Here in this essay I would like to refer to the evolution of theater from Greek to postmodernism.
Greek drama revolved around kings, queens, and nobility. The roots of the tragedy have their pinnacles in Greece. It is from there that we have come to understand the Aristotelian concept of catharsis, which means an emotional cleansing while watching the tragedy. Oedipus the King is famous and in it we find Rex marrying his mother and murdering his father. For the Greeks, it meant a show for pure entertainment. It is pertinent to ask if the Greek works have probed the deepest questions of humanity. They do and have done. Rich has been the culture that has bequeathed the props that make drama an entertainment. The Greek play had the belief in gods and goddesses and the supernatural. It was based on various festivals. Corybantic dancers danced in a frenzy displaying their epicurean credentials. The acts showed a gestation of Jungian archetypes. Great is the heritage and culture of Greece.
Next I would like to move on to the Elizabethan stage. Shakespeare was the greatest exponent of it and was the master of both tragedy and comedy. Elizabethan plays also revolved around nobility, aristocracy, and kings and queens. They engaged in court intrigue and courtly love. Was the symbolism of the monarch in decline? Let’s remember the play Julius Caesar. The assassination of Julius Caesar showed the symbolism of a monarchical war. Brutus is a specimen of a brave anti-hero. The murder is justified on the grounds of insolvency of the Caesar regime. Mark Antony is the hero of the play and he silences all the detractors of him with his remarkable and eloquent speech. The storm shows the development of an artist: the kunstlerroman. The storm also highlights the dawn of desire for colonialism.
Here I would like to trace the development of theater to modern and postmodernism. There are various trends such as existentialism and Marxism. I would like to take an example from Arthur Miller’s Death of Salesman. Salesman’s death is a strident indictment of the pitfalls of rising capitalism. Willy is a classic example of a traveling salesman caught up in the vision of the great American Dream. Willy is an archetype of the fool, a delusional character. His wife, Linda, is more practical and efficient and is an example of a typical middle-class American woman. She is an archetype of a mother goddess. Bill’s dream of capitalizing on the Great American Dreams turns into bad eggs and he ultimately kills himself. From a Marxist point of view, the life of man in the theater of the absurd is one of irony, pessimism and anguish. The working classes have no place in society. They are undervalued and degraded. Psychoanalytically speaking, Bill’s ego is bruised by the horrors and vanity of pursuing an idol dream. We can also use Lacan’s mirror scenario and when we use it we see that a character is insane and lives in a fictional world.
