How is Modern Drama Concerned by Social and Political Criticism?

How is Modern Drama Concerned by Social and Political Criticism? By Sally Atef

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." George Bernard Shaw

figure 1: the plough and the stars  

      What is Social and Political Criticism? When did it appear? Why did it appear? Who presented that type of drama? How did audiences and spectators receive it? How was this style presented?    

What is social and political criticism?

      Social criticism is also known as Marxist criticism which is like Historical criticism as it sees literature as an echo of the outer environment. It cares of analyzing social problems and tries to make the best use of science as psychology and sociology to get red of them.  

       Political criticism, on the other hand, is also known as political commentary which deals with political issues like wars, political parties, ruling systems and politicians.

The beginning of these types of play:

      As Robert, Gwyneth (1954) pointed out "this type of play (political drama) has a history at least as old as the century". However many critics see that this type started in the Greek theater especially with the Athenian democracy. Some critics consider William Shakespeare (1564-1616) a political dramatist as he wrote many plays dealing with kings and their royal courts such as in Hamlet(1600-1), Othello(1605),King lear (1605) and  Macbeth(1606).   

figure 2:William Shakespeare

        Social drama, as a type of drama which deals with morality, seems to appear in the late medieval drama in the two shepherds plays which reflect the hardships that the northern shepherds suffer whose work was to  sustain the local wool-trade . The two plays also suggest a greater awareness of the realities of rural life than does the more emphatically urban York cycle. The shepherds complain frankly of the cold weather and of oppressive landlords in what at first seems to be a harshly comic farce. (Andrew Sanders, 1994).

 Why did it appear?

        Drama is considered the society's tool for commentary and criticism. What drama does is not only to reflect the society's conditions but also to reform it. Social and political attitudes in writing were as the playwrights' positive tool to face the social and political corruption that prevailed throughout human history so a playwright in a society can be seen as a mirror of the past.

        What makes us think so of the dramatist is that (s)he is one of the society's members affects and is effected by its conditions; suffering its difficulties, feeling its bad values and trying to get solutions for it that’s why Socrates is quoted to say that a playwright is "the gadfly which God has attached to the state and all day long in all places". 

Figure3 Socrates

Dramatists who were involved with presenting social and political plays:

·       John Galsworthy (1867-1933)): Although Galsworthy was born to a wealthy family; he presented the sufferings of people belonging to the law class in his English society. In his play Strife (1909) he portraits the progress of a strike. Another play is Justice (1910) in which he presents the despairing life of a man who writes a false signature and finally kills himself.                            

   Figure4:John Galsworthy

·       Sean O'casey (1880-1964): Growing up in a working class family in Dublin, Ireland, O'casey was influenced by pointing out to the suffering of this class. He was also effected by the events in Ireland earlier the 20^th century. He wrote the shadow of a gunman (1923) during the Irish War of Independence. He shows its impact on the ordinary people.
 In the same context, he writes The Plough and the Stars (1926) about the conflict between the Irish and the English in 1916.

        In most of his plays, it's woman who suffers a lot. That is obvious in his play Juno and the Paycock (1929). The protagonist is an Irish housewife living in Dublin during the Irish War of Independence who is trying to gather her family against the outer challenges.  

 Figure5: Sean O'casey

·       Arnold Wesker (1932): In (1960) he presented his play The kitchen(1960) which came to him during his work at the Bill hotel. The play deals with a group of people who work in a kitchen of a restaurant and he shows the impact of the kitchen on them.                

In Chips with Everything (1970) Wesker describes the English class system in the Air Force.  

 Figure6: Arnold Wesker

·         Trevor Griffiths (1935): Griffiths is interested in social criticism but with a clearer political trend. In The party (1973), a comparison is presented between the welfare life of the middle-class who did not do anything for the revolution and an older man who sacrifies every thing for the sake of his believes.  

  Figure7: Trevor Griffiths