Peter Shaffer Drama Research As A Whole

Peter Shaffer is an important playwright of the contemporary Britishtheatre. He started writing plays since1950s,completing his last work“the gift of the gorgon” in the1990s. He has high skills on playwriting,but the scholars haven’t paid much attention on his works. This paperfocuses on Peter shaffer’s total theatre ideas through analyzing his playssuch as “the Royal Hunt of the Sun”“Equus”“Amadeus”. Total theatre isnot a method of playwriting, it’s ideas concerning the theatre and itselements. Peter Shaffer emphasizes on the independent aesthetic qualitiesof the various elements, which would function in the theatre as a whole.The paper is divided into six parts on Peter Shaffer’s total theatre ideas.Introductory chapter summarizes theatre careers of Peter Shaffer andscholars’ assessment of his theatre.Chapter One focuses on the history of the total theatre ideas, concludingPeter Shaffer’s total theatre ideas and point out the differences amongWagner, Artaud and Peter Shaffer.Chapter Two by analyzing the theatricality elements of Peter Shaffer’sworks, tries to explain Shaffer’s special focus on costume, make-up, light,property and stage setting, together with musical element and the art ofthe film and television, which closely connect with the drama text andretain their respective aesthetic qualities, which play an important role inthe theatre.Chapter Three will cover the research on the structure of his works,analyzing the differences between the traditional formative and that ofShaffer’s, such as his first person’s narration, multi-scenery structure,fully usage of theatrical suppositive with the help of the spectators’imagination and the effect of light and settings to smoothly fulfill thecutting of different scenes, which brings the feature of beingthree-dimensional and multi-layers. Chapter Four focuses on the character especially the father image. Thethree different images of father, natural father, godfather and heavenlyfather-the God play an important role in Shaffer’s plays, which constructsmulti meanings. Yet the potential absence of father predicts the problemsthe western world is facing and the tragedy of the protagonists in theplays.Chapter Five exposes the cultural significance of Shaffer’s plays, which ispresented through the plays’s cross-cultural and ritual features, which is away to get identities for the protagonists, and also a way for Shaffer topresent his theatricality. As a result his plays are full of the characters,who seem to be opposed in appearance and who in fact spiritually echo.In other words they are the representatives of Apollo Spirit and DionysianSpirit in the form of the conflict between goodness, which creats thearchetype significance in western culture.