Analyzing the Form of Twentieth-Century Drama
CLEP Humanities · Learn by Concept
Help Questions
CLEP Humanities › Analyzing the Form of Twentieth-Century Drama
Thornton Wilder's play Our Town is notable for featuring __________.
a cemetery portrayed by actors sitting in chairs
an actor playing male and female roles
three overlapping scenes that can be produced in any order
a language made up by the author
no written dialogue, and only calling for actors to pantomime scenes
Explanation
Thornton Wilder won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 1938 for Our Town, and the play featured many peculiar staging and narrative features. The three acts of the play take place in 1901, 1904, and 1913. The narrator of the play is the "Stage Manager," who often inserts himself into the story as various characters. No scenery or props are used. Most strikingly, the final act takes place in the town's cemetery, with actors portraying the dead by sitting in chairs.
What play features a former high school football star struggling with injuries, alcoholism, and his dysfunctional family?
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
A Streetcar Named Desire
The Crucible
The Iceman Cometh
Waiting for Lefty
Explanation
Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof all takes place in one bedroom on an old plantation, the former childhood bedroom of the main character Brick. Brick is dealing with an unhappy marriage to his wife Maggie, his overbearing parents, and a debilitating injury through alcohol abuse. Williams won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the play in 1955.
What is the title of the play that features the characters learning the plot from the Director as the play unfolds?
Six Characters in Search of an Author
Waiting for Godot
The Zoo Story
The Bald Soprano
The Birthday Party
Explanation
Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, which first premiered in 1922, was one of the first works in the genre known as "The Theater of the Absurd." Pirandello's metatheatrical work featured all of the characters in the play openly asking the director how the plot would unfold. Such groundbreaking work would prove influential to the next generation of playwrights, including Harold Pinter, Edward Albee, and Eugene Ionesco.