English Drama

Meeting 3
Types of Modern Drama

•Melodrama

•Realistic drama

•Theater of the absurd

Melodrama

• Melodrama was develop in United States during almost the same

time of Elizabethan period in England and France
• Melodrama is plays with stereo typed villains and heroes
representing extremes of good and evil
Modern Realistic Theatre

• Realism can be defined as representation of everyday life in

literature. Realism drama employs theatrical conventions to create
illusions of everyday life
• Realistic drama depicts the lives of middle class people spotlight on
their work, marriage, and family life
Modern…(continue)

• The setting of realistic plays are designed to look authentic

• Others designed to create illusion that the audience was watching a
domestic life such as multiple rooms
• Examples of modern realistic plays are Death of A Salesman by Arthur
Miller and A Doll House by Hendrik Ibsen
Theatre of The Absurd

• Theatre of the absurd played it first stage in Paris in the 1950s.

• The purpose of theatre of the absurd is to make a man face up to the
human condition as it really is, it invites the audience to ask
questions about the world in which we live in
Theater of…(continue)

• Theatre of the absurd offers actions that lead in no predictable

directions, the motivations of characters are contradictory or absent
altogether, conversations and speeches rambles disjointly, leaping
one way to another for no apparent reason