History of theatre

The history of theatre charts the development of

There is no conclusive evidence that theater evolved from ritual, despite the similarities between the performance of ritual actions and theatre and the significance of this relationship.[2] This similarity of early theatre to ritual is negatively attested by Aristotle, who in his Poetics defined theatre in contrast to the performances of sacred mysteries: theatre did not require the spectator to fast, drink the kykeon, or march in a procession; however theatre did resemble the sacred mysteries in the sense that it brought purification and healing to the spectator by means of a vision, the theama. The physical location of such performances was accordingly named theatron.^[3]

According to the historians

Western theatre developed and expanded considerably under the

Following the expansion of the Roman Republic (509–27 BC) into several Greek territories between 270 and 240 BC, Rome encountered Greek drama.^[22] 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.^[23] While Greek drama continued to be performed throughout the Roman period, the year 240 BC marks the beginning of regular Roman drama.^[22][i] From the beginning of the empire, however, interest in full-length drama declined in favour of a broader variety of theatrical entertainments.^[24]

The first important works of

No early Roman tragedy survives, though it was highly regarded in its day; historians know of three early tragedians—

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.^[30]

In contrast to Ancient Greek theatre, the theatre in Ancient Rome did allow female performers. While the majority were employed for dancing and singing, a minority of actresses are known to have performed speaking roles, and there were actresses who achieved wealth, fame and recognition for their art, such as Eucharis, Dionysia, Galeria Copiola and Fabia Arete: they also formed their own acting guild, the Sociae Mimae, which was evidently quite wealthy.^[32]

Transition and early medieval theatre, 500–1050

Main article: Medieval theatre

As the

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.^[33] 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.

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. As such, most organized theatrical activities disappeared in Western Europe. 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.^[34] These performers were denounced by the Church during the Dark Ages as they were viewed as dangerous and pagan.

Hrosvitha

of Gandersheim, the first dramatist of the post-classical era.

By the

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.^[35] Liturgical drama was sung responsively by two groups and did not involve actors impersonating characters. However, sometime between 965 and 975, Æthelwold of Winchester composed the Regularis Concordia (Monastic Agreement) which contains a playlet complete with directions for performance.^[36]

Benedictine abbess, who wrote a Latin musical

drama called Ordo Virtutum in 1155.

High and late medieval theatre, 1050–1500

Main article: Medieval theatre

As the

Viking invasions ceased in the middle of the 11th century, liturgical drama had spread from Russia to Scandinavia to Italy. Only in Muslim-occupied Iberian Peninsula were liturgical dramas not presented at all. Despite the large number of liturgical dramas that have survived from the period, many churches would have only performed one or two per year and a larger number never performed any at all.^[37]

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.^[38]

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

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.^[39]

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.^[40] 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.

Goods, and Fellowship – only Good Deeds

goes with him to the grave.

There were also a number of secular performances staged in the Middle Ages, the earliest of which is The Play of the Greenwood by

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.^[42] 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

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.^[43]

The end of medieval drama came about due to a number of factors, including the weakening power of 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.^[43]

Italian Commedia dell'arte and Renaissance

Main article: Commedia dell'arte

masked "types", commedia was responsible for the rise of actresses such as Isabella Andreini^[48] and improvised performances based on sketches or scenarios.^[49][50] A commedia, such as The Tooth Puller, is both scripted and improvised.^[49][51] Characters' entrances and exits are scripted. A special characteristic of commedia is the lazzo, a joke or "something foolish or witty", usually well known to the performers and to some extent a scripted routine.^[51][52] Another characteristic of commedia is pantomime, which is mostly used by the character Arlecchino, now better known as Harlequin.^[53]

The characters of the commedia usually represent fixed social types and

bravado.^[49][54] 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.^[48] Many troupes were formed to perform commedia, including I Gelosi (which had actors such as Andreini and her husband Francesco Andreini),^[55] Confidenti Troupe, Desioi Troupe, and Fedeli Troupe.^[48][49] Commedia was often performed outside on platforms or in popular areas such as a piazza (town square).^[47][49] The form of theatre originated in Italy, but travelled throughout Europe - sometimes to as far away as Moscow.^[56]

The genesis of commedia may be related to

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.^[57]

English Elizabethan theatre

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Main article: English Renaissance theatre

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,

vagabonds.^[58]

The City of London authorities were generally hostile to public performances, but its hostility was overmatched by the Queen's taste for plays and the Privy Council's support.[59] 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.^[60]

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.

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.

classical drama, this could be counteracted. The very idea of tragicomedy was controversial because the genre was a post-classical development, but tragicomedies became a popular Counter-Reformation form because they were suited to demonstrating the benign workings of divine providence, and endorsing the concept of free will. Giovanni Battista Guarini’s Il pastor fido (The Faithful Shepherd, written 1580s, published 1602) was the most influential tragicomedy of the period, while Tirso de Molina is especially notable for ingeniously subverting the implications of his tragic plots by means of comic endings. A similar theologically motivated overturning of generic expectation lies behind tragœdiæ sacræ such as Francesco Sforza Pallavicino’s Ermenegildo.^[61] This type of sacred tragedy developed from medieval dramatizations of saints’ lives; in them, martyr-protagonists die in a manner both tragic and triumphant. Enhancing Counter-Reformation Catholicism's encouragement of martyr cults, such plays could celebrate contemporary figures like Sir Thomas More — hero of several dramas across Europe — or be used to foment nationalistic sentiment.^[61]

Spanish Golden age theatre

Main article: Spanish Golden Age theatre

During its Golden Age, roughly from 1590 to 1681,^[62] 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.^[63] 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.^[62][63][64] Although this volume has been as much a source of criticism as praise for Spanish Golden Age theatre, for emphasizing quantity before quality,^[65] a large number of the 10,000^[63] to 30,000^[65] plays of this period are still considered masterpieces.^[66][67]

Major artists of the period included

Calderon de la Barca, inventor of the zarzuela^[69] and Lope's successor as the preeminent Spanish dramatist.^[70] Gil Vicente, Lope de Rueda, and Juan del Encina helped to establish the foundations of Spanish theatre in the mid-sixteenth centuries,^[71][72][73] while Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla and Tirso de Molina made significant contributions in the latter half of the Golden Age.^[74][75] Important performers included Lope de Rueda (previously mentioned among the playwrights) and later Juan Rana.^[76][77]

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^[78] and the uniquely Spanish expression of Western Europe's traveling minstrel entertainments^[79][80] 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.^[81][82] 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.^[66] It has also had a lasting impact on theatre throughout the Spanish speaking world.^[83] 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.^[84]

French Classical theatre

Notable playwrights:

• Pierre Corneille (1606–84)
• Molière (1622–73)
• Jean Racine (1639–99)

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.^[85][86]

Restoration comedy

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Main article: Restoration comedy

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

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.^[87][88]

Restoration spectacular

Main article: Restoration spectacular

The Restoration spectacular, or elaborately staged "machine play", hit the

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.^[89] 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.^[90] 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.^[91]

Neoclassical theatre

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Further information: Neoclassicism

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.

Nineteenth-century theatre

Main article: Nineteenth-century theatre

Theatre in the 19th century is divided into two parts: early and late. The early period was dominated by melodrama and Romanticism.

Beginning in France, melodrama became the most popular theatrical form.

René Charles Guilbert de Pixérécourt established melodrama as the dominant dramatic form of the early 19th century.^[92]

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.^[93]

The later period of the 19th century saw the rise of two conflicting types of drama:

Symbolism and precursors of Expressionism

.

Realism began earlier in the 19th century in Russia than elsewhere in Europe and took a more uncompromising form.

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.^[95]

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.^[96]

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.^[97]

In Britain, melodramas, light comedies, operas, Shakespeare and classic English drama,

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.^[98] 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

Theatre of the Absurd".^{[citation needed}

]

After Ibsen, British theatre experienced revitalization with the work of

Edwardian musical comedies were extremely popular, appealing to the tastes of the middle class in the Gay Nineties^[99]

and catering to the public's preference for escapist entertainment during World War 1.

Twentieth-century theatre

See also: Twentieth-century theatre, Timeline of twentieth-century theatre, and Musical theatre

While much

Theatre of the Absurd

".

The term

poor theatre, down to the present day, with contemporary theatre practitioners including Augusto Boal with his Theatre of the Oppressed, Dario Fo's popular theatre, Eugenio Barba's theatre anthropology and Anne Bogart's viewpoints.^[102]

Other key figures of 20th-century theatre include: Antonin Artaud, August Strindberg, Anton Chekhov, Frank Wedekind, Maurice Maeterlinck, Federico García Lorca, Eugene O'Neill, Luigi Pirandello, 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

Princess Theatre musicals, followed by the works of the Gershwin brothers, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart, and later Rodgers and Hammerstein

.

American theatre

1752 to 1895 Romanticism

Throughout most of history, English

Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice."^[107] Due to a strong Christian society, theatre was banned from 1774 until 1789.^[108] This societal standard was due to the Bible being sacred and any other diversions (entertainment) were seen as inappropriate, frivolous (without purpose), and sensual (pleasurable).^[109] During the ban, theatre often hid by titling itself as moral lectures.^[110] Theatre took a brief pause because of the revolutionary war, but quickly resumed after the war ended in 1781.^[108] Theatre began to spread west, and often towns had theatres before they had sidewalks or sewers.^[111] There were several leading professional theatre companies early on, but one of the most influential was in Philadelphia (1794–1815); however, the company had shaky roots because of the ban on theatre.^[108]

As the country expanded so did theatre; following the

realism.^[108] This trend toward realism occurred between 1870 and 1895.^[108]

1895 to 1945 Realism

In this era of theatre, the moral hero shifts to the modern man who is a product of his environment.[112] This major shift is due in part to the civil war because America was now stained with its own blood, having lost its innocence.^[113]

1945 to 1990

During this period of theatre, Hollywood emerged and threatened American theatre.^[114] However theatre during this time didn't decline but in fact was renowned and noticed worldwide.^[114] Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller achieved worldwide fame during this period.

African theatre

Egyptian theatre

Ancient Egyptian quasi-theatrical events

The earliest recorded quasi-theatrical event dates back to 2000 BC with the "passion plays" of Ancient Egypt. The story of the god Osiris was performed annually at festivals throughout the civilization.^[115]

Modern Egyptian theater

In the modern era, the art of theater was evolved in the second half of the nineteenth century through interaction with Europe. As well as the development of popular theatrical forms that Egypt knew thousands of years before this date.^{[116][117][118]}

The beginning was by

Badie' Khayri, Ali El Kassar and Naguib El-Rihani in presenting comedy in another way.^{[119][120][121]}

More than 350 plays were presented in the so-called halls theater in the 1930s and 1940s, co-presented by

Badie' Khayri and Abo El Seoud El Ebiary and directed by Aziz Eid, Bishara Wakim and Abdel Aziz Khalil. In addition to important statistics, including that the longest-lived private sector group is the Rihani band. Its activity lasted 67 years, starting from 1916 until 1983, nearly seventy years. The most prolific private sector group is the Ramses Troupe, which produced more than 240 plays from 1923 to 1960. The longest-lived state theater troupe is the National Theater Troupe, which lasted for over 80 years, starting from 1935 until now.^[122][123]

After the

1952 revolution, there was a group of playwrights such as Alfred Farag, and Ali Salem, Noaman Ashour, Saad Eddin Wahba and others. Zaki, as for the country teams, the most prolific directors in production are the artists Fattouh Nashati, and Zaki Tulaimat.^[124]

Among the Egyptian playwrights whose works were presented on stage are Amin Sedky, Badi’ Khairy, Abu Al-Saud Al-Ebiary, and Tawfiq Al-Hakim. Most of the world's playwrights whose works were presented on the stage are Molière, Pierre Corneille and William Shakespeare.^[125][126]

The women's imprint was clear in the history of Egyptian theater, which

Al Ayal Kibrit

In 2020, the Egyptian Minister of Culture, Dr.  Ines Abdel-Dayem dedicates the next session of the National Festival of Egyptian Theater to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the modern Egyptian theater.  It will review the findings of the research team, consisting of Amr Dawara, the theater memory guard, who started since 1993 to prepare the largest Egyptian theater encyclopedia that includes all the details of professional theatrical performances during fifteen decades, starting from 1870 by Yacub Sanu until 2019, during which the number of performances reached 6300 professional works, which were presented to the public for a fee at the box office. And addressed the book body to print the encyclopedia. And that encyclopedia will help the reader and researcher to know the masterpieces and creations of Egyptian theater throughout its history.^{[127][128][122]}

West African theatre

Ghanaian theatre

Modern theatre in Ghana emerged in the early 20th century.^[129] It emerged first as literary comment on the colonization of Africa by Europe.^[129] Among the earliest work in which this can be seen is The Blinkards written by Kobina Sekyi in 1915. The Blinkards is a blatant satire about the Africans who embraced the European culture that was brought to them. In it Sekyi demeans three groups of individuals: anyone European, anyone who imitates the Europeans, and the rich African cocoa farmer. This sudden rebellion though was just the beginning spark of Ghanaian literary theatre.^[129]

A play that has similarity in its satirical view is Anowa. Written by Ghanaian author Ama Ata Aidoo, it begins with its eponymous heroine Anowa rejecting her many arranged suitors' marriage proposals. She insists on making her own decisions as to whom she is going to marry. The play stresses the need for gender equality, and respect for women.^[129] This ideal of independence, as well as equality leads Anowa down a winding path of both happiness and misery. Anowa chooses a man of her own to marry. Anowa supports her husband Kofi both physically and emotionally. Through her support Kofi does prosper in wealth, but becomes poor as a spiritual being. Through his accumulation of wealth Kofi loses himself in it. His once happy marriage with Anowa becomes changed when he begins to hire slaves rather than doing any labor himself. This to Anowa does not make sense because it makes Kofi no better than the European colonists whom she detests for the way that she feels they have used the people of Africa. Their marriage is childless, which is presumed to have been caused by a ritual that Kofi has done trading his manhood for wealth. Anowa's viewing Kofi's slave-gotten wealth and inability to have a child leads to her committing suicide.^[129] The name Anowa means "Superior moral force" while Kofi's means only "Born on Friday". This difference in even the basis of their names seems to implicate the moral superiority of women in a male run society.^[129]

Another play of significance is The Marriage of Anansewa, written in 1975 by

In his pioneering study of

"Total theatre" also developed in Nigeria in the 1950s. It utilised non-Naturalistic techniques, surrealistic physical imagery, and exercised a flexible use of language. Playwrights writing in the mid-1970s made use of some of these techniques, but articulated them with "a radical appreciation of the problems of society."^[136]

Traditional performance modes have strongly influenced the major figures in contemporary Nigerian theatre. The work of Hubert Ogunde (sometimes referred to as the "father of contemporary Yoruban theatre") was informed by the Aláàrìnjó tradition and Egungun masquerades.^[137] Wole Soyinka, who is "generally recognized as Africa's greatest living playwright", gives the divinity Ogun a complex metaphysical significance in his work.^[138] In his essay "The Fourth Stage" (1973),^[139] Soyinka contrasts Yoruba drama with classical Athenian drama, relating both to the 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's analysis of the latter in The Birth of Tragedy (1872). Ogun, he argues, is "a totality of the Dionysian, Apollonian and Promethean virtues."^[140]

The proponents of the travelling theatre in Nigeria include Duro Ladipo and Moses Olaiya (a popular comic act). These practitioners contributed much to the field of African theatre during the period of mixture and experimentation of the indigenous with the Western theatre.

African Diaspora theatre

African-American theatre

The history of African-American theatre has a dual origin. The first is rooted in local theatre where African Americans performed in cabins and parks. Their performances (folk tales, songs, music, and dance) were rooted in the African culture before being influenced by the American environment.

The earliest form of

The earliest-surviving fragments of Sanskrit drama date from the 1st century.

.

Traditional Indian theatre

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Kathakali is a highly stylised classical Indian dance-drama noted for the attractive make-up of characters, elaborate costumes, detailed gestures, and well-defined body movements presented in tune with the anchor playback music and complementary percussion. It originated in the country's present-day state of Kerala during the 17th century^[157] and has developed over the years with improved looks, refined gestures and added themes besides more ornate singing and precise drumming.

Modern Indian theatre

Rabindranath Tagore was a pioneering modern playwright who wrote plays noted for their exploration and questioning of nationalism, identity, spiritualism and material greed.^[158] His plays are written in Bengali and include Chitra (Chitrangada, 1892), The King of the Dark Chamber (Raja, 1910), The Post Office (Dakghar, 1913), and Red Oleander (Raktakarabi, 1924).^[158]

Chinese theatre

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Shang theatre

There are references to theatrical entertainments in China as early as 1500 BC during the Shang dynasty; they often involved music, clowning and acrobatic displays.

Han and Tang theatre

During the Han dynasty, shadow puppetry first emerged as a recognized form of theatre in China. There were two distinct forms of shadow puppetry, Cantonese southern and Pekingese northern. The two styles were differentiated by the method of making the puppets and the positioning of the rods on the puppets, as opposed to the type of play performed by the puppets. Both styles generally performed plays depicting great adventure and fantasy, rarely was this very stylized form of theatre used for political propaganda. Cantonese shadow puppets were the larger of the two. They were built using thick leather which created more substantial shadows. Symbolic color was also very prevalent; a black face represented honesty, a red one bravery. The rods used to control Cantonese puppets were attached perpendicular to the puppets' heads. Thus, they were not seen by the audience when the shadow was created. Pekingese puppets were more delicate and smaller. They were created out of thin, translucent leather usually taken from the belly of a donkey. They were painted with vibrant paints, thus they cast a very colorful shadow. The thin rods which controlled their movements were attached to a leather collar at the neck of the puppet. The rods ran parallel to the bodies of the puppet then turned at a ninety degree angle to connect to the neck. While these rods were visible when the shadow was cast, they laid outside the shadow of the puppet; thus they did not interfere with the appearance of the figure. The rods attached at the necks to facilitate the use of multiple heads with one body. When the heads were not being used, they were stored in a muslin book or fabric lined box. The heads were always removed at night. This was in keeping with the old superstition that if left intact, the puppets would come to life at night. Some puppeteers went so far as to store the heads in one book and the bodies in another, to further reduce the possibility of reanimating puppets. Shadow puppetry is said to have reached its highest point of artistic development in the 11th century before becoming a tool of the government.

The Tang dynasty is sometimes known as 'The Age of 1000 Entertainments'. During this era,

In the

In Cambodia, at the ancient capital Angkor Wat, stories from the Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata have been carved on the walls of temples and palaces.

Thai theatre

In Thailand, it has been a tradition from the Middle Ages to stage plays based on plots drawn from Indian epics. In particular, the theatrical version of Thailand's national epic Ramakien, a version of the Indian Ramayana, remains popular in Thailand even today.

Philippine theatre

During the 333-year reign of the Spanish government, they introduced into the islands the Catholic religion and the Spanish way of life, which gradually merged with the indigenous culture to form the “lowland folk culture” now shared by the major ethnolinguistic groups. Today, the dramatic forms introduced or influenced by Spain continue to live in rural areas all over the archipelago. These forms include the komedya, the playlets, the sinakulo, the sarswela, and the drama. In recent years, some of these forms have been revitalized to make them more responsive to the conditions and needs of a developing nation.

Japanese theatre

Noh

During the 14th century, there were small companies of actors in Japan who performed short, sometimes vulgar comedies. A director of one of these companies, Kan'ami (1333–1384), had a son, Zeami Motokiyo (1363–1443) who was considered one of the finest child actors in Japan. When Kan'ami's company performed for Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358–1408), the Shōgun of Japan, he implored Zeami to have a court education for his arts. After Zeami succeeded his father, he continued to perform and adapt his style into what is today Noh. A mixture of pantomime and vocal acrobatics, this style has fascinated the Japanese for hundreds of years.

Bunraku

Japan, after a long period of civil wars and political disarray, was unified and at peace primarily due to shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616). However, alarmed at increasing Christian growth, he cut off contact from Japan to Europe and China and outlawed Christianity. When peace did come, a flourish of cultural influence and growing merchant class demanded its own entertainment. The first form of theatre to flourish was Ningyō jōruri (commonly referred to as Bunraku). The founder of and main contributor to Ningyō jōruri, Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653–1725), turned his form of theatre into a true art form. Ningyō jōruri is a highly stylized form of theatre using puppets, today about 1/3d the size of a human. The men who control the puppets train their entire lives to become master puppeteers, when they can then operate the puppet's head and right arm and choose to show their faces during the performance. The other puppeteers, controlling the less important limbs of the puppet, cover themselves and their faces in a black suit, to imply their invisibility. The dialogue is handled by a single person, who uses varied tones of voice and speaking manners to simulate different characters. Chikamatsu wrote thousands of plays during his career, most of which are still used today. They wore masks instead of elaborate makeup. Masks define their gender, personality, and moods the actor is in.

Kabuki

Kabuki began shortly after Bunraku, legend has it by an actress named Okuni, who lived around the end of the 16th century. Most of Kabuki's material came from Nõ and Bunraku, and its erratic dance-type movements are also an effect of Bunraku. However, Kabuki is less formal and more distant than Nõ, yet very popular among the Japanese public. Actors are trained in many varied things including dancing, singing, pantomime, and even acrobatics. Kabuki was first performed by young girls, then by young boys, and by the end of the 16th century, Kabuki companies consisted of all men. The men who portrayed women on stage were specifically trained to elicit the essence of a woman in their subtle movements and gestures.

Butoh

Butoh is the collective name for a diverse range of activities, techniques and motivations for dance, performance, or movement inspired by the Ankoku-Butoh (暗黒舞踏, ankoku butō) movement. It typically involves playful and grotesque imagery, taboo topics, extreme or absurd environments, and is traditionally performed in white body makeup with slow hyper-controlled motion, with or without an audience. There is no set style, and it may be purely conceptual with no movement at all. Its origins have been attributed to Japanese dance legends Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno. Butoh appeared first in Japan following World War II and specifically after student riots. The roles of authority were now subject to challenge and subversion. It also appeared as a reaction against the contemporary dance scene in Japan, which Hijikata felt was based on the one hand on imitating the West and on the other on imitating the Noh. He critiqued the current state of dance as overly superficial.

Turkish theatre

1st mention of theatre plays in

Medieval Islamic theatre

The most popular forms of theatre in the

• Antitheatricality
• The Cambridge History of British Theatre
• Development of musical theatre
• History of art
• History of dance
• History of figure skating
• History of film
• History of literature
• History of opera
• History of professional wrestling
• History of television
• Play (theatre)
• Radio drama

Notes

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External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to History of theatre.

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: History of Western Theatre: Greeks to Elizabethans

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: History of Western Theatre: 17th Century to Now

• Theatre Collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, with information and archive material
• University of Bristol Theatre Collection, University of Bristol
• Music Hall and Theatre History – an archive of historical information and material on British Theatre and Music Hall buildings.
• Long running plays (over 400 performances) on Broadway, Off-Broadway, London, Toronto, Melbourne, Paris, Vienna, and Berlin
• APGRD Database (Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama), University of Oxford, ed. Amanda Wrigley
• Women's Theatre History: Online Bibliography and Searchable Database Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine at Langara College