Genre Studies Unit IV -Closet Drama

 

Closet Drama

            A closet drama is a play that is not intended to be performed on stage, but read by a single reader, or sometimes, out louded in a small group. A related form, the ‘closet screenplay’, developed during the 20^th century.

            The closet drama is a drama suited primarily for reading rather than production. Examples: John Milton’s “Samson Agonistes” (1671) and Thomas Hardy’s “The Dynasts” (three parts, 1903-08). The closet drama is not to be confused with readers’ theatre, in which actors read or recite without decor before an audience.

Form

            Any drama in a written form that does not depend to any significant degree, upon improvisation for its effect can be read as literature without being performed. Closet dramas are designed especially for reading and they do not concern themselves with stage technique. Featuring little action but often rich in philosophical rhetoric, they are seldom produced for the stage.

            The philosophical dialogues of ancient Greek and Roman writers such as Plato were written in the form of conversations between ‘characters’ and therefore similar to closet drama. Example: Myth about Erotes.

            Fulke Greville, Sir William Alexander and Mary Sidney wrote Closet Dramas in the age of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.

            Closet Drama written in verse form, became very popular in Western Europe after 1800; these plays were largely inspired by Classical models. Faust, Part I and Faust Part 2 by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe among the most acclaimed pieces in the history of German literature were written as closet dramas. Nonetheless, both plays are often performed onstage today in German and France.