After the II World War a new wave (ondata) of theatre started and became popular in the United Kingdom. The new trends can be largely included in three different labels: Theatre of Anger, the Theatre of Cruelty and the Theatre of the Absurd. They saw their successful beginning in the 1950s with John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger; the so-called Angry Young Men became a new, salient force in English drama. They inspired Arnold Wesker (1932 -), John Arden(1930 – ) and Shelagh Delaney (1939 – ) who turned (volsero) their attention on the working classes, portraying (descrivendo) the dullness (ottusità), mediocrity, and injustice in the lives of these people. A. Wesker’s Trilogy (1958 -1960) is about a family of Jewish Communist (comunisti ebrei) intellectuals and examines the problems of the working class in the 20th century without offering any solution. His socialist point of view is reflected in his other plays – The Kitchen(1961), Chips with Everything (1962), and The Four Seasons(1969). His later plays include The Old Ones (1972), which describes the enforced isolation of the elderly and The Wedding Feast (1974). J. Arden’s Serjeant Musgrave’s Dance (1959) is regarded as his first important and innovative play because of the universal significance given to the pacifist theme and the depiction of the negative aspects of army life (vita nell’esercito) on soldiers. It was considered the most remerkable(notevole) example of the Theatre of Cruelty, together with the theatre adaptation made by John Whiting (The Devils, 1960) of Aldous Huxley‘s (1894 – 1963) historical narrative The Devils of Loudon – 1953). Shelagh Delaney began writing A Taste (gusto) of Honey, as a novel, but she later turned it into a play performed in New York in 1960. Two years later Shelagh wrote the screenplay (sceneggiatura) for the film version, which won an Academy Award (Oscar). In 1963 she produced a collection of short stories entitled Sweetly Sings the Donkey, followed by several television plays, among them Did your Nanny Come from Bergen? (1970), and St. Martin’s Summer (1974), by scripts (sceneggiature) such as Charley Bubbles and Dance with a Stranger (1982), and by radio plays such as So Does the Nightingale (1980). Harold Pinter (1930 – 2008) was influenced by the Theatre of the Absurd started by Eugene Ionesco and Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot, 1953). Like them Pinter never found it necessary to explain why things occur (capitano) or who anyone is. Unlike (a differenza) Beckett and Ionesco, his world within (all’interno) the drama seems to be at least (per lo meno) somewhat (in qualche modo) realistic. His first play, The Room, was performed in May 1957 and his career continued with such works as The Dumbwaiter (1957), Betrayal(1978), Mountain Language (1988) and Moonlight (1993). Pinter was also an active screenplay (sceneggiatore) writer. (picture: Salvador Dalì – Dream caused by a bee’s flight)
After the II World War a new wave (ondata) of theatre started and became popular in the United Kingdom. The new trends can be largely included in three different labels: Theatre of Anger, the Theatre of Cruelty and the Theatre of the Absurd. They saw their successful beginning in the 1950s with John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger; the so-called Angry Young Men became a new, salient force in English drama. They inspired Arnold Wesker (1932 -), John Arden(1930 – ) and Shelagh Delaney (1939 – ) who turned (volsero) their attention on the working classes, portraying (descrivendo) the dullness (ottusità), mediocrity, and injustice in the lives of these people. A. Wesker’s Trilogy (1958 -1960) is about a family of Jewish Communist (comunisti ebrei) intellectuals and examines the problems of the working class in the 20th century without offering any solution. His socialist point of view is reflected in his other plays – The Kitchen(1961), Chips with Everything (1962), and The Four Seasons(1969). His later plays include The Old Ones (1972), which describes the enforced isolation of the elderly and The Wedding Feast (1974). J. Arden’s Serjeant Musgrave’s Dance (1959) is regarded as his first important and innovative play because of the universal significance given to the pacifist theme and the depiction of the negative aspects of army life (vita nell’esercito) on soldiers. It was considered the most remerkable(notevole) example of the Theatre of Cruelty, together with the theatre adaptation made by John Whiting (The Devils, 1960) of Aldous Huxley‘s (1894 – 1963) historical narrative The Devils of Loudon – 1953). Shelagh Delaney began writing A Taste (gusto) of Honey, as a novel, but she later turned it into a play performed in New York in 1960. Two years later Shelagh wrote the screenplay (sceneggiatura) for the film version, which won an Academy Award (Oscar). In 1963 she produced a collection of short stories entitled Sweetly Sings the Donkey, followed by several television plays, among them Did your Nanny Come from Bergen? (1970), and St. Martin’s Summer (1974), by scripts (sceneggiature) such as Charley Bubbles and Dance with a Stranger (1982), and by radio plays such as So Does the Nightingale (1980). Harold Pinter (1930 – 2008) was influenced by the Theatre of the Absurd started by Eugene Ionesco and Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot, 1953). Like them Pinter never found it necessary to explain why things occur (capitano) or who anyone is. Unlike (a differenza) Beckett and Ionesco, his world within (all’interno) the drama seems to be at least (per lo meno) somewhat (in qualche modo) realistic. His first play, The Room, was performed in May 1957 and his career continued with such works as The Dumbwaiter (1957), Betrayal(1978), Mountain Language (1988) and Moonlight (1993). Pinter was also an active screenplay (sceneggiatore) writer. (picture: Salvador Dalì – Dream caused by a bee’s flight)
2013-03-15