Drama in England: Il XIX secolo in Inghilterra (4 pagine formato doc)
Throughout the 19th century English drama went through a period of sterility. In fact there were no innovative playwrights until the last quarter of the century, and in general Shakespeare’s plays went on being staged, which gave the opportunity to the great actors of the period to display their qualities: in fact the Victorian Age was an age of great actors (for example Kean). These actors asked for very high salaries and so staging became a very expensive business; but we must say that there were apart from Shakespeare other kinds of performances which were far more popular, and which met the consent of a kind of audience, the Victorian one, which was made up of very ordinary people, and who went to the theatre mostly to enjoy themselves, to be amused, and not to meditate upon problems. So these people asked for a lighter kind of performance, for example farce (farsa), or melodrama (Italian opera), which wasn’t certainly an intellectual genre and which became popular all over Europe. Continua »
