| Modernist drama, as a literary form of modernism. It was influenced by the modernist literature on the ideological level from the 1880s to the 1950s in the history of western dramas. The development of Modernist drama was a gradual process which deduced from the symbolism, a symbol of the modernist drama’s birth, and experienced the expressionism, the existentialism and the epic drama until the appearance of the last modernist drama genre-Absurdist. During this time, though appeared for a very short time, Surrealism, Futurism and other genres had a place in the modernist drama. The research scope of this paper started with Ibsen’s Ghosts, a typical work of the symbolism, and ended with Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, a representative work of absurdist. In this period, the drama views from various schools with different styles and characteristics took the realistic drama which rebelled against the traditions as the main motive, showing the unique ideological basis, aesthetic style and expression ways of the realistic drama. Therefore, it was with the value of in-depth study. Modernist drama perceived the real life from the irrational nature of the human with the distinct characteristics of the times. It went beyond the manifestation of classical drama and realism drama, explored a new road for the development of Western drama, and expanded a broad platform for the development of the modern drama theory. This article was intended to take the situational theory of drama as a starting point to explore the evolutional process of modernist drama. As modernist drama showed its rebellion and innovation against the past theatrical traditions, the dramatic circumstances were also undergoing a big change, which had different manifestations with different genres. After summarizing the characteristics of the modernist drama and its situation, it can be clearer to see the development of the modernist drama as well as the relevance and the impact among the various modernist drama genres. Dramatic situation, as an important theory to research the drama noumenonn, had a unique feature in the framework of the modernist drama. So, taking it as a breakthrough for a comprehensive review will help us to better study the Western modernist drama and also be significant for the present drama creation. The full text was divided into four parts, a total of ten chapters.The first part was the introduction which highlighted the causes for selecting this topic, research status and the research ideas and methods. In this chapter, it took the evolution of the modernist drama as the reason to research, and there were three reasons for it. First, as for the study for dramatic situation of modernist drama, we can see the appearance of this era and trend from the perspective of drama noumenonn, and further broaden the theoretical exploration for modernist drama. Second, in the field of creative practice and stage performances, people had a different understanding for the connotation of the situation, which greatly weakened the function of the situational researches on drama creation. Dramatic situational theory is an important way to explore the creation of dramatic art, and can further enrich and deepen the thinking for drama noumenonn. Starting from the situation to research modernist drama is a new way to re-deconstruct the modernist drama creation, and also has a practical significance for the present dramatic creation. Third, since the birth of Chinese drama, there has the development history for a century, but only few masterpieces which could fit the era were appeared. Thus, it becomes the very point for the dramatic situation which lacks in-depth and meticulous research. From that, we can find it will be a long term for us to research this theory.The second part was going to be chapter two which mainly demonstrated the concepts and characteristics of the modernist dramatic situation. Compared with the traditional drama, various schools of modernist drama, whether the style of artistic or the means of expression, were denied the forms of traditional drama and transferred the inspection and the creation to he outside world of the traditional dramatic situation into one’s own being, which focused on the performance of the interior situational design impact on the characters.For the performance of the dramatic situation, the schools had inherited for each other and reflected different changing features. By analyzing the performance characteristics of the modernist dramatic situation and comparing with the previous theoretical achievements for the studies of the realistic dramatic situation, the definition of the modernist dramatic situation was given as follows. Modernist dramatic situation referred that in the modernist dramatic situation, taking the non-rational and illogical dramatic concept as a standard and by the expressions of the living narrative and anti-traditional means, it could excavate the characters’ inner world and show the consciousness of characters to cause the audience to think, reflect the purport of the play and reveal the dramatic situation of modern people’s living environment. "Certain life" not only embodied the modernist playwright’s creative expression, while also based on reality, but also gave it the sense of the symbolic and absurd, which, in general terms, was unlike the traditional dramatic situation to focus on the outside world, the reason and the logic.The third part included the second to the eighth Chapter. It took seven major writers of modernist drama genre and their works for the study, analyzing the creative performance of modernist dramatic situation, and specifically demonstrating its process of evolution. The second chapter, took the Ibsen’s drama as an example, discussed the dramatic situation of symbolism. The symbolist drama had a distinctive characteristic of the times, which was the first dramatic genre produced by the collision of a variety of advanced ideas. Although the modernist drama only just had its prototype which was still based on realism for the mainstream dramatic creation, the appearance of the symbolism had brought new vitality to the western dramatic art. Ibsen’s Ghosts marked the birth of modernism. He, whose symbolic method explored the development of the situation, was good at creating the thinking situation, setting up complex background to create the situations of characters, which had an initiate meaning in the development history of the drama and should be used as the beginning of modernist drama.The third chapter discussed the situation of the expressionist drama with the example of Strindberg’s drama. The birth of expressionism was regarded as a new stage for the development of modernist drama, and it released the drama’s performance from the traditional expression of the symbolism and created a new form of expression. However, the Expressionist dramatic situation gradually changed from the scene full of the imagery of symbolism, to the pursuit of the awareness situation of "dream" and "self. The most representative work of Strindberg was the "Dream Drama" under the framework of expressionism. His works often did not copy the reality and even not follow the causal link in the reality, but made good use of imagery in the dream to set the rich and varied dramatic situation.The fourth chapter, set O’Neill’s works as an example, discussed another form of expressionist dramatic situations. Judging from the expression, the works of O’Neal’s and Strindberg’s both belonged to the expressionist category, but the difference was still very obvious. O’Neill’s works liked to explore the mental state of the human, creating a kind of introverted and self-oriented dramatic situation mode, showing a new type of expressionist drama which provided a valuable reference for the future "expression" of drama. Expressionist dramatic situation focused on the psychological level of human, which changed as a situation of "self" so that it could find a new fulcrum-people’s inner world.The fifth chapter researched the dramatic situation of psychological realism with the works of Chekhov. Psychological realism created by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov was a modernist drama to show the psychological state of human. He followed the creative methods of realism and at the same time described the person’s mental state more vividly. He was a good writer for setting the psychological situation in his works, clearing up the sharp external conflicts and avoiding external dramatic effect. His psychological realism drama in the 19th century represented the highest achievements of European Psychodrama.The sixth chapter discussed the drama situation of "epic theater" with the case in Brecht’s drama. "Epic theater", created by the German drama theorist Brecht, was also known as narrative drama or narrative drama. He established the anti-traditional "non-Aristotelian" drama system, and his works entrained distinctive subjective attitude and tried to get rid of the "illusion" in the dramatic situation created by the traditional drama. He made an effort to build a "alienation" situation, in order to achieve the effect of "calm and thinking", so that the audience around the world could have a dialectical analysis and judgment to change the world. Such an "alienation" type of dramatic situation formed the construction core of Brecht’s dramatic situation. It was with an epoch-making value for the "strange effect" in Brecht’s dramatic situation.The seventh chapter discussed the existential dramatic situation with the example of Sartre’s dramas. Existentialist drama focused on showing people’s state of confusion about life. Sartre, as a pioneer of the "situational drama" of existentialism, from the perspective of existential philosophy, created an extreme dramatic situation, showing the people’s living situation, demonstrating the "freedom" and "choice" ideology of existentialism. He took the limit situation as an important proposition of the existentialist drama, which formed a unique expression in the realistic context. "Situational drama" broke through the view of the traditional dramatic situation and the point that the "situation was only for shaping the characters", and it also told us that the meaning of each situation was not single and more situations could be presented on the stage at a time.The eighth chapter, focused on Beckett’s drama, discussed the dramatic situation of the absurdist. Beckett’s Waiting for Godot marked the emergence of the absurdist drama. The absurdist ideas, came from the visual experience to the world, was considered as the boundaries of modernist drama in this period, building a bridge between modernism and postmodernism. At the aspect of setting dramatic context, Beckett’s requirement for "alienation" effects was more thorough, which demanded to weaken the portrayal of people and the conflicts with the simile so that it could get rid of dramatic illusion and the emotional involvement. Beckett’s creation was not back to the earlier traditional emotional mode of drama, but re-opened a door to explore the inner world of people.The fourth part was the chapter ninth which mainly described the relationship between the modernist dramatic situation research and the development of Chinese drama. In the end of the 19th century, "drama", as "an exotic thing from western world", entered into people’s cultural horizons with its cutting-edge features. Now, there are a large number of drama productions with strong Chinese characteristics, but in the other hand, there are also some of predicaments in present. The study of modernist dramatic situation has a very good reference for the future development of Chinese drama. First, Western modernist dramatic situation, as the reform wave of the advanced dramatic situation, has a pilot significance to China’s dramatic creation and reform. Second, due to differences in national conditions, China’s dramatic creation and practice have a different side with Western countries’, so the drama creation mode, which is in line with our status quo but also adapts to the trend, must be explored. Third, our dramatic reforms and creation are facing the historical tasks of modernization and post- modernization. The settings and applications dramatic situation will be the key to solve this conflict. We can better construct Chinese modernist drama different from the Western’s, only through active learning the advanced Western dramatic concepts, drawing a lesson from Western modernist dramatic situation setting, basing on the spirit and characteristics of the nation and creating localized dramatic situations. |
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