Drama Flashcards
Woman of no importance context 1893
Aestheticism- arts for arts sake. Focus on the individual. Should not concern itself with moral guidance. Advocated freedom from the moral restraint of society.
Victorian - strike moral standards especially for women,
All my sons - Arthur Miller 1947
Why does she crucify him? A fathers a father’ - Joe about Anne
This is the land of the great big dogs, you don’t love a man here you eat him’ - Joe
’ we should never have planted that tree’ - Kate
But I think to him they were all my sons, I guess they were. - Joe about Chris
All my sons context
Post war USA - prosperity but fear of communism, heavily capitalist society.
Realism is in the characters and motivations not in how presented. Inspired by Ibsen
Cat on a hot tin roof
I’m not living with you’ we occupy the same cage’ - Maggie
Brick and Big Daddy- both to their wives declarations if love “ wouldn’t it be funny if that was true”
You! -You dug the grave of your friend and kicked him in it- before you’d face the truth with him. - big daddy
’ hump her from hell to breakfast’ - big daddy
Shouting above the roar of water
Catches sight of him through the mirror
I want brick, where’s brick, where’s my only son?’ Gooper is a ‘sober responsible man’ - big mamma
‘Tribe’ - Maggie
Context of cat on a hot tin roof.
Post war America - breakdown of culture and class, the individual was of key importance.
Dad was an alcoholic, mum was the archetype of a southern belle- social change and alteration of class types
He was gay- fell for Kiernan but he went and married a woman. Distraught.
Alcoholic himself.
Taste of Honey - shelangh Delaney
They are loaded with baggae
I never really thought about you, I never have done when I’m happy’
For the first time in my life I feel really important.
Context of a taste of honey
Kitchen sink drama- reaction against romanticism
Wanted to show the north as alive and cynical not as gormless
Lots of economic growth post war and rise of the teenage. Start of mass commonwealth immigration. Swing to the political let after suez
A chip in the sugar - Alan Bennett 1987
I know the sort of magazines you read. Chess I said, she said they never are chess, chess with no clothes on. Chess in their birthday suits. Chess men!
Context-
1980svnorthern disruption.
Chimerica - Lucy kirkwood 2013
‘Opens the fridge. liuli is inside. She wears a red version of the white dress she wears in 1989 and shivers. Zang Lin shuts the door.
Context
Tianamen square
Press censorship
Bent- Martin Sherman 1979
’ he moves another rock x3
Light blinds the audience’
Nazi persecution of homosexuals, not well known at the time.d
Caucasian chalk circle 1944
Grusha- if I could just keep him till he can talk properly, he only knows a few words’
Framingl device- 2 USSR collectives one fruit and one goat trying to decide who should best use the land
Context:
Brecht Marxist. Framing device could not be shown till the 60s
Romeo and Juliet
More light and light more dark and dark our woes
I profane with my unworthiness hand this holy shrine
As you like it
It is young Orlando that has tripped up the wrestlers heels and your heart in an instant
Country wife - William Wycherley
A marriage is like a penitent gamesters oath
Women are lie, you say soldiers, made constant and loyal by good pay rather than by oaths
I love to be envied and could not marry a woman I alone could love
Harcourt dressed as a parson
I must tomorrow pay sparkish 5000 to lie with my sister
It is not an injury to our husbands till it is an injury to our honours
It is not an injury to ou
Country wife context
Restoration- ,Charles 11 advocate affairs and leisure. Theatres reopen 1660.
Comedy of manners- satirise social elite and emphasise social intrigue
1653 civil marriage act- law more than religious. Remove the awe.
Stock characters, doors, deception. Stock characters mimetic of Menander in Greek times, stock as high political tension, perhaps relate to continue instability.
