Theater Genres

Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer discusses that, as noted by Alvin Goldfarb and Edwin Wilson in the text 'Theater: The Lively Art', quite often it is difficult to identify a play as either tragic or comic, simply based upon its plot. The writer points out that the way that the author of a play chooses to depict certain events determines the audience's reaction, whether viewers will gasp in horror or roar with laughter. Further, the writer notes that the difficulty in determining the genre of the play based upon plot alone, however, is best illustrated, perhaps in comparing some of Shakespeare's plays with exactly the same plots. The writer concludes that when classifying the genre of a play, one must consider the overall texture of the work, as the playwright usually cannot, nor wants, to create a seamless effect of laughter or sadness.

From the Paper:

"Goldfarb and Wilson point out that the genres of tragedy and comedy themselves have undergone substantial reconfiguration over the course of the history of drama. Classical tragedy used to only involve august personages, like kings and great heroes, along the lines of Oedipus Rex or Jason. Later, in modern tragedy, ordinary men and women's lives were given epic scope and drama, like Arthur Miller's tragic figure of the salesman Willy Loman in "Death of a Salesman," or the Iceman Hickey, the man who murders his wife in Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh." These modern characters were not heroes or gods. Their actions were deemed worthy by the modern playwright of the audience's interest, and the main character's tragic fall is viewed with great sadness, even though the men are quite ordinary."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Epstein, Norrie. The Friendly Shakespeare. New York Penguin Books, 1990.
• Greenblatt, Steven. (Editor) The Norton Shakespeare. W.W. Norton & Co, 1977.
• Goldfarb, Alin & Edwin Wilson. Theater: The Lively Art. 5th edition, McGraw-Hill Inc., 2005.
• Storey, Robert. "Comedy, its Theorists and the Evolutionary Perspective." Criticism. Summer 1996. pp.1-12. Journal article retrieved through Find Articles database at http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2220/is_n3_v38/ai_18796173

More papers on Theater Genres:

• Essay # 55280 : "History of Musical Theater"
• Analytical Essay # 9014 : "Elizabethan and Jacobean Renaissance Drama"
• Term Paper # 108477 : "Tragedy, Comedy and Human Nature"

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