The Use of Historical Material in Contemporary British Drama

THE; USS OF HISTORICAL lflATi2ilIAL IK CONTZXPOKARY 3RITISH DRklQI by KEh fI'STH JAFW h GRICAN LGlJG B. A., University of British Columbia, 1966 PiASTZR OF AFiTS in the Departzlent of English SIi4GN FRASSE UIII 'JLF.3 ITY Deceinber 1968 - --- -- I<alcolrn Page Senior Superi~lsor L- (name) Gerald M. Newman -*,. - Xxamining Cormittee - - - ina...?6!) Ann P. Messenger - I--- Examining Comittee ------ -- ,r- ,,,--(na!ce) Charles Hamilton F;xa:nini.r,,.; Coaxittee PARTTAL COPYRIGIIT LICENSE I hereby grant to Simon Fraser University the right to lend my thesis or dissertation (the title of which is shown below) to users of the Simon Fraser University Library, and to make partial or single copies only for such users or in response to a request from the library of any other university, or other educational institution, on its own behalf or for one of its users. I further agree that permission for multiple copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by me or the Dean of Graduate Sttldies. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Title of Thesis/~issertation: Author: (signature ) (name ) (date) Table of Contents- Page Chapter I A I%n for All Seasons ......... 13 Chapter I1 The Royal Hunt of the-- Sun ........ 37 Chapter I11 Luther ................. 70 Chapter IV Left-Janded Liberty ...........103 Chapter V -Arastronx --s Last Goodnight .......130 Chapter VI Serjeant Lus~ave's Gance i. Thexatic Complexity ...............172 ii. "ihzatrical ;*?aris ................200 Chapter VII Conclusion: A fi~trospectiveCoxp~rison. 225 Bibliosra?hy .....................236 Abstract An interesting feature of post-1956 2ritish drana is the concern of xany playwrishts to explore problem of con- temporarg- releva~cefron ar, historical perspective. It is the purpose of tnis thesis to exa:.:ice the use of historical situations and historical settings ir: six selected plays of the period--one each by Robert aolt, Peter Shaffer and John Gsborne and three by John Arden--a;,d to shc~that 2ohn Arderi best unael-sta~dsthe problem posed by the drainatic use of historical rcaterial. Such a topic invites any number of approaches, none of which is necessarily superior to another. Gne could exaxine the history slays in tercis of the the~:.atic concerns prevalent in the non-histcrical dranas of the various authors, for instance. Or oce could study the political or ideological orientations as i-evealsd in the critical sr:j rior,-.5;-a::,a';-i_c writ in,;^ of the gi&ywrights ar,d then relate such concerns to similar ~arisid~r~,ti.onsir. their history plays. In either case, the result 7:'3111d be r~leva~tto our study or" the lse ol" historic2l cL3teriai. iIov:e~~er,becsuse the tcpic is concerzed primri3.y .*!ith the drar!,atic --use of such ,:-,aterial, ar,d because the w~rk9of ---four playwrights are uricier cofis53 erat ion, r~sither ap~~rcachis eir.?loyed. Irstead, t he nethod is constituted pririci~allyof i.,r;-$e?th stl~diesof individual plays. The aesti1et.i~2nd tne,aatic ~ii:1~cf the aathors ar2 given .fill1 consideration, of course, but so far as possible these aims are rela%ud to the plays at hand r*ther than to broader and hence less manageable considerations. Common to tne six plays is a decided break with the familiar fourth-wall con~e~tionsof caturalistic or realistic draza. As this study shows, however, the use of overtly theatrical devices or conventions, like the use of historical material itself, is neither neTd to drama nor is it a viable substitute Tor thematic evasions on the.authorts part. Bolt's A Lan for nil Seasons-- and Shafferts The Royal iiufit of the Sun provide convincing illustrations of this point. Coriversely, 2 playwrightts conscientious attention to such matters is in- sufficient to corrlpensate for drarraturgical deficiencies. OsborneTs Luther and Arden's Left-Handed Liberty prove that themtic thoroughness does not necessarily result in viable historical drama. However, Xrden s Armstrong's Last Coodn i& acd Serjeant Bms?rawTs ljance illustrate that a happy combication is possibie, from both an historical and draxatic point of view. These plays suggest that a playwright's success wit? the use of historical material .is 'best acnieved if he is conversant 7;:ith both the acaderilic aspects of the period ur,der consideration and the ~rast array of artistic conventions by which the various issues may be exploitnd to :reat dran.atic effect. In other words, Arden shows that, intellizent: nistoricisrr, and theatrical craftsim~ship must he molded in such a way that neither dominates or submerzes the oLher and in which neither can fairly be evaluated injependently - of the other. In so doing, Arden demonstrates that an historical @ approach rznains a valid--and often exciting--venue by ~hich problems of contenporary relevance can be explored. INTRODUCTION The use of historical situations or historical settings in the drama is as old as the art form itself. Noreover, its persistence in contemporary British drama is indicative of a continuing shaped interest on the part of playwrights and playgoers alike. There remains for the student of drama, then, the critical problem of determining what criteria might be used to evaluate the aesthetic worth of such plays as well as assess- ing the relative artistic stature of the dramatists who write them. It is the purpose of this thesis to examine in some depth selected plays by Robert Bolt, Peter Shaffer, John Osborne and John Arden and to show that the last named, Arden, best undera- stands the use of historical material in relation to its dramatic possibilities. Naturally, the choice both of dramatists and plays is necessarily restricted. John Whiting (The Devils) and Ann Jellicoe (Shelley), for instance, have written plays dealing ' with historical subjects, but they are not included in this discussion. Moreover, as we shall see, both Osborne and Arden have written plays relevant to this category but which receive only cursory treatment. There are two reasons for such selectivity. In the first place, purely practical limitaticns of space preclude the pass-- dbility or desirability of discussing every play which is relevant to the topic. More important, the scope of the topic itself demands the examination of a more or less comprehensive cross-section of plays and playwrights. Hence, the inclusion of one playwright and the omission of another does not necessarily imply a qualitative judgment on the part of this writer. The sarne is true in regard to individual plays. For the most part, the plays are fairly representative of the various uses of historical material in contemporary British drama. Bolt's A i4an for all Seasons, Shafferts -The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Osborne's Luther and Arden's Left-Handed Liherty, Armstrong's Last Goodnight and Serjeant Xusgrave's --Dance are of widely divergent aesthetic values, but all have attracted critical attention or enjoyed commercial success, or both. Moreover, in these plays the authors employ--with varying degrees of success--forms and techniques which are at variance with the more familiar fourth-wall converitions of naturalistic drama. Episodic structures, mime, music and songs, the admixture of poetry and prose, direct addresses to the audience and candidly theatrical (or non-illusionistic) stage images characterize the plays as a group, whatever the differ- ing artistic ends of the individual playwrights. This kind of similarity within diversity assists in the drawing of comparisons and contrasts. The fact that the plays constitute--at least for the purposes of this paper--a reasonably manageable group, it is still necessary to find a suitably definitive term by which that group may be designated. The plays all embody historical situations or settings, but the absence of any clear-cut definition of what constitutes a tthistory play" raises critical problems--initially, at least. Though E.M.W. Tillyard, in his Shakespeare's History Plays, confidently differentiates between the tragedies and histories, the Elizabethan world-view as revealed in the dram of that period is sufficiently remote from our own to discourage arbitrary analogies with the views and drama of our own time. Furthermore, however familiar we may be with the philosophical or intellectual trends of the twentieth century, different playwrights have different opinions as to what trends merit priority in dramatic terms. For this reason criteria which might ultimately suffice to define a twentieth century or, more precisely, a mid- twentieth century, "world-view" can be only tentztively deduced. Ronald Peacock suggests a definition, but in terns of contemporary history plays it is also unsatisfactory. Taking a broad view of dramatic history, he discerns "well-marked types,'? with the history play as a tentative adjunct: Four in especial may be clearly distinguished, recurring with great persistence through the centuries and in widely separated cultures: tragedy, comedy, romance, and allegory, using this term to cover all didactic drama. A fifth should perhaps be added: the historical play as "dramatized narrative", though in Shakespeare's elaboration it is not so much a separate type as an amalgam of two or more of the others. They are all represented in Shakespeare, significantly enough. 1 Peacock's definition is no definition at all in that he does not offer criteria by which the historical play might be distinguished. from the other types, while his reference to Shakespeare's histories does little to clarify the matter. Even a playwright 1s choice of subject matter is an arguable criterion, particularly in relation to contemporary plays. Eric Bentley suggests that a glance at history plays that have had success of any sort will reveal that they are not about the great figures of history taken indiscriminately, but only about those few, like Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc, and Napoleon, whose names have become by- words.

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