Greek theatre , has a circular
orchêstra and probably gives the best idea of the original shape of the Athenian theatre, though it dates from the 4th century BC. Greek theatre, most developed in Athens, is the root of the Western tradition;
theatre is a word of Greek origin. Participation in the city-state's many festivals—and attendance at the
City Dionysia as an audience member (or even as a participant in the theatrical productions) in particular—was an important part of
citizenship. 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 analogous to the theatre and increasingly came to absorb its dramatic vocabulary. The
theatre of ancient Greece consisted of three types of
drama:
tragedy,
comedy, and the
satyr play.
Athenian tragedy—the oldest surviving form of tragedy—is a type of
dance-drama that formed an important part of the theatrical culture of the city-state. Having emerged sometime during the 6th century BC, it flowered during the 5th century BC (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. 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. We have complete texts
extant by
Aeschylus,
Sophocles, and
Euripides. 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). 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. The performance of tragedies at the City Dionysia may have begun as early as 534 BC; official records (
didaskaliai) begin from 501 BC, when the satyr play was introduced. Most Athenian tragedies dramatise events from
Greek mythology, though
The Persians—which stages the
Persian response to news of their military defeat at the
Battle of Salamis in 480 BC—is the notable exception in the surviving drama. When Aeschylus won first prize for it at the City Dionysia in 472 BC, 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. More than 130 years later, the philosopher
Aristotle analysed 5th-century Athenian tragedy in the oldest surviving work of
dramatic theory—his
Poetics (c. 335 BC).
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 as
Athenaeus 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.
Greek theater in Magna Graecia ,
Sicily,
Magna Graecia, present-day
Italy The Greek colonists in
Southern Italy, the so-called
Magna Graecia, brought theatrical art from their motherland. The
Greek Theatre of Syracuse, the , the , the , the , the , the and the most famous
Greek Theater of Taormina, amply demonstrate this. Only fragments of original dramaturgical works are left, but the tragedies of the three great giants
Aeschylus,
Sophocles and
Euripides and the comedies of
Aristophanes are known. Some famous playwrights in the Greek language came directly from
Magna Graecia. Others, such as Aeschylus and
Epicharmus, worked for a long time in Sicily. Epicharmus can be considered Syracusan in all respects, having worked all his life with the
tyrants of Syracuse. His comedy preceded that of the more famous Aristophanes by staging the gods for the first time in comedy. While Aeschylus, after a long stay in the Sicilian colonies, died in Sicily in the colony of
Gela in 456 BC. Epicarmus and
Phormis, both of 6th century BC, are the basis, for
Aristotle, of the invention of the Greek comedy, as he says in his book on
Poetics: Other native dramatic authors of Magna Graecia, in addition to the Syracusan Formides mentioned, are
Achaeus of Syracuse,
Apollodorus of Gela,
Philemon of Syracuse and his son Philemon the younger. From
Calabria, precisely from the colony of
Thurii, came the playwright
Alexis. While
Rhinthon, although Sicilian from Syracuse, worked almost exclusively for the colony of
Taranto in
Apulia.
Italic theater ,
Italy The
Italic peoples such as the
Etruscans had already developed forms of theatrical literature. The legend, also reported by
Livy, speaks of a pestilence that had struck Rome, at the beginning, and the request for Etruscan historians. The Roman historian thus refused the filiation from the Greek theater before contacts with Magna Graecia and its theatrical traditions. There are no architectural and artistic testimonies of the Etruscan theater.
Roman theatre Western theatre developed and expanded considerably under the
Romans. The Roman historian
Livy wrote that the Romans first experienced theatre in the 4th century BC, with a performance by
Etruscan actors. Beacham argues that Romans had been familiar with "pre-theatrical practices" for some time before that recorded contact. 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 BC had a profound and energizing effect on Roman theatre and encouraged the development of
Latin literature of the highest quality for the stage. '' player (House of the Tragic Poet,
Pompeii). and
Comedy, Roman mosaic, 2nd century AD,
Capitoline Museums,
Rome Following the expansion of the
Roman Republic (509–27 BC) into several Greek territories between 270 and 240 BC, Rome encountered
Greek drama. From the later years of the republic and by means of the
Roman Empire (27 BC-476 AD), 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. While Greek drama continued to be performed throughout the Roman period, the year 240 BC marks the beginning of regular Roman drama. The first important works of
Roman literature were the tragedies and comedies that
Livius Andronicus wrote from 240 BC. Five years later,
Gnaeus Naevius also began to write drama. 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). 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). The action of all scenes is set in the exterior location of a street and its complications often follow from
eavesdropping. All of the six comedies that Terence wrote between 166 and 160 BC 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. 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. 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.
Transition and early medieval theatre, 500–1050 ,
The Martyrdom of Saint Apollonia As the
Western Roman Empire fell into decay through the 4th and 5th centuries, the seat of Roman power shifted to
Constantinople and the
Eastern Roman Empire, today called the
Byzantine Empire. While surviving evidence about Byzantine theatre is slight, existing records show that
miming, scenes or recitations from tragedies and
comedies,
dances, and other entertainments were very popular. Constantinople had two theatres that were in use as late as the 5th century. However, the true importance of the Byzantines in theatrical history is their preservation of many classical Greek texts and the compilation of a massive encyclopedia called the
Suda, from which is derived a large amount of contemporary information on Greek theatre. The origins of
Italian theatre are a source of debate among scholars, as they are not yet clear and traceable with certain sources. Since the end of the
theatre of ancient Rome, which partly coincided with the
fall of the Western Roman Empire, mimes and comedies were still performed. Alongside this pagan form of representation, mostly performed by tropes and wandering actors of which there are no direct written sources, the theatre was reborn, in medieval times, from religious functions and from the dramatization of some tropes of which the most famous and ancient is the short
Quem quaeritis? from the 10th century, still in
Latin. It can therefore be assumed that there were two main lines on which the ancient Italian theatre developed. The first, consisting of the dramatization of Catholic liturgies and of which more documentation is retained, and the second, formed by pagan forms of spectacle such as the staging for city festivals, the court preparations of the jesters and the songs of the
troubadours. From the 5th century,
Western Europe was plunged into a period of general disorder that lasted (with a brief period of stability under the
Carolingian Empire in the 9th century) until the 10th century. While it seems that small nomadic bands travelled around Europe throughout the period, performing wherever they could find an audience, there is no evidence that they produced anything but crude scenes. These performers were denounced by the
Church, as they were viewed as dangerous and pagan. of Gandersheim, the first dramatist of the post-classical era. By the
Early Middle Ages, churches in
Europe began staging dramatized versions of particular biblical events on specific days of the year. These dramatizations were included in order to vivify annual celebrations. Symbolic objects and actions –
vestments,
altars,
censers, and
pantomime performed by priests – recalled the events which Christian ritual celebrates. These were extensive sets of visual signs that could be used to communicate with a largely illiterate audience. These performances developed into
liturgical dramas, the earliest of which is the
Whom do you Seek (Quem-Quaeritis) Easter trope, dating from ca. 925.
Hrosvitha (c. 935 – 973), a canoness in northern
Germany, wrote six plays modeled on
Terence's comedies but using religious subjects. These six plays –
Abraham, Callimachus, Dulcitius, Gallicanus, Paphnutius, and
Sapientia – are the first known plays composed by a female dramatist and the first identifiable Western dramatic works of the post-classical era. The
Feast of Fools was especially important in the development of comedy. The festival inverted the status of the lesser clergy and allowed them to ridicule their superiors and the routine of church life. Sometimes plays were staged as part of the occasion and a certain amount of
burlesque and comedy crept into these performances. Although comic episodes had to truly wait until the separation of drama from the liturgy, the Feast of Fools undoubtedly had a profound effect on the development of comedy in both religious and secular plays. Performance of religious plays outside of the church began sometime in the 12th century through a traditionally accepted process of merging shorter liturgical dramas into longer plays which were then translated into
vernacular and performed by laymen.
The Mystery of Adam (1150) gives credence to this theory as its detailed stage direction suggest that it was staged outdoors. A number of other plays from the period survive, including
La Seinte Resurrection (
Norman),
The Play of the Magi Kings (
Spanish), and
Sponsus (
French). The importance of the
High Middle Ages in the development of theatre was the
economic and
political changes that led to the formation of
guilds and the growth of towns. This would lead to significant changes in the
Late Middle Ages. In the
British Isles, plays were produced in some 127 different towns during the Middle Ages. These vernacular
Mystery plays were written in cycles of a large number of plays:
York (48 plays),
Chester (24),
Wakefield (32) and
Unknown (42). A larger number of plays survive from France and Germany in this period and some type of religious dramas were performed in nearly every European country in the
Late Middle Ages. Many of these plays contained comedy,
devils,
villains and
clowns. The theatre historian therefore based his research method, in the field of the origins of Italian theatre, not only on the actual study of his own subject but also combining it with
ethnological and
anthropological study as well as that of religious studies in a broad sense. in a fresco by
Paolo Uccello in the
cathedral of Prato The Catholic Church, which found in the dramatization of the liturgies a more than favorable welcome from the masses, as demonstrated by the development of theatrical practice on major holidays, paradoxically had a contradictory behavior towards them: if on the one hand it allowed and encouraged their diffusion, however he always deprecated its practice, because it was misleading from the principles of Catholicism. The pagan spectacles suffered the same fate, where the judgments and measures taken by the religious were much harsher: still in 1215, a Constitution of the
Lateran Council forbade clerics (among other things) to have contact with histrions and jugglers. The strong contrast of religious authority to theatrical practice decreed a series of circumstances that differentiate medieval theatre (which still cannot be defined as "Italian" in the strict sense) from that known from Humanism onwards, much closer to the modern concept of theatrical representation. For over ten centuries there was never the construction of a
theatrical building, unlike what happened in ancient Greece and imperial Rome. Despite the numerous restrictions, the vernacular dramaturgy develops due to the
trouvères and jesters, who sing, lute in hand, the most disparate topics: from love driven towards women to mockery towards the powerful. There is evidence in the
Laurentian Rhythm of 1157 and in other more or less contemporary rhythms such as the
Rhythm of Sant'Alessio, of the dramatization in verse by anonymous people in the vernacular, although the metric is still indebted to the Latin versification. More famous is the XIII century
Rosa fresca aulentissima, by
Cielo d'Alcamo, a real jester mime destined for stage representation, which does not spare double entenders and overly licentious jokes towards the fair sex in verses. Even more articulated were the texts of
Ruggieri Apuliese, a jester of the 13th century of which there is little or no news, mostly discordant, but in which a sardonic ability can be traced to parody and dramatize the events, enclosed in his
gab and
serventesi. During the 13th century, however, the jester prose in the vernacular suffered a setback due to the marginalization of the events to which it was linked: representations in Curta, street performances, and more of which the chronicle does not remember. The lauda dramatica flourished in the same period, which later evolved into the
sacred representation: the
lauda, derived from the popular ballad, was made up of
stanzas represented first in verse, then in the form of dialogue. An example of transformation into a dialogic drama is a result of
Donna de Paradiso by
Jacopone da Todi, where the dialogue between
John the Baptist, the
Mary and
Jesus is articulated on a religious topic: in it there is a fine linguistic and lexical intervention (the subdued language of the Mary and Christ compared to that of the John the Baptist) and a skilful capacity for dramatizing the event. It should be emphasized that this type of religious theatricality did not properly spread within the Church, but developed above all in Umbria following a serious plague that decimated the country, due to the
Flagellant, congregations of faithful used to self-flagellation, which by virtue of their religious acts they well combined the processions of repentance with accompaniment with dramatic
laudi. If they found representation in
Orvieto, as in other Umbrian centers (remember the famous
Corporal of Bolsena), another important epicenter of laude productions was
L'Aquila, where the articulation of the same was such as to require three days for a complete representation (as in the case of the anonymous
Leggenna de Sancto Tomascio). The majority of actors in these plays were drawn from the local population. For example, at
Valenciennes in 1547, more than 100 roles were assigned to 72 actors. Plays were staged on
pageant 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. A separate chapter with respect to religious representation consists of those productions in Latin verse known as
elegiac comedies (medieval Latin comedies). It is a set of
Medieval Latin texts, mainly composed of the metric form of the
elegiac couplet and characterized, almost always, by the alternation of
dialogues and narrated parts and by comic and licentious contents. The flowering of the genus is mainly inscribed within the European season of the so-called
rebirth of the 12th century and is affected by the ferment of that cultural climate that the philologist
Ludwig Traube called
Aetas Ovidiana. as a whole, it was a phenomenon that certainly cannot be affirmed as Italian: on the contrary, Italy was just touched by this phenomenon, in a later period, the thirteenth century: all Italian productions refer to the environment of the court and chancellery of
Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor (the singular
De Paulino et Polla by
Riccardo da Venosa, and the
De uxore cerdonis, attributed to
Jacopo da Benevento). However, their genuine theatrical nature is not clear: it is not known, for example, if they were mere rhetorical products or rather works intended for a real staging (in this case, acting with a single voice is considered more likely); not even one is able to appreciate the influence on the rise of medieval theatre in the vernacular, even if some comic elements have passed to the theatre. The small flowering of this genus enjoyed considerable success; its importance in literary history is noteworthy, due to its influence on subsequent authors in vulgar languages, in particular on medieval fabliaulistics and novellistics of which they anticipate themes and tones, and on humanistic comedy of the fifteenth century. Throughout the Middle Ages no theatrical building was ever built, so that it is impossible to speak of theatrical architecture. Regarding the scenography, it can be completely placed on the level of sacred representations, since jesters and buffoons, troubadours and singers did not use support elements that could help the spectator in the figuration of the story narrated. The almost nil iconographic support that has come makes a faithful reconstruction difficult, but the lists of the Brotherhood "stuff", which have come down to us, have been helpful, testifying to a wealth of furnishings not comparable to the modern conception of theatre but still of a certain thickness: the list of the
Perugian brotherhood of
Saint Dominic is very well known, where you can find shirts, gloves, cassocks, wigs and masks. The representations, which came out of the church in search of larger places of reception and where there was the possibility of using scenic artists certainly not welcome within consecrated walls, found a place in the churchyards first, in the squares and then even in the streets of the city, both in the form of a procession that does not. The pictorial support, which was necessary for a more complete recognition of the place represented and narrated, also became very important, although no names of artists who worked for their realization have come down to us. It must be borne in mind that there is no figure of set-up or set designer, so such works necessarily had to submit to the requests of the brotherhoods, and almost certainly carried out by untrained artists or of little fame given that the possible gain was little.
Morality plays emerged as a distinct dramatic form around 1400 and flourished until 1550. A morality play is
The Castle of Perseverance which depicts
mankind's progress from birth to death. However, the most famous morality play and perhaps best known medieval drama is
Everyman. Everyman receives
Death's summons, struggles to escape and finally resigns himself to necessity. Along the way, he is deserted by
Kindred,
Goods, and
Fellowship – only
Good Deeds goes with him to the grave. , wood engraving by
Michael Ostendorfer There were also a number of secular performances staged in the Middle Ages, the earliest of which is
The Play of the Greenwood by
Adam de la Halle in 1276. It contains satirical scenes and
folk material such as
faeries and other supernatural occurrences.
Farces also rose dramatically in popularity after the 13th century. The majority of these plays come from France and Germany and are similar in tone and form, emphasizing
sex and bodily excretions. The best known playwright of farces is
Hans Sachs (1494–1576) who wrote 198 dramatic works. In England,
The Second Shepherds' Play of the
Wakefield Cycle is the best known early farce. However, farce did not appear independently in England until the 16th century with the work of
John Heywood (1497–1580). A significant forerunner of the development of
Elizabethan drama was the
Chambers of Rhetoric in the
Low Countries. These societies were concerned with
poetry,
music and
drama and held contests to see which society could compose the best drama in relation to a question posed. At the end of the
Late Middle Ages, professional actors began to appear in
England and
Europe.
Richard III and
Henry VII both maintained small companies of professional actors. Their plays were performed in the
Great Hall of a nobleman's residence, often with a raised platform at one end for the audience and a "screen" at the other for the actors. Also important were
Mummers' plays, performed during the
Christmas season, and court
masques. These masques were especially popular during the reign of
Henry VIII who had a House of Revels built and an
Office of Revels established in 1545. The end of medieval drama came about due to a number of factors, including the weakening power of the
Catholic Church, the
Protestant Reformation and the banning of religious plays in many countries.
Elizabeth I forbid all religious plays in 1558 and the great cycle plays had been silenced by the 1580s. Similarly, religious plays were banned in the
Netherlands in 1539, the
Papal States in 1547 and in
Paris in 1548. The abandonment of these plays destroyed the international theatre that had thereto existed and forced each country to develop its own form of drama. It also allowed dramatists to turn to secular subjects and the reviving interest in
Greek and
Roman theatre provided them with the perfect opportunity. The importance of the humanistic comedy lies in the fact that it marks the genesis of the "profane drama", the result not of a cultural process from below, but of an invention from above, carried out by a cultured and participating urban bourgeoisie, able to grasp and elaborate the ferments of an era of great transformation and renewal. Thus the foundations were laid for a process of liberation of the theatre from the religious forms of representation and from the
Catholic Church, an emancipation that would then be accomplished, definitively and in a short time, without friction or conflict with the papal curia, with the Italian-language comedies of the Renaissance theatre.
Italian ''Commedia dell'arte'' '' troupe
I Gelosi performing, by
Hieronymus Francken I, ''
Commedia dell'arte () was an early form of professional theatre, originating from Italian theatre, that was popular throughout Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries. It was formerly called "Italian comedy" in English and is also known as , , and . and improvised performances based on sketches or scenarios. A , such as The Tooth Puller'', is both scripted and improvised. Characters' entrances and exits are scripted. A special characteristic of is the , a joke or "something foolish or witty", usually well known to the performers and to some extent a scripted routine. Another characteristic of is
pantomime, which is mostly used by the character Arlecchino, now better known as
Harlequin. and
Harlequin, two stock characters from the ''
Commedia dell'arte'', in the
Museo Teatrale alla Scala,
Milan,
Italy The characters of the usually represent fixed social types and
stock characters, such as foolish old men, devious servants, or military officers full of false
bravado. The characters are exaggerated "real characters", such as a know-it-all doctor called
Il Dottore, a greedy old man called
Pantalone, or a perfect relationship like the
Innamorati. Confidenti Troupe, Desioi Troupe, and Fedeli Troupe. The genesis of may be related to
carnival in
Venice, where the author and actor
Andrea Calmo had created the character Il Magnifico, the precursor to the (old man) Pantalone, by 1570. In the
Flaminio Scala scenario, for example, Il Magnifico persists and is interchangeable with Pantalone into the 17th century. While Calmo's characters (which also included the Spanish Capitano and a type) were not masked, it is uncertain at what point the characters donned the mask. However, the connection to carnival (the period between
Epiphany and
Ash Wednesday) would suggest that masking was a convention of carnival and was applied at some point. The tradition in Northern Italy is centred in
Florence,
Mantua, and Venice, where the major companies came under the protection of the various
dukes. Concomitantly, a
Neapolitan tradition emerged in the south and featured the prominent stage figure
Pulcinella, which has been long associated with Naples and derived into various types elsewhere—most famously as the puppet character Punch (of the eponymous
Punch and Judy shows) in England. The ''
Commedia dell'arte'' allowed professional women to perform early on:
Lucrezia Di Siena, whose name is on a contract of actors from 1564, has been referred to as the first Italian actress known by name, with
Vincenza Armani and
Barbara Flaminia as the first primadonna and the well-documented actresses in Europe.
English Elizabethan theatre of
The Swan, a typical
Elizabethan open-roof playhouse. English 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 secular pieces 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. Theatres sprang up in suburbs, especially in the liberty of Southwark, accessible across the Thames to city dwellers but beyond the authorities' 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.
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 Puritan 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.
Italian Renaissance theatre '' The
Renaissance theatre marked the beginning of the modern theatre due to the rediscovery and study of the classics, the ancient theatrical texts were recovered and translated, which were soon staged at the court and in the curtensi halls, and then moved to real theatre. In this way the idea of theatre came close to that of today: a performance in a designated place in which the public participates. In the late 15th century two cities were important centers for the rediscovery and renewal of theatrical art:
Ferrara and
Rome. The first, vital center of art in the second half of the fifteenth century, saw the staging of some of the most famous Latin works by
Plautus, rigorously translated into Italian. On 5 March 1508 the first comedy in Italian was performed at the court of Ferrara,
La Cassaria by
Ludovico Ariosto, indebted to the
Terenzian model of comedy. The popes, however, saw a political instrument in the theatre: after years of opposition, the papacy finally endorsed the art of theatre, first under the spur of
Pope Sixtus IV who, due to the Roman Academy of
Julius Pomponius Laetus, saw the remaking of many comedies. Latinas; subsequently the contribution of
Pope Alexander VI, lover of representations, allowed the diffusion of the same to many celebrations, including weddings and parties. Another important center of the revival of modern theatre was
Florence, where a classic comedy, the
Andria by
Terence, was staged first in 1476. The Tuscan capital stood out in the 15th century for the enormous development of the Sacred representation, but soon a group of poets, starting with Agnolo Poliziano, gave their contribution to the spread of Renaissance comedy. A figure in its own right is that of
Angelo Beolco known as Il Ruzante, author of comedies in the
Venetian language, actor and director supported by the patron
Luigi Cornaro: although the linguistic peculiarity allowed little to spread it in the Italian context, alternating periods of celebrity and forgetfulness of the author over the centuries, he represents an example of the use of theatre as a representation of contemporary society, very often seen from the side of the countryside.
Venice, in which a scenario of varied theatrical activities was operating, developed the diffusion of this art late by virtue of an amendment of 1508 by the
Council of Ten, which prohibited theatrical activity. The edict was never slavishly observed, and due to these infractions the mariazo, the
eclogue, the pastoral comedy, the erudite or cultured comedy developed. Venice also saw the birth of an anonymous comedy,
La Venexiana, very far from the canons of erudite comedy, which reflects a licentious and brilliant as well as desecrating cross-section of the libertine aristocracy of the Serenissima. An author in his own right, also full of creative originality and tending towards the bizarre, is Andrea Calmo, a poet with six works, and who enjoyed a certain fame in his native Venice. At the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, Rome became the center of a series of studies on theatrical art that allowed the development of the perspective scene and scenographic experimentation, due to the studies of
Baldassare Peruzzi, painter and set designer.
Counter-Reformation theatre If Protestantism was characterized by an ambivalent relationship to theatricality, Counter-Reformation Catholicism was to use it for explicitly affective and evangelical purposes.
Spanish Golden age theatre , a key figure in the theatre of the Spanish Golden Age During its
Golden Age, roughly from 1590 to 1681,
Spain saw a monumental increase in the production of live theatre as well as in the importance of theatre within Spanish society. It was an accessible art form for all participants in Renaissance Spain, being both highly sponsored by the aristocratic class and highly attended by the lower classes. The volume and variety of Spanish plays during the Golden Age was unprecedented in the history of world theatre, surpassing, for example, the dramatic production of the
English Renaissance by a factor of at least four. Although this volume has been as much a source of criticism as praise for Spanish Golden Age theatre, for emphasizing quantity before quality, a large number of the 10,000 Major artists of the period included
Lope de Vega, a contemporary of Shakespeare, often, and contemporaneously, seen his parallel for the Spanish stage, and
Calderon de la Barca, inventor of the zarzuela and Lope's successor as the preeminent Spanish dramatist.
Gil Vicente,
Lope de Rueda, and
Juan del Encina helped to establish the foundations of Spanish theatre in the mid-sixteenth centuries, while
Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla and
Tirso de Molina made significant contributions in the latter half of the Golden Age. Important performers included Lope de Rueda (previously mentioned among the playwrights) and later
Juan Rana. The sources of influence for the emerging national theatre of Spain were as diverse as the theatre that nation ended up producing. Storytelling traditions originating in Italian ''
Commedia dell'arte'' and the uniquely Spanish expression of
Western Europe's traveling minstrel entertainments contributed a populist influence on the narratives and the music, respectively, of early Spanish theatre. Neo-Aristotelian criticism and liturgical dramas, on the other hand, contributed literary and moralistic perspectives. In turn, Spanish Golden Age theatre has dramatically influenced the theatre of later generations in Europe and throughout the world. Spanish drama had an immediate and significant impact on the contemporary developments in
English Renaissance theatre. Additionally, a growing number of works are being translated, increasing the reach of Spanish Golden Age theatre and strengthening its reputation among critics and theatre patrons.
French Classical theatre Pierre Corneille was a French
tragedian. He is generally considered one of the three great 17th-century French
dramatists, along with
Molière and
Racine. As a young man, he earned the valuable patronage of
Cardinal Richelieu, who was trying to promote classical tragedy along formal lines, but later quarrelled with him, especially over his best-known play,
Le Cid, about a medieval Spanish warrior, which was denounced by the newly formed for breaching the
unities. He continued to write well-received tragedies for nearly forty years. by
Pierre Mignard () Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name
Molière, was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the great writers in the
French language and world literature. His extant works include
comedies,
farces,
tragicomedies,
comédie-ballets, and more. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed at the
Comédie-Française more often than those of any other playwright today. His influence is such that the French language is often referred to as the "language of Molière". Born into a prosperous family and having studied at the Collège de Clermont (now
Lycée Louis-le-Grand), Molière was well suited to begin a life in the theatre. Thirteen years as an itinerant actor helped him polish his comedic abilities while he began writing, combining ''
Commedia dell'arte elements with the more refined French comedy. Through the patronage of aristocrats including Philippe I, Duke of Orléans—the brother of Louis XIV—Molière procured a command performance before the King at the Louvre. Performing a classic play by Pierre Corneille and a farce of his own, The Doctor in Love
, Molière was granted the use of the grande salle
of the Petit-Bourbon near the Louvre, a spacious room appointed for theatrical performances. Later, he was granted the use of the theatre in the Palais-Royal. In both locations, Molière found success among Parisians with plays such as The Affected Ladies, The School for Husbands, and The School for Wives. This royal favour brought a royal pension to his troupe and the title Troupe du Roi'' ("The King's Troupe"). Molière continued as the official author of court entertainments. Despite the adulation of the court and Parisians, Molière's satires attracted criticism from other circles. For ''
Tartuffe's
impiety, the Catholic Church in France denounced this study of religious hypocrisy, which was followed by a ban by the Parlement, while Dom Juan was withdrawn and never restaged by Molière. His hard work in so many theatrical capacities took its toll on his health and, by 1667, he was forced to take a break from the stage. In 1673, during a production of his final play, The Imaginary Invalid
, Molière, who suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis, was seized by a coughing fit and a haemorrhage while playing the hypochondriac Argan; he finished the performance but collapsed again and died a few hours later. as Phèdre, Andromaque, and Athalie. He did write one comedy, Les Plaideurs, and a muted tragedy, Esther'', for the young. Racine's plays displayed his mastery of the dodecasyllabic (12 syllable)
French alexandrine. His writing is renowned for its elegance, purity, speed, and fury, and for what American poet
Robert Lowell described as a "diamond-edge", and the "glory of its hard, electric rage". of both plot and
stage.
Cretan Renaissance theatre Greek theater was alive and flourishing on the island of Crete. During the
Cretan Renaissance two notable Greek playwrights
Georgios Chortatzis and
Vitsentzos Kornaros were present in the latter part of the 16th century.
Restoration comedy . In this scene from
George 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. After public stage performances had been banned for 18 years by the Puritan regime, the re-opening of the theatres in 1660 signalled a renaissance of English drama. With the restoration of the monarch in 1660 came the restoration of and the reopening of the theatre. English comedies written and performed in the
Restoration period from 1660 to 1710 are collectively called "Restoration comedy". Restoration comedy is notorious for its
sexual explicitness, a quality encouraged by
Charles II (1660–1685) personally and by the
rakish aristocratic ethos of his
court. For the first time women were allowed to act, putting an end to the practice of the
boy-player taking the parts of women. Socially diverse audiences included both aristocrats, their servants and hangers-on, and a substantial middle-class segment. Restoration audiences liked to see good triumph in their tragedies and rightful government restored. In comedy they liked to see the love-lives of the young and fashionable, with a central couple bringing their courtship to a successful conclusion (often overcoming the opposition of the elders to do so). Heroines had to be chaste, but were independent-minded and outspoken; now that they were played by women, there was more mileage for the playwright in disguising them in men's clothes or giving them narrow escape from rape. These playgoers were attracted to the comedies by up-to-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. To non-theatre-goers these comedies were widely seen as licentious and morally suspect, holding up the antics of a small, privileged, and decadent class for admiration. This same class dominated the audiences of the Restoration theatre. This period saw the first professional woman playwright,
Aphra Behn. As a reaction to the decadence of Charles II era productions,
sentimental comedy grew in popularity. This genre focused on encouraging virtuous behavior by showing middle class characters overcoming a series of moral trials. Playwrights like
Colley Cibber and
Richard Steele believed that humans were inherently good but capable of being led astray. Through plays such as
The Conscious Lovers and
Love's Last Shift they strove to appeal to an audience's noble sentiments in order that viewers could be reformed.
Restoration spectacular The
Restoration spectacular, or elaborately staged "machine play", hit the
London public stage in the late 17th-century
Restoration 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 17th-century
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. 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. 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's
Albion 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.
18th-century theatre ,
Moscow of Rome in 1747
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 theatre 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 1737 which introduced state censorship of public performances and limited the number of theatres in London to two. This century was a difficult period for the Italian theatre. ''
Commedia dell'arte spread throughout Europe, but it underwent a clear decline as the dramaturgy decreased and little attention was paid to the texts it offered, compared to other works from the rest of Europe. However, the Commedia dell'arte'' remained an important school that lasted more than 100 years, and important authors of the Renaissance period were unable to offer a wide range of works thus being able to build the foundations for a future school.
Carlo Goldoni did not break into the theatre scene as a revolutionary but as a reformer. At first he indulged the taste of the public, still tied to the old masks. In his first comedies the presence of
Pantalone,
Brighella and with a great
Harlequin, perhaps the last of a large caliber in Italy, like
Antonio Sacco who played with the mask of
Truffaldino, is constant. For this company Goldoni wrote important comedies such as
The Servant of Two Masters and
La putta onorata. In 1750 the Venetian lawyer wrote the manifesto text of his comedy reform:
Il teatro comico. In this comedy the ancient ''Commedia dell'arte
and its Commedia riformata
are compared. Carlo Goldoni used new companies from which the masks, by now too improbable in a realist theatre, disappeared, just as their jokes and jokes, often unrelated to the subject, disappeared. In his riformate'' comedies the plot returns to being the central point of the comedy and the most realistic characters.
Francesco Albergati Capacelli, a great friend of Goldoni and his first follower, continued along this line. Goldonism was fiercely opposed by
Pietro Chiari, who preferred more romantic and still Baroque-style comedies. Later, in the critique of the Goldonian reform,
Carlo Gozzi also joined the group who hindered the reform, dedicating himself to the exhumation of the ancient 17th century ''Commedia dell'arte
, now moribund, but still vital in its academic variant: the Commedia ridicolosa which, until the end of the century continued to use the masks and characters of that of art. The tragedy, in Italy, did not have the development it had had, since the previous century, in other European nations. In this case, Italy suffered from the success of the Commedia dell'arte''. The path of the Enlightenment tragedy was followed by
Antonio Conti, with moderate success. Aimed at the French theatre is the work of
Pier Jacopo Martello who adapted the
Alexandrian verse of the French to the Italian language, which was called Martellian verse. But the major theorist who pursued the path of an Italian tragedy of Greek-Aristotelian style was
Gian Vincenzo Gravina. His tragedies, however, did not have the hoped-for success because they were considered unsuitable for representation. While his pupil Pietro Metastasio adapted Gravina's teachings by applying them to the lyrics of the melodrama. Other librettists such as
Apostolo Zeno and
Ranieri de' Calzabigi followed him on this path. The greatest tragedian of the early 18th century was
Scipione Maffei who finally managed to compose an Italian tragedy worthy of the name: the
Merope. In the second half of the century the figure of
Vittorio Alfieri, the greatest Italian tragedian of the 18th century, dominated.
19th-century theatre , First act of
Sicilian Vespers Theatre in the 19th century is divided into two parts: early and late. The early period was dominated by
melodrama and
Romanticism. During the 19th century, the romantic drama was born. There were important authors promoting the genre, such as
Alessandro Manzoni and
Silvio Pellico. In the second half of the century, the romantic tragedy gave way to the
Teatro verista, which saw
Giovanni Verga and
Emilio Praga among the greatest exponents. The romantic drama was preceded by a period close to
Neoclassicism, represented by the dramatic work of
Ugo Foscolo and
Ippolito Pindemonte aimed at Greek tragedy.
Vittorio Alfieri himself, who spans the two centuries, can be defined, together with
Vincenzo Monti, forerunner and symbol of neoclassical tragedy. In Germany, there was a trend toward historical accuracy in
costumes and
settings, a revolution in theatre architecture, and the introduction of the theatrical form of
German 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 Drang playwrights inspired a growing faith in feeling and instinct as guides to moral behavior. . 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 Bulwer-Lytton established a "gentlemanly" drama that began to re-establish the former prestige of the theatre with the
aristocracy. An evolution similar to the theatrical drama takes place in the field of theatre for music. At the beginning of this century, the
Melodramma romantico replaced the Neapolitan and then Venetian
Opera buffa. A work close to the great medieval themes of the
Risorgimento period was born. There are several librettists who support the musicians by building new types of epic narration for music. From
Felice Romani, librettist of the early 19th century for the works of
Vincenzo Bellini, up to
Arrigo Boito and
Francesco Maria Piave, who with the librettos for
Giuseppe Verdi opened the Risorgimento period of Italian musical theatre. Boito was also one of the few who combined dramatic talent with musical talent. His opera
Mefistofele, with music and libretto by the author, has a historical character, and is an important step in the evolution of the Italian theatre. The later period of the 19th century saw the rise of two conflicting types of drama:
realism and non-realism, such as
Symbolism and precursors of
Expressionism. Realism began earlier in the 19th century in Russia than elsewhere in Europe and took a more uncompromising form. 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 Nemirovich-Danchenko. 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 of
Ludwig 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 Meiningen Ensemble stands at the beginning of the new movement toward unified production (or what
Richard Wagner would call the
Gesamtkunstwerk) and the rise of the
director (at the expense of the actor) as the dominant artist in theatre-making. 's Bayreuth Festival Theatre.
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
Émile Zola. The realisation of Zola's ideas was hindered by a lack of capable dramatists writing naturalist drama.
André Antoine emerged in the 1880s with his
Théâtre Libre that 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. 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. 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. 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 playwright
Henrik 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). In addition, his works Rosmersholm (1886) and When We Dead Awaken'' (1899) evoke a sense of mysterious forces at work in human destiny, which was to be a major theme of
symbolism 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 and catering to the public's preference for escapist entertainment during World War 1.
20th and 21st-centuries theatre 's tragic
farces are often seen as forerunners of the
Theatre of the Absurd. 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 so-called "
Theatre of the Absurd". Important playwrights were born during the 20th century, laying the foundations for the modern
Italian theatre. The genius of
Luigi Pirandello stands out above all, considered the "father of modern theatre". With the Sicilian author, the
Dramma psicologico was born, essentially characterized by the introspective aspect. Another great exponent of the 20th century dramaturgical theatre was
Eduardo De Filippo. He, son of the aforementioned
Eduardo Scarpetta, managed to restore the dialect within the theatrical work, eliminating the widespread conception of the past that defined the dialectal work as a second level work. With Eduardo de Filippo, the
Teatro popolare was born. '' by
Anton Giulio Bragaglia with futurist scenographies by
Enrico Prampolini At the beginning of the century, the influences of the historical
avant-gardes made themselves felt:
Futurism,
Dadaism and
Surrealism. Especially futurism tried to change the idea of modern Italian theatre by adapting it to new ideas.
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti took an interest in writing the various Futurist Manifests on his new idea of theatre. Together with
Bruno Corra he created what was called synthetic theatre. Later the Futurists formed a company, directed by
Rodolfo De Angelis, which was called the
Teatro della sorpresa. The presence of a scenographer like
Enrico Prampolini shifted the attention more to the very modern scenographies than to the often disappointing acting. Another character who attended the theatre in this period, without notable success compared to other literary and poetic productions, was
Gabriele D'Annunzio. Of him there are some tragedies of a classical context, close to the
Liberty style characteristic of the whole production of the warrior-poet. At the same time, the
Teatro grottesco was born, and it was an almost entirely Italian phenomenon. Other frequenters of this genre include
Massimo Bontempelli,
Luigi Antonelli,
Enrico Cavacchioli,
Luigi Chiarelli,
Pier Maria Rosso di San Secondo and Pirandello himself in his first plays. In the period of
Italian fascism the theatre was held in great esteem. The theatre during the fascist regime was a means of political propaganda like cinema, the popular spectacle par excellence.
Giovanni Gentile drew up a
manifesto of support for the regime of Italian intellectuals. Among the signatories some important figures of the theatre of the period: Luigi Pirandello,
Salvatore di Giacomo,
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and Gabriele D'Annunzio. In 1925 the philosopher
Benedetto Croce contrasted his
Manifesto of the anti-fascist intellectuals, signed, among others, by the playwrights
Roberto Bracco and
Sem Benelli. During this period the two directors of the Bragaglia family were important:
Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia and
Anton Giulio Bragaglia who joined the more experimental productions of the period, later moved on to the cinema. , one of the most widely performed playwrights in modern theatre, received international acclaim for his highly
improvisational style. He was awarded the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997. The second post-war period was characterized by the
Teatro di rivista. This was already present previously with great actor-authors such as
Ettore Petrolini. From the magazine, actors such as
Erminio Macario and
Totò imposed themselves. Then large companies such as that of
Dario Niccodemi and actors of the level of
Eleonora Duse,
Ruggero Ruggeri,
Memo Benassi and
Sergio Tofano were also important. Equally important was the contribution of great directors in post-war Italian theatre such as
Giorgio Strehler,
Luchino Visconti and
Luca Ronconi. An interesting experiment was that of
Dario Fo, who was greatly influenced by
Bertolt Brecht's epic and political theatre, but at the same time he returned to the Italian theatre the centrality of the pure actor in
ruzantesque terms with his opera
Mistero Buffo which with the
grammelot gave the theatre of fools and storytellers of the Middle Ages.
Carmelo Bene's theatre was more linked to experimentalism. The Apulian actor-playwright also tried to bring acting back to the center of attention, reworking the texts of the past, from
William Shakespeare to
Alfred de Musset, but also
Alessandro Manzoni and
Vladimir Mayakovsky. The experience of the Lombard playwright
Giovanni Testori also deserves to be mentioned, for the breadth of his commitment - he was a writer, director, impresario -, the multiformity of the genres practiced, linguistic experimentalism: he worked extensively with the actor
Franco Branciaroli and together they profoundly influenced the post-war Milanese theatre. 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. A theatre practitioner may be a
director, a
dramatist, an actor, or—characteristically—often a combination of these traditionally separate roles. "Theatre practice" describes the collective work that various theatre practitioners do. 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,
Eugenio Barba's
theatre anthropology and
Anne Bogart's
viewpoints. Other key figures of 20th-century theatre include:
Antonin Artaud,
August Strindberg,
Anton Chekhov,
Max Reinhardt,
Frank Wedekind,
Maurice Maeterlinck,
Federico García Lorca,
Eugene O'Neill,
George Bernard Shaw,
Gertrude Stein,
Ernst Toller,
Vladimir Mayakovsky,
Arthur Miller,
Tennessee Williams,
Jean Genet,
Eugène Ionesco,
Samuel Beckett,
Harold Pinter,
Friedrich Dürrenmatt,
Heiner Müller, 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 •
Agitprop After the great popularity of the British
Edwardian musical comedies, the American
musical theatre came to dominate the musical stage, beginning with the
Princess Theatre musicals, followed by the works of the Gershwin brothers,
Cole Porter,
Jerome Kern,
Rodgers and Hart, and later
Rodgers and Hammerstein. Experimentalism at the end of the century brings new frontiers of theatrical art, delivered in Italy to new companies such as the Magazzini Criminali, the Krypton and Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio, but also companies that frequent a more classic theatre such as the company of the Teatro dell'Elfo by
Gabriele Salvatores. The Italian theatre of the end of the century also made use of the work of the author-actor
Paolo Poli.
Vittorio Gassman,
Giorgio Albertazzi and
Enrico Maria Salerno are to be remembered among the great word actors of the 20th century. In the theatre field, important monologists such as
Marco Paolini and
Ascanio Celestini have recently established themselves, authors of a narrative theatre based on in-depth research work. == American theatre ==