English Drama

8 - ENGLISH DRAMA
The dominant person of the English drama is William Shakespeare. But there are also many other personalities like
Oscar Wilde with his Ideal Husband, G. B. Shaw with his Pygmalion or Peter Schaffer with Amadeus.
Firstly I would like to speak about William Shakespeare.
William Shakespeare is considered to be the greatest of all dramatists in the world. His work reflect an image of
human unity and a love of people and nature. He was born in 1564 at Stratford-upon-Avon as the oldest son of glove
maker John Shakespeare. William attended the local grammar school. When he was 18, he married eight years older Ann
Hathaway. In 1592 he came to London and joined a group of actors. Eight years later he bought his own theatre and
named it the Globe Theatre. At Shakespeare's time there were no actresses and the men played also the women's roles.
Also one actor played more then one role.
At first Shakespeare helped to adapt or rewrite older plays but later he started to write his own plays and he was
very succesful. Both the Queen Elizabeth I. and James I. liked him very much. One day during a performance of Henry
VIII., the Globe Theatre was destroyed by the fire.
After his son's death, Shakespeare went back to Stratford and he was living a quiet life with his family. He was a
wealthy man and he bought house, the second largest in the town. He died in 1616 on the same day as he was born.
William Shakespeare is buried at local church with his wife and other members of his family.

Shakespeare was a big poet and he wrote beautiful sonnets but his plays are the best known from all his work.
Tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth
Comedies: The Taming of the Shrew (Zkrocení zlé ženy), A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, The
Merry Wives of Winsdor, As You Like It, Twelfth Night
Romances: Pericles, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest
Historical plays: Richard II. Richard III., Henry IV., Henry V., Henry VI., Julius Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra,
Coriolanus

ROMEO AND JULIET
This drama is about the unhappy love and death. The main characters are Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet who are
the only children of two powerful houses in Verona. These two houses hate each other. Romeo meets Juliet at the ball
and falls in love with her although he knows she is a Capulet. They love each other very much and ask Friar Laurence to
marry them. Their love and marriage are secret. However, Romeo kills tybalt, Juliet's cousin by an unfortunate
coincidece. Prince of Verona sends Romeo to the exile (?) and Juliet stays in Verona. She is forced to marry a young
nobleman called Paris. She asks Friar Laurence for help again and he gives her magic drops after which Juliet falls asleep
for several hours and looks and she is dead. Romeo learns about Juliet's death but he doesn't know about the trick so
he bought himself a poison. He rushes to the church and when he sees Juliet, he commits a suicide. Soon after Juliet
wakes up and when she sees Romeo's death, she kills herself with his sword. Both Capulets and Montagues houses
reconciles only after the death of their beloved children.




Next very famous dramatist is George Bernard Shaw. He was born in Dublin in the impoverished family. His childhood
wasn't happy - his father was a drunker (???) and his mother left him because she wanted to go to London to teach
singing. So G. B. Shaw was a self-made man he spent many hours with reading books in the British Museum.
To his best-known plays belong Widiwer's Houses and Mrs. Warren's profession. But his most famous play is
Pygmalion adapted as a musical play My Fair Lady.
In 1935. G. B. Shaw was awarded Nobel Prize for literature.

My Fair Lady
Liza Doolitle is a poor florist who has a horrible Cockney accent and terrible manners. She is selling flowers in
London's streets where she meets Professor Higgins and his friend Coleman Pickering. Liza's father is a dustman but he
doesn't like working so he is taking money from his daughter Liza. Professor Higgins is a linguist and he makes a bet with
his friend Coleman: Liza will speak English properly in 6 months. Liza comes to Higgins's house and offers him money for
English lessons because she wants to sell flowers in rich parts of London and she needs to speak in a perfect way. Liza
has a very hard time because she spends many hours learning of the pronounciation. Approximately 4 months later they
examine Liza's manners at the horse races in Ascot where she meets professor's mother and Freddie who fells in love
with her. At the end of her lessons, they went to the Ambassadors' Ball. Liza prooved her English knowledge very much
because the people think that she is a princess. Higgins and Pickering are happy and they're talking about their succesb
but they don't care about Liza. So she leaves professor's house that night but she doesn't know where to go. She
decides to go to Higgins's mother's house where she met Freddie ad she decides to stay with him.

I would mention also Oscar's Wilde play Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest. These plays are
critical to the London society in Wilde's times - they are witty and bright.

TYPES OF THEATRE
We divided the theatres into several groups: my favorite is the drama. In this time, the musical is very popular but I
don't like the Czech ones very much. I love Hair shot by Miloš Forman or My Fair Lady. But in our little country it's
quite hard to find the best of the best actors, dancers and singers. Although someone doesn't like the USA culture, I
have to say that they are propably the best in the musicals. The next type is the opera.
I love going to the theatre. My Mum loves the operas so when I was younger, she took me to the State Opera or to
the National Theatre in Prague. But I didn't like it so she took it up. My favourite genre is the drama - mostly the
comedy because I can relax. But for the last time I saw the Skleněný zvěřinec by Tenessee Williams. It was very
depressing but I liked it very much.