After Brecht And Beckett

In developing course of the Western drama in the 20th century, the theory of Realistic, which was established by Aristotle and ultimately formed for more than 2000 years, was strongly betrayed. Thus it caused various forms in drama that has never appeared before. The Epic theatre by Brecht and the Absurd theatre practiced by lots of dramatists plays an important role in it.Epic theatre uses"Historical"skills to seek the truth in history and the true history in selecting theme, construct a three-dimensional world in drama to explore"Solid Structure", and use alienation skills to evoke audience's thinking for the purpose of"audience's participation". On the other hand, absurd theatre exposes a amphibious world in the way of"simile", discloses mankind's absurd confrontation to the world according to the apparent meaningless words, and shows the general theme in the concept of absurdity.After these two styles, contemporary theatre started to have various forms. On one hand, Brecht provides different perspective: in terms of topic, the play writers proceed from"Historical"perspective, blurs boundaries of history, political event, and reality. Classic tale and the disintegration of classic characters are put into the theme of choice, therefore, collage, combination of miscellaneous and parody, deconstruction has become a trend; in terms of structure, Heiner ? Miller explored a collage dram to rebel Brecht's mode, extending the development of the theory of structure founded by Brecht, at the same time, some playwright like Max Friesch strengthened the philosophy aspect that may cause monotone; Apart from the theory of playwriting, Brecht tried to use the skill of unfamiliar to break the"fourth wall"set up between the audience and the stage, but it was not fully realized, Augustus Boal started from this place, and created Theatre of the Oppressed, the full realization of the audience fully involved in theatre. On the other hand, the influence of Absurd drama manifested mainly in the perspective of observing the world in later plays. Absurd drama reveals the uncertainty of the world by the skill of"simile way". Contemporary playwrights draw extensively and broadened the use of"simile way", and create the new simile symbols: anti-classic simile, anti-system simile and anti-meaning simile. At the same time they use a comprehensive simile to create a kind of sensual drama.Absurd drama also destroys the language function of traditional drama by rupture and desegregation, also tends to use "the language of no meaning," to reflect the world's essence. The contemporary generation create a physical theatre to expulse of the role of language. Another extreme is to strengthen language function thus creating a language game. Finally latter generation coming from the traditional absurd concept, has formed a universal trend of self-doubt and return of tradition.Modern playwright are influenced deeply by the theory and skill of Brecht and Becht, creating a new style combined with unfamiliarity from Epic Theatre and Absurdity trait. These two drama theory contributes not only to new writing skills, but also establishes an important role of rebelling the traditional play and exploring new type of theatre.