Explore the Changing roles of the playwright throughout the history of theatre. Reference must be made to at least 3 separate historical forms of theatre. Essays
Explore the Changing roles of the playwright throughout the history of theatre. Reference must be made to at least 3 separate historical forms of theatre.
The Three historical forms of Theatre I have chosen to focus on are Greek, using Euripides as an example of a Greek playwright, Elizabethan Theatre, using Shakespeare as an example of an Elizabethan playwright and Contemporary theatre, using Peter Shaffer as an example of a contemporary playwright. Throughout my research I discovered that whilst there certainly had been changes, there were also quite a few similarities. The three plays I will be using as my point of reference are Euripides, ‘Hecuba’, Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and Shaffer’s ‘Equus’
The Aside
This is a structural tool the playwright uses to have a character that only interacts with the audience to make them feel like they are getting an inside view, perhaps even knowing more than the characters on stage. Shakespeare uses it in Romeo and Juliet to represent Romeo’s inner thoughts.
The difference in Shakespeare’s use of asides, is the inclusion of an aside we see with Romeo in Act 2, Scene 2, it is very brief.
A Similarity we see in the use of Asides are that in both ‘Hecuba’ and ‘Equus’, the asides are much longer and used more than once throughout the play, in ‘Hecuba’ it by her dead husband Polydorus and in ‘Equus’ it is by Alan Strang’s Psychiatrist.
Inspiration for the plays.
When we’re looking at inspiration for the three plays focused on throughout this essay, the playwrights rely mainly on several things for inspiration: accessing human emotion through; with the common themes being love and tragedy. Another tool used for inspiration is writing about recent historical events or tragic events that have occurred either in fiction or reality.
The differences we can observe in the three plays in relation to the use of chorus is that once again in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ chorus is used less than both ‘Hecuba’ and ‘Equus’. Shakespeare relies more on singing between characters to convey his message.
A similarity in the use of chorus in both ‘Equus’ and ‘Hecuba’ is that it is used to strengthen
