Theatre Styles and Playwrights Timeline

1000 BC 0 1000 2000

Main

Greek Theatre

Roman Theatre

Medieval Theatre

Commedia Dell'arte

Elizabethan

17th Century French Neoclassicism

Restoration Comedy

18th Century Sentimentalism

Australian Drama

19th Century Melodrama

Realism

Naturalism

20th Century Symbolism and Expressionism

Epic Style and Didacticism

Theatre of the Absurd

Eclectic

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 Main

Greek Theatre -Derived in Ancient Greece

550 BC - 220 BC - Masks commonly used for characterisation
- Famous playwrights include Sophocles (496-406 BC) and Euripides
(480-380 BC)

Ancient Rome
Roman Theatre
Main theatre form was farce (influenced by old Greek comedy) -Famous
240 BC - 476
playwrights were Livius Andronicus (284-204BC) and Lucius Seneca (4BC-
65AD)

Liturgical Drama
Medieval Theatre
Comic characters used exaggeration
401 - 1500
Playwrights include Hrosvitha (935-1002) and Adam de la Halla (1237-
1288)

'Comedy of the Artists'

Commedia Dell'arte
Originates from Roman Farce
1510 - 1650
Playwrights include Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793) and Molière (1622-1673)
who did not write Commedia but was greatly influenced by it in his own
work.

Started in England
Elizabethan
Classed as English Renaissance
1576 - 1642
Famous playwrights include William Shakespeare and Christopher
Marlowe

Plays concerned with ideas and their effect on human beings

17th Century French Neoclassicism
Theatres similar to today
1648 - 1789
Famous playwrights include Racine (1639 – 1673) and Moliere (1622-
1673)

Mainly known for the comedies of manners

Restoration Comedy
Centred on love
1660 - 1710
Famous playwrights include William Congreve and Oliver Goldsmith

Behaviour became more restrained; interest in royal and high class

18th Century Sentimentalism
circles reduced – the middle class became more aware of itself
1701 - 1800
Acting became more natural and lifelike
Famous playwrights include Richard Sheridan and John Gay

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 Started in 1788
Australian Drama
Lawler and Alan Seymour are among famous playwrights
1788

Classed as the ‘Romantic Age’

19th Century Melodrama
Melodramas are serious plays in which good and evil are clearly
1801 - 1900
separated
Famous playwrights include Anthony Hope and Douglas Jerrold

Realists aimed to represent real life

Realism
Famous playwrights from the era include Henrik Ibsen and George
1860 - 1900
Bernard Shaw

Believed that theatre should be like ‘a slice of life’ – lifelike scenery;

Naturalism
costumes and methods of acting
1880 - 1940
In 1909 Stanislavski established the acting system that became the
foundation for much of the realistic and naturalistic acting of the 20th
Century – known as ‘method acting’
Famous playwrights include Emile Zola and Anton Chekhov

Strongly fought against theatre being a social/political voice

20th Century Symbolism and Expressionism
Vocal work had greater emphasis on silence and static
1890 - 1940
Among the famous playwrights are; JM Barrie and Alfred Jarry

Films used as background scenery

Epic Style and Didacticism
Music to neutralise emotion rather than strengthen it
1910 - 1950
Famous playwrights include Jean Genet and Bertolt Brecht

Traditional theatrical performances were rejected in favour of illogical

Theatre of the Absurd
speeches and events, characters that change into animals, inappropriate
1951 - 1972
silences and inconclusion
Inanimate objects coming to life
Famous playwrights include Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco

Movement – total body as a communicator

Eclectic
Ideas – tend to be complex
1960
Famous playwrights include Harold Pinter and Joe Orton

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