CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH DRAMA

Contemporary drama, which represents the social and political changes that excited the world in
the 19th century, and which would continue until our day. These dramas varied significantly from
various "-isms"; that is, from Realism to Naturalism, Expressionism, Symbolism, and toward the
Epic Theatre of Brecht, and the Absurdist drama of Beckett.
Theatre represents the most censored (sansrlenmi) of all artistic forms, and one that represents
most completely the composite (bileim) of all other creative endeavors (ura-aba)--visual art,
music, literature--as well as social and political change. While the zoologist Aristotle praised it
as the greatest endeavor of humanity, Plato banned it from his Republic; the Church condemned
(knamak) it, the Puritans of England shut it down after decades of opposition, the Enlightenment
feared it, and even the early American colonies forbad (yasaklamak) it within their new Republic.
Theatre responds most immediately to social and political change, representing a voice of
opposition, of affirmation, or a reflection of civil unrest (huzursuluk-kargaa).
History teaches us that in moments of crisis, the theatre survives, flourishes, and influences
society. In the tensions of 5th century Greece, tragedy arose, in the tensions of Renaissance
Europe, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, Webster, and Ford gave voice to that tension; within the
many revolutions in Europe in the 19th century, Ibsen, Strindberg, and Gorki and others gave
voice to the personal, changing opposition to the status quo, and in post-World War I, such
figures as O'Neill, the father of American drama, while Williams, Miller, and others would
restate (yeniden ekillendirmek/sylemek) the tensions of the past and keep current with the
political turmoil (kargaa) of the present--from experiments with socialism in America to the
sudden arise of the reactionary feelings and dealings that gave rise to the McCarthy era and the
House on Un-American Activities Committee, with such figures as Miller giving us The
Crucible, a modern drama on the puritanical witch trials of Salem and 17th century America.
Drama creates an immediate impression, reacts to the social and political events about it, and
offers observation, defiance (kar koyma), and even suggestions Henrik Ibsen as to how to
change those societal (toplumsal) structures. From the rebellions in 19th century Europe, the
British/Irish dilemma and the "Troubles" that reflect generations of conflict, to the American
experience that has more warts than attributes, drama has been there. Capitalism has become the
most immediate "-ism," one that suggests that tension, adversarial (muhalif/dman) conflict, and
false promises infuse (alamak) the American experience at the expense of its citizenry
(vatandalk) believing otherwise, reflected, for instance, in the post-Viet Nam plays.
Whether one agrees or disagrees, drama remains an insightful and "insiteful" element of
creativity, meant to disrupt, question, challenge, and cause change in society and especially
its political systems. One learns from the modern drama what politics, philosophy, or social
systems mean, and how they limit, define, or blind people into easy acceptance of what these
dramatists and their works view as impeding (engelleyici) humanity's growth, security, or
duplicity (ikiyzllk) in evil constructs.

The genre remains a fascinating journey, one begun millenniums ago, yet as instructive and vital
as ever. Modern drama deals less with mythology and explanations of how and why humanity
acts as it does as to tell us why we're in desperate need of change--people have become lulled
(uyuturulmu/hissizlemi) into a false sense of what's right, wrong, or "correct." The drama
challenges that assertion (iddaa), in its many and various forms, insisting that we've been
fooled, whether by government, religion, or our understanding of family, environment, or
personal decisions.
The modern drama does not purport (grnmnde olmak) to be easy; it insists on a greater
understanding of all things pertinent (ilgili) to modern humanity and its relationships to religion,
societal order, psychology in order to appreciate its message; however, it critically acknowledges
that most of us remain ignorant to all the former. Thus, the drama instructs, irritates, challenges,
and begs for intelligence in order to gain from its message. It remains didactic, combined with
pleasure, but always wishing to challenge the current notions of authority.
MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY DRAMA
Modern drama began by turning toward realism and away from the fantasy of nineteenth-century
melodrama and farce. Realism gave rise to various innovations that served to express the
dramatists vision of what reality is. These attempts to be more real than real, can be called
expressionism. Realism and expressionism are the two dominant modes of modern drama in the
twentieth century. One focuses on the external details of everyday life, while the other focuses on
the mind and feelings and tries to show how human beings perceive the world.
As drama moved away from the imaginary representation that Shakespeare portrayed, it began to
take on a more realistic view. Modern drama began to show how life really was.
Although pure expressionism was never very popular after World War I, drama in a realism style
continued to dominate the commercial theatre, especially in the United States. Even there,
however, psychological realism seemed to be the goal, and nonrealistic scenic and dramatic
devices were employed to achieve this end. The plays of Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams,
for instance, use memory scenes, dream sequences, purely symbolic characters, projections, and
the like. Even O'Neill's later works-ostensibly realistic plays such as Long Day's Journey into
Night (produced 1956)-incorporate poetic dialogue and a carefully orchestrated background of
sounds to soften the hard-edged realism. Scenery was almost always suggestive rather than
realistic. European drama was not much influenced by psychological realism but was more
concerned with plays of ideas, as evidenced in the works of the Italian dramatist Luigi Pirandello,
the French playwrights Jean Anouilh and Jean Giraudoux, and the Belgian playwright Michel de
Ghelderode. " I have always been pushed by the negative. The apparent failure of a play sends
me back to my typewriter that very night, before the reviews are out.
I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success. "-Tennessee Williams
In England in the 1950s John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (1956) became a rallying point for
the postwar "angry young men"; a Vietnam trilogy of the early 1970s, by the American

playwright David Rabe, expressed the anger and frustration of many towards the war in Vietnam.
Under he influence of Brecht, many postwar German playwrights wrote documentary dramas
that, based on historical incidents, explored the moral obligations of individuals to themselves
and to society. An example is The Deputy (1963), by Rolf Hochhuth, which deals with Pope Pius
XII's silence during World War II.
Many playwrights of the 1960s and 1970s-Sam Shepard in the United States, Peter Handke in
Austria, Tom Stoppard in England-built plays around language: language as a game, language as
sound, language as a barrier, language as a reflection of society. In their plays, dialogue
frequently cannot be read simply as a rational exchange of information. Many playwrights also
mirrored society's frustration with a seemingly uncontrollable, self-destructive world.
Im a writer. The more I act, the more resistance I have to it. If you accept work in a movie, you
accept to be entrapped for a certain part of time, but you know you're getting out. I'm also earning
enough to keep my horses, buying some time to write. -Sam Shepard
In Europe in the 1970s, new playwriting was largely overshadowed by theatrical productions,
which generally took classical plays and reinterpreted them, often in bold new scenographic
spectacles, expressing ideas more through action and the use of space than through language.
In the late 1970s a return to Naturalism in drama paralleled the art movement known as
Photorealism. Typified by such plays as American Buffalo (1976) by David Mamet, little action
occurs, the focus is on mundane characters and events, and language is fragmentary-much like
everyday conversation. The settings are indistinguishable from reality. The intense focus on
seemingly meaningless fragments of reality creates an absurdist, nightmarish quality: similar
traits can be found in writers such as Stephen Poliakoff. A gritty social realism combined with
very dark humor has also been popular; it can be seen in the very different work of Alan
Ayckbourn, Mike Leigh, Michael Frayn, Alan Bleasdale, and Dennis Potter.
In all lands where drama flourishes, the only constant factor today is what has always been
constant: change. The most significant writers are still those who seek to redefine the basic
premises of the art of modern drama.
The classical dramatist considered the universe to be at the command of an external power
wielded in arbitrary manner. The actions of men were circumscribed and conditioned by an
external FATE. The romantic drama treated the world of events as if this world were molded and
played upon by the WLLS of MEN. In the one drama FATE was essential feature; in the other
WLL. For more than 2 centuries these two forms and philosophies contended for the control of
the literary drama of Europe.However by the beginning of the 19th century the playwrights started
to interpret human or common interests of man. A movement started to spread in Germany
which is based an opposition against the pseudo classicicsm of France on an appeal to the
universality of Shakespeare, had a storm effect on Drama and stressed the foundation stones of
the Modern Drama. The classical drama had been built on the standards of a theater that had
whitstood the changes of 2 thousand years. It had been supported by the world of aristocracy.
Against this there now appeared a new and untried form of drama written originally by men from
outside cultures breastworks, a drama unformed, negligent of rules, violating even the decencies

of the older theater and concerning itself with the interests and passions of men who had never
before been admitted to the sacred circle of art. And this literary struggle paralleled events in the
social and political world. With all his wide humanity Shakespeare had never been conscious of
the conflict of classes. To him there had only one class, and this ruling class to which his plays
were addresses.

TWENTIETH CENTURY BRITISH DRAMA

Background
Twentieth Century British theatre is commonly believed to have started in Dublin, Ireland with
the foundation of the Irish Literary Theater by William B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, and J.M. Synge.
(Greenblatt 1843) Their purpose was to provide a specifically Celtic and Irish venue that
produced works that stage[d] the deeper emotions of Ireland. (The Abbey's) The playwrights of
the Irish Literary Theater (which later became the Abbey Theater, as it is known today) were part
of the literary revival and included: Sean OCasey, J.M. Synge, W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory and
Edward Martyn, to name a few. In England the well-made play genre was being rejected and
replaced with actors and directors who were committed to bringing both reform and a serious
audience to the theatre by appealing to the younger, socially conscious and politically alert
crowd. In the plays by George Bernard Shaw, Harley Granville Barker, W. Somerset Maugham,
and John Galsworthy, characters emulated this new crowd, satirized the well-made play
characters, and created new stereotypes and new standards. (Chothia)
The early twentieth century denoted the split between 'frocks and frills' drama and serious works,
following in the footsteps of many other European countries. "In Britain the impact of these
continental innovations was delayed by a conservative theatre establishment until the late 1950s
and 1960s when they converged with the counter-cultural revolution to transform the nature of
English language theatre." The West End, England's Broadway, tended to produce the
(Greenblatt 1844) musical comedies and well-made plays, while smaller theatres and Irish venues
took a new direction. The new direction was political, satirical, and rebellious. Common themes
in the new early 20th century drama were political, reflecting the unease or rebellion of the
workers against the state, philosophical, delving into the who and why of human life and
existence, and revolutionary, exploring the themes of colonization and loss of territory. They
explored common societal business practices (conditions of factories), new political ideologies
(socialism), or the rise of a repressed sector of the population (women).(Chothia)
Industrialization also had an impact on Twentieth century drama, resulting in plays lamenting the
alienation of humans in an increasingly mechanical world. Not only did Industrialization result in
alienation; so did the wars. Between the wars, two types of theatre reined. In the West End, the
middle class attended popular, conservative theatre dominated by Nol Coward and G.B. Shaw.
"Commercial theatre thrived and at Drury Lane large budget musicals by Ivor Novello and Noel
Coward used huge sets, extravagant costumes and large casts to create spectacular productions."
(West End) After the wars, taboos were broken and new writers, directors, and actors emerged
with different views. Many played with the idea of reality, some were radically political, others
shunned naturalism and questioned the legitimacy of previously unassailable beliefs. (Chothia)

Towards the end of the century, the term 'theatre of exorcism' came into use due to the amount of
plays conjuring the past in order to confront and accept it. Playwrights towards the end of the
century count among their numbers: Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Andrew Lloyd Webber,
Brian Friel, Caryl Churchill, and Tom Stoppard. The last act of the century was a turn back
towards realism as well as the founding of Europe's first children's cultural center.
Trends
Realism and Myth
Sigmund Freud inspired an interest in myth and dreams as playwrights became familiar with his
studies of psychoanalysis. Along with the help of Carl Jung, the two psychiatrists influenced
playwrights to incorporate myths into their plays. This integration allowed for new opportunities
for playwrights to increase the boundaries of realism within their writing. As playwrights started
to use myths in their writing, a "poetic form of realism" was created. This form of realism deals
with truths that are widespread amongst all humans, bolstered by Carl Jung's idea of the
collective unconscious.
Poetic Realism
Much of the poetic realism that was written during the beginning of the twentieth century focused
on the portrayals of Irish peasant life. John Millington Synge, W.B. Yeats, and Lady Gregory
were but a few writers to use poetic realism. Their portrayal of peasant life was often unappealing
and many audiences reacted cruelly. Many plays that are poetically realistic often have
unpleasant themes running through them, such as lust between a son and his step-mother or the
murder of a baby to "prove" love. These plays used myths as a surrogate for real life in order to
allow the audience to live the unpleasant plot without completely connecting to it.
Women
The female characters progressed from the downtrodden, useless woman to an empowered,
emancipated woman. They were used to to pose subversive questions about the social order.
Many female characters portray the author's masculine attitudes about women and their place in
society. As time passed, though, females began gain empowerment. G.B. Shaw became one of
the first English playwrights to follow Ibsen's influence and create roles of real women. Mrs.
Warren, Major Barbara, and Pygmalion all have strong female leads. Women first started voting
in 1918. Later in the century, females (and males) were both subjected to the alienation of society
and routinely were not given names to suggest to the audience the character's worth within the
play.
Political Theatre and War
Political theatre uses the theatre to represent "how a social or political order uses its power to
'represent' others coercively." It uses live performances and often shows the power of politics
through "demeaning and limiting" prejudices. Political theatre often represents many different
types of groups that are often stereotyped - "women, gay men, lesbians, ethnic and racial groups,
[and] the poor." Political theatre is used to express one's political ideas. Agitprop, a popular form

of political theatre, even had its roots in the 1930s women's rights movement. Propaganda played
a big role in political theater, whether it be in support of a war or in opposition of political
schemes, theater played a big role in influencing the public.
The wars also affected the early theatre of the twentieth century. The consternation before WWI
produced the Dada movement, the predecessor to Surrealism and Expressionism.
Types of Modern Drama
Realism
Realism, in theater, was meant to be a direct observation of human behavior. It began as a way to
make theater more useful to society, a way to hold a mirror up to society. Because of this thrust
towards the "real" playwrights started using more contemporary settings, backgrounds and
characters. Where plays in the past had, for the most part, used mythological or stereotypical
characters, now they involved the lower class, the poor, the rich; they involved all genders,
classes and races. One of the main contributors to this style was Henrik Ibsen.
Social Realism
Social Realism began showing up in plays during the 1930s. This realism had a political
conscience behind it because the world was in a depression. These plays painted a harsh picture
of rural poverty. The drama began to aim at showing governments the penalties of unrestrained
capitalism and the depressions that lax economies created. One of the main contributors to this
style was G.B. Shaw.
Absurdist Drama
Absurdist Drama was existentialist theatre which put a direct perception of a mode of being
above all abstract considerations. It was also essentially a poetic, lyrical theatre for the expression
of intuitions of being through movement, situations and concrete imagery. Language was
generally downplayed. (Barnet) Symbolism, Dadaism and their offspring, Surrealism, Theatre of
Cruelty, and Expressionism all fall into this category.
Dadaism
Dadaism, or Dada, was a reaction against WWI. Like many of the movements, Dada included
writing, painting and poetry as well as theatre. Many Dadaists wrote manifestos detailing their
beliefs, which normally outlined their disgust in colonialism and nationalism and tried to be the
opposite of the the current aesthetics and values. The more Dada offended, the better. It was
considered to be (by Dadaists), the 'anti-art'. It rejected the values of society and turned
everything on its head, preferring to disgust and offend.
Symbolism/Aestheticism
In England, Symbolism was also known as Aestheticism. A very stylized format of drama,
wherein dreams and fantasies were common plot devices, Aestheticism was used by numerous
playwrights from Yeats to Pinter. The staging was highly stylized, usually using minimal set

pieces and vague blocking. While the playwrights who could be considered Aestheticists lived
and worked at the beginning of the century, it influenced all of the following styles.
Surrealism
Like Aestheticism, Surrealism has its base in the mystical. It developed the physicality of theatre
and downplayed words, hoping to influence its audiences through action. Other common
characteristics of surreal plays are unexpected comparisons and surprise. The most famous
British playwright in the 20s surrealist style is Samuel Beckett. Theatre of Cruelty is a subset of
surrealism and was motivated by an idea of Antonin Artaud. It argues the idea that theatre is a
"representational medium" and tried to bring current ideas and experiences to the audience
through participation and "ritualistic theater experiments." Artaud thought that theatre should
present and represent equally. This type of theatre relies deeply on metaphors and rarely included
a description of how it could be performed.
Expressionism
The term 'Expressionism' was first coined in Germany in 1911. (Michaelides) Expressionism also
had its hey-day during the 20s although it had two distinct branches. The branches had characters
speaking in short, direct sentences or in long, lyrical expanses. This type of theatre usually did
not name the characters and spend much time lamenting the present and warning against the
future. Spiritual awakenings and episodic structures were also fairly common.
Epic Theatre
Epic theater was created by Bertold Brecht who rejected realistic theatre. He found that such
plays were too picture-perfect. Epic Theatre is based on Greek Epic poetry. There are dramatic
illusions such as "stark, harsh lighting, blank stages, placards announcing changes of scenes,
bands playing music onstage, and long, discomfiting pauses" (Jacobus). Brecht believed that
drama should be made within its audiences and he thought that Epic Theatre drama would
reinforce the realities that people were facing rather than challenge them. Epic Theatre helped to
preserve the social issues that they portrayed.
20TH CENTURY THEATRE
Twentieth-century theatre describes a period of great change within the theatrical culture of the
20th century. There was a widespread challenge to long established rules surrounding theatrical
representation; resulting in the development of many new forms of theatre, including modernism,
Expressionism, Impressionism, political theatre and other forms of Experimental theatre, as well
as the continuing development of already established theatrical forms like naturalism and realism.
Throughout the century, the artistic reputation of theatre improved after being derided throughout
the 19th century. However, the growth of other media, especially film, has resulted in a
diminished role within culture at large. In light of this change, theatrical artists have been forced
to seek new ways to engage with society. The various answers offered in response to this have
prompted the transformations that make up its modern history.

Developments in areas like Gender theory and postmodern philosophy identified and created
subjects for the theatre to explore. These sometimes explicitly meta-theatrical performances were
meant to confront the audience's perceptions and assumptions in order to raise questions about
their society. These challenging and influential plays characterized much of the final two decades
of the 20th-century.
Although largely developing in Europe and North America through the beginning of the century,
the next 50 years saw an embrace of non-Western theatrical forms. Influenced by the dismantling
of empires and the continuing development of post-colonial theory, many new artists utilized
elements of their own cultures and societies to create a diversified theatre.
Realistic theatre
Influenced by the ideas of Sigmund Freud and others, many artists began to find a psychological
approach to theatre that emphasized the inner dimensions of the characters onstage. This was
carried out both on the stage in acting styles and outside of the stage in play writing. While it
certainly does not begin with him, Constantin Stanislavski is certainly the most influential
proponent of this approach to theatre. He believed that briaan should cultivate an "inner life" for
their characters, from which all movement and gesture would flow. Stanislavski's work at the
Moscow Art Theatre was indispensable to the development of Western drama in the 20thcentury.
Modernism
Modernism was a predominantly European movement that developed as a self-conscious break
from traditional artistic forms. It represents a significant shift in cultural sensibilities, often
attributed to the fallout of World War I.[3] At first, modernist theatre was in large part an attempt
to realize the reformed stage on naturalistic principles as advocated by mile Zola in the 1880s.
However, a simultaneous reaction against naturalism urged the theatre in a much different
direction. Owing much to symbolism, the movement attempted to integrate poetry, painting,
music, and dance in a harmonious fusion. Both of these seemingly conflicting movements fit
under the term 'Modernism'.
Political theatre
Political theatre is an attempt to rethink the nature and function of theatre in the light of the
dynamics of the society outside it and audience involvement within it. It led to profound and
original theories of acting, staging and playwriting.
Popular theatre
At the beginning of the 20th century, many viewed theatre as an "all-too-popular affair."[6]
Frequently, the true reformers of the early part of the century called for increasingly smaller
theatres, where their techniques could register on a select audience. Still, these same practitioners
often dreamed that their art would be a true people's theatre: a theatre for the people. Inspired by
an understanding of the Greek theatre and heavily influenced by Nietzsche, they sought a
profound or ecstatic ritual event that involved music and movement, in a space without a

proscenium arch. Later, practitioners like Vsevolod Meyerhold and Bertolt Brecht would initiate
an attempt to bridge the "gulf" between modernism and the people.
Post-modern theatre
Post-modern theatre is a recent phenomenon in world theatre, coming as it does out of the
postmodern philosophy that originated in Europe in the middle of the 20th century. Post-modern
theatre emerged as a reaction against modernist theatre. Most post-modern productions are
centered around highlighting the fallibility of definite truth, instead encouraging the audience to
reach their own individual understanding. Essentially, thus, post-modern theatre raises questions
rather than attempting to supply answers.
Global theatre
At the beginning of the 20th-century, many European audiences were exposed to the "exotic"
theatrical world of Japanese and Chinese performances. This led to many Western practitioners
interpreting and incorporating these styles into their own theatres: most notably Bertolt Brecht's
adaptation of Chinese opera to support his 'Alienation' effect. The influence of the non-western
theatre on theatrical culture in the 20th-century has often been crucial to new developments.
However, the period during and after the advent of post-colonial theory in the 1960s and 1970s,
has led to a tremendous amount of development in theatre practice all over the world. This has
created, for the first time, a truly global theatre.
Existentialism:
In literature and philosophy, the theme of absurdity contrasts with naturalism, which seeks to
accurately depict life, shows a general distrust of language as means of communication, abandons
logic, and plainly pushes the boundaries of human condition. Absurdist plays splits from the
traditional play format and tend to be more surreal, illogical, conflictless and plotless. It was
anti-theatre. It often involved circular reasoning. In waiting for Godot, the circular structure
represents the repetivity of life and the main premise is the futility of waiting. The language and
the set are very basic and the characters show no development and more flaws than virtue.
Although the play presents an overall mood of desperation and despair, its objective is not to
suggest negativity but to force the audience to find a way out of the senselessness. The theatre
of absurd is also undoubtedly influenced by the horrors of World War Two which showed the
total temporality of any values, shook the validity of any conventions and highlighted the
shortness of human life and its fundamental meaninglessness and arbitrariness (nedensizlikgeliigzellik). Existentialism sprung out directly after the Great Depression and World War
Two, a period of despair and hopelessness. It seeks to find and define meaning and identity in a
world of chaos and meaninglessness. Existentialism seriously thinks about the questions: Why do
we exist? Why is there suffering? Why do we die? It is the dilemma of modern humanity. The
theatre of the Absurd presents an existentialist point of view of the world and reality, and forces
the audience to consider the meaning of their existence in a world where there appears to be no
true order or meaning.

Existentialist themes are displayed in the Theatre of the Absurd, notably in Samuel Beckett's
Waiting for Godot, in which two men divert themselves while they wait expectantly for someone
(or something) named Godot who never arrives. They claim Godot is an acquaintance, but in fact,
hardly know him, admitting they would not recognize him if they saw him. Samuel Beckett, once
asked who or what Godot is, replied, "If I knew, I would have said so in the play." To occupy
themselves, the men eat, sleep, talk, argue, sing, play games, exercise, swap hats, and
contemplate suicideanything "to hold the terrible silence at bay". The play "exploits several
archetypal forms and situations, all of which lend themselves to both comedy and pathos." The
play also illustrates an attitude toward human experience on earth: the poignancy, oppression,
camaraderie, hope, corruption, and bewilderment of human experience that can be reconciled
only in the mind and art of the absurdist. The play examines questions such as death, the meaning
of human existence and the place of God in human existence.

Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is an absurdist tragicomedy first staged at
the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1966. The play expands upon the exploits of two minor
characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet. Comparisons have also been drawn to Samuel Beckett's
Waiting For Godot, for the presence of two central characters who appear almost as two halves of
a single character. Many plot features are similar as well: the characters pass time by playing
Questions, impersonating other characters, and interrupting each other or remaining silent for
long periods of time. The two characters are portrayed as two clowns or fools in a world beyond
their understanding. They stumble through philosophical arguments while not realizing the
implications, and muse on the irrationality and randomness of the world.
*Snav iin Giri olabilir
Contemporary drama in Britain reinforces a lengthy and strong theatrical tradition, while
employing innovative strategies and themes that reflect recent developments in British society
and culture. Many of those dramatists who achieved success in the 1960s and 1970s continue to
produce remarkable work. At the same time, a number of historical factors have influenced the
work of a new generation of playwrights. British drama throughout the twentieth century
frequently challenged social norms, but the political and cultural impact of Prime Minister
Margaret Thatchers conservative government, which dominated the 1980s, continued to be felt
in the years following her tenure. The entrepreneurship, unemployment, economic upheaval,
dismantling of the welfare state, and Thatchers seeming insistence on Victorian values
generated explicitly political drama in the 1980s, much of which criticized the prevailing values
of radical conservatism. This is evidenced most obviously in the plays of David Hare and
Howard Brenton.
In the 1990s, the aftershocks from the preceding decade were felt in the form of attacks on the
new consumerism encouraged by Thatcher and on the political correctness response emanating
from the Left. At the same time, tensions in Northern Ireland continued to confront Britain, and a
number of new Irish playwrights emerged not only to address these issues but also to consider the
condition of Ireland as a whole.