Introduction: Thirteen Essays in Search of a Reader

Abstract

If we accept that modern drama in the broad sense began with the work of Ibsen, Strindberg and Chekhov, then we may equally say that twentieth-century drama begins with the work of Luigi Pirandello. To be over schematic about these matters and to reduce the history of theatre and drama across Europe for over one hundred years is of course absurd. This volume, however, does not pretend to be a survey of European drama but presents instead thirteen essays on some of the major figures having some claim to be significant or representative of the thousands of playwrights whose work has been performed or published this century. Europe has been taken to mean continental Europe, since Britain’s relationship with ‘the Continent’ has been notoriously problematic, with cultural xenophobia being a popular sport with a large following. A companion volume in the Insights series, The Death of the Playwright? Modern British Drama and Literary Theory, edited by Adrian Page, discusses British drama from 1956 to the present, while The Politics of Theatre and Drama, edited by Graham Holderness, discusses a variety of British, European and Australian drama. Yet another volume in the Insights series, Irish Writing: Exile and Subversion, as the title suggests, covers various forms of writing in Ireland or by Irish writers.