]African [edit]Ancient

Theatre
Egyptian quasi-theatrical events

The earliest recorded quasi-theatrical event dates back to 2000 BCE with the "passion plays" of Ancient Egypt. This story of the god Osiris was performed annually at festivals throughout the civilization.
[edit]Yoruba

theatre

See also: Yoruba literature In his pioneering study of Yoruba theatre, Joel Adedeji traced its origins to the masquerade of the Egungun (the "cult of the ancestor").[53] The traditional rite is controlled exclusively by men and culminates in a masquerade in which ancestors return to the world of the living to visit their descendants.[54] In addition to its origin in ritual, Yoruba theatre can be "traced to the 'theatrogenic' nature of a number of the deities in the Yoruba pantheon, such as Obatala the god of creation,Ogun the god of creativeness and Sango the god of lightning", whose worship is imbricated "with drama and theatre and their symbolic and psychological uses."[55] The Alrnj theatrical tradition sprang from the Egungun masquerade. The Alrnj was a troupe of traveling performers who were masked (as were the participants in the Egungun rite). They created short, satirical scenes that drew on a number of established stereotypical characters. Their performances utilisedmime, music and acrobatics. The Alrnj tradition influenced the Yoruba traveling theatre, which was the most prevalent and highly developed form of theatre inNigeria from the 1950s to the 1980s. In the 1990s, the Yoruba traveling theatre moved into television and film and now gives live performances only rarely.[56]

"Total theatre" also developed in Nigeria in the 1950s. It utilised non-Naturalistic techniques, surrealistic physical imagery, and exercised a flexibile use of language. Playwrights writing in the mid 1970s made use of some of these techniques, but articulated them with "a radical appreciation of the problems of society."[57] Traditional performance modes have strongly influenced the major figures in contemporary Nigerian theatre. The work of Hubert Ogunde (sometimes referred to as the "father of contemporary Yoruban theatre") was informed by the Alrnj tradition and Egungun masquerades.[58] Wole Soyinka, who is "generally recognized as Africa's greatest living playwright", gives the god Ogun a complex metaphysical significance in his work.[59] In his essay "The Fourth Stage" (1973), Soyinka argues that "no matter how strongly African authors call for an indigenous tragic art form, they smuggle into their dramas, through the back door of formalistic and ideological predilections, typically conventional Western notions and practices of rendering historical events into tragedy."[60] He contrasts Yoruban drama withclassical Athenian drama, relating both to the 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's analysis of the latter in The Birth of Tragedy (1872). Ogun, he argues, is "a totality of the Dionysian, Apollonian and Promethean virtues."[61] He develops an aesthetic of Yoruban tragedy based, in part, on the Yoruban religiouspantheon (including Ogun and Obatala).[62]
[edit]Asian

theatre

Mani Damodara Chakyar as King Udayana in Bhasa'sSwapnavasavadattam Koodiyattam-the only surving ancient Sanskrit theatre.

[edit]Indian

theatre

[edit]Overview of Indian theatre

Main article: Theatre in India The earliest form of Indian theatre was the Sanskrit theatre.[63] It emerged sometime between the 2nd century BCE and the 1st century CE and flourished between the 1st century CE and the 10th, which was a period of relative peace in the history of India during which hundreds of plays were written.[64] With the Islamic conquests that began in the 10th and 11th centuries, theatre was discouraged or forbidden entirely.[65] Later, in an attempt to re-assert indigenous values and ideas, village theatre was encouraged across the subcontinent, developing in a large number of regional languages from the 15th to the 19th centuries. [66] Modern Indian theatre developed during the period of colonial rule under the British Empire, from the mid-19th century until the mid-20th.[67]
[edit]Sanskrit theatre

Main article: Sanskrit drama See also: Koodiyattam

The earliest-surviving fragments of Sanskrit drama date from the 1st century CE.[68] The wealth of archeological evidence from earlier periods offers no indication of the existence of a tradition of theatre.[69] The ancient Vedas (hymns from between 1500 to 1000 BCE that are among the earliest examples of literature in the world) contain no hint of it (although a small number are composed in a form of dialogue) and the rituals of the Vedic period do not appear to have developed into theatre. [70] The Mahbhya by Patajali contains the earliest reference to what may have been the seeds of Sanskrit drama.[71] This treatise on grammar from 140 BCE provides a feasible date for the beginnings of theatre in India.[72] The major source of evidence for Sanskrit theatre is A Treatise on Theatre (Ntyastra), a compendium whose date of composition is uncertain (estimates range from 200 BCE to 200 CE) and whose authorship is attributed to Bharata Muni. The Treatise is the most complete work of dramaturgy in the ancient world. It addresses acting, dance, music, dramatic construction, architecture, costuming, make-up, props, the organisation of companies, the audience, competitions, and offers a mythological account of the origin of theatre.[73] In doing so, it provides indications about the nature of actual theatrical practices. Sanskrit theatre was performed on sacred ground by priests who had been trained in the necessary skills (dance, music, and recitation) in a [hereditary process]. Its aim was both to educate and to entertain. Under the patronage of royal courts, performers belonged to professional companies that were directed by a stage manager (sutradhara), who may also have acted.[74] This task was thought of as being analogous to that of a puppeteer--the literal meaning of "sutradhara" is "holder of the strings or threads".[75] The performers were trained rigorously in vocal and physical technique.[76] There were no prohibitions against female performers; companies were all-male, all-female, and of mixed gender. Certain sentiments were considered inappropriate for men to enact, however, and were

thought better suited to women. Some performers played character their own age, while others played those different to their own (whether younger or older). Of all the elements of theatre, the Treatise gives most attention to acting (abhinaya), which consists of two styles: realistic (lokadharmi) and conventional (natyadharmi), though the major focus is on the latter.[77] Its drama is regarded as the highest achievement of Sanskrit literature.[78] It utilised stock characters, such as the hero (nayaka), heroine (nayika), or clown (vidusaka). Actors may have specialised in a particular type. Klidsa in the 1st century BCE, is arguably considered to be ancient India's greatest Sanskrit dramatist. Three famous romantic plays written by Klidsa are the Mlavikgnimitram (Mlavik and Agnimitra), Vikramuurvashiiya (Pertaining to Vikrama and Urvashi), and Abhijnakuntala (The Recognition of Shakuntala). The last was inspired by a story in the Mahabharata and is the most famous. It was the first to be translated into English and German. akuntal (in English translation) influenced Goethe's Faust (1808-1832).[79] The next great Indian dramatist was Bhavabhuti (c. 7th century CE). He is said to have written the following three plays: MalatiMadhava, Mahaviracharita and Uttar Ramacharita. Among these three, the last two cover between them the entire epic of Ramayana. The powerful Indian emperor Harsha (606-648) is credited with having written three plays: the comedy Ratnavali, Priyadarsika, and the Buddhist drama Nagananda.
[edit]Rural Indian theatre
This section requires expansion.

[edit]Kathakali

Main article: Kathakali Kathakali is a highly stylised classical Indian dance-drama noted for the attractive make-up of characters, elaborate costumes, detailed gestures, and well-defined body movements presented in

tune with the anchor playback music and complementary percussion. It originated in the country's present-day state of Kerala during the 17th century[80] and has developed over the years with improved looks, refined gestures and added themes besides more ornate singing and precise drumming.
[edit]Modern Indian theatre

Rabindranath Tagore, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, is probably India's best-known modern playwright.[81] His plays are written in Bengaliand include Chitra (Chitrangada, 1892), The King of the Dark Chamber (Raja, 1910), The Post Office (Dakghar, 1913), and Red Oleander (Raktakarabi, 1924).[82]
[edit]Chinese

theatre

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Main article: Chinese theatre

[edit]Shang theatre

There are references to theatrical entertainments in China as early as 1500 BC during the Shang Dynasty; they often involved music, clowning and acrobatic displays.
[edit]Tang theatre

Further information: Cantonese Opera The Tang Dynasty is sometimes known as 'The Age of 1000 Entertainments'. During this era, Emperor Xuanzong formed an acting school known as the Children of the Pear Garden to produce a form of drama that was primarily musical. During the Han Dynasty, shadow puppetry first emerged as a recognized form of theatre in China. There were two distinct forms of shadow puppetry, Cantonese southern and Pekingese northern. The two styles were differentiated by the method of making the puppets and the positioning of the rods on the puppets, as opposed to the type of play performed by the puppets. Both styles generally performed plays depicting great adventure and fantasy, rarely was this very stylized form of theatre used for political

propaganda. Cantonese shadow puppets were the larger of the two. They were built using thick leather which created more substantial shadows. Symbolic color was also very prevalent; a black face represented honesty, a red one bravery. The rods used to control Cantonese puppets were attached perpendicular to the puppets' heads. Thus, they were not seen by the audience when the shadow was created. Pekingese puppets were more delicate and smaller. They were created out of thin, translucent leather usually taken from the belly of a donkey. They were painted with vibrant paints, thus they cast a very colorful shadow. The thin rods which controlled their movements were attached to a leather collar at the neck of the puppet. The rods ran parallel to the bodies of the puppet then turned at a ninety degree angle to connect to the neck. While these rods were visible when the shadow was cast, they laid outside the shadow of the puppet; thus they did not interfere with the appearance of the figure. The rods attached at the necks to facilitate the use of multiple heads with one body. When the heads were not being used, they were stored in a muslin book or fabric lined box. The heads were always removed at night. This was in keeping with the old superstition that if left intact, the puppets would come to life at night. Some puppeteers went so far as to store the heads in one book and the bodies in another, to further reduce the possibility of reanimating puppets. Shadow puppetry is said to have reached its highest point of artistic development in the 11th century before becoming a tool of the government.
[edit]Sung and Yuan theatre

Further information: Beijing Opera In the Sung Dynasty, there were many popular plays involving acrobatics and music. These developed in the Yuan Dynasty into a more sophisticated form with a four or five act structure. Yuan drama spread across China and diversified into numerous regional forms, the best known of which is Beijing Opera, which is still popular today.

[edit]Thai

theatre

Further information: Ramakien In Thailand, it has been a tradition from the Middle Ages to stage plays based on plots drawn from Indian epics. In particular, the theatrical version of Thailand's national epic Ramakien, a version of the Indian Ramayana, remains popular in Thailand even today.
[edit]Khmer

and Malay theatre

In Cambodia, at the ancient capital Angkor Wat, stories from the Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata have been carved on the walls of temples and palaces. Similar reliefs are found at Borobudur in Indonesia.
[edit]Japanese [edit]Noh

theatre

Main article: Noh During the 14th century, there were small companies of actors in Japan who performed short, sometimes vulgar comedies. A director of one of these companies, Kan'ami (13331384), had a son, Zeami Motokiyo (13631443) who was considered one of the finest child actors in Japan. When Kan'ami's company performed forAshikaga Yoshimitsu (13581408), the Shogun of Japan, he implored Zeami to have a court education for his arts. After Zeami succeeded his father, he continued to perform and adapt his style into what is today Noh. A mixture of pantomime and vocal acrobatics, this style has fascinated the Japanese for hundreds of years.
[edit]Bunraku

Main article: Bunraku Japan, after a long period of civil wars and political disarray, was unified and at peace primarily due to shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616). However, alarmed at increasing Christian growth, he cut off contact from Japan to Europe and China and outlawed Christianity. When peace did come, a flourish of cultural influence and growing merchant class demanded its own entertainment. The first form of theatre to flourish was Ningy jruri (commonly

referred to as Bunraku). The founder of and main contributor to Ningy jruri, Chikamatsu Monzaemon (16531725), turned his form of theatre into a true art form. Ningy jruri is a highly stylized form of theatre using puppets, today about 1/3d the size of a human. The men who control the puppets train their entire lives to become master puppeteers, when they can then operate the puppet's head and right arm and choose to show their faces during the performance. The other puppeteers, controlling the less important limbs of the puppet, cover themselves and their faces in a black suit, to imply their invisibility. The dialogue is handled by a single person, who uses varied tones of voice and speaking manners to simulate different characters. Chikamatsu wrote thousands of plays during his lifetime, most of which are still used today.They wore masks instead of elaborate makeup.Masks define their gender,personality,and moods the actor is in.
[edit]Kabuki

Main article: Kabuki Kabuki began shortly after Bunraku, legend has it by an actress named Okuni, who lived around the end of the 16th century. Most of Kabuki's material came from N and Bunraku, and its erratic dance-type movements are also an effect of Bunraku. However, Kabuki is less formal and more distant than N, yet very popular among the Japanese public. Actors are trained in many varied things including dancing, singing, pantomime, and even acrobatics. Kabuki was first performed by young girls, then by young boys, and by the end of the 16th century, Kabuki companies consisted of all men. The men who portrayed women on stage were specifically trained to elicit the essence of a woman in their subtle movements and gestures.
[edit]Butoh

Gyohei Zaitsu performing Butoh.

Main article: Butoh Butoh is the collective name for a diverse range of activities, techniques and motivations for dance, performance, or movement inspired by the Ankoku-Butoh ( ankoku but?) movement. It typically involves playful and grotesque imagery, taboo topics, extreme or absurd environments, and is traditionally performed in white body makeup with slow hypercontrolled motion, with or without an audience. There is no set style, and it may be purely conceptual with no movement at all. Its origins have been attributed to Japanese dance legends Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno. Butoh appeared first in Japan following World War II and specifically after student riots. The roles of authority were now subject to challenge and subversion. It also appeared as a reaction against the contemporary dance scene in Japan, which Hijikata felt was based on the one hand on imitating the West and on the other on imitating the Noh. He critiqued the current state of dance as overly superficial.
[edit]Middle-Eastern [edit]Medieval

theatre

Islamic theatre

The most popular forms of theatre in the medieval Islamic world were puppet theatre (which included hand puppets, shadow plays and marionette productions) and live passion plays known as ta'ziya, in which actors re-enact episodes from Muslim history. In particular, Shia Islamic plays revolved around the shaheed(martyrdom) of Ali's sons Hasan ibn Ali and Husayn ibn Ali. Secular plays known as akhraja were recorded in

medieval adab literature, though they were less common than puppetry and ta'ziya theatre.[83]
[edit]