Drama in the Victorian era: Playwrights and Plays

1. Drama in the Victorian era: Playwrights and Plays By Adam and Manon

2. Melodrama • Melodrama was very popular in the Victorian Era. • The plays consisted of: • Over dramatic plots. • Outsized emotion. • Over simplified characters such as...

3. The Hero and Villain The Parents Damsel in Distress

4. August Von Kotzebue • The first melodramatic play is often considered to be August Von Kotzebue’s “Misanthropy and Repentance” of 1798. • Kotzebue’s plays established melodrama as the dominant dramatic form of the early 19th century. • His along with the famous Rene Charles Guilbert de Pixerecourt...

5. Pixerecourt • Best known for the modern melodrama such as “the Dog of Montarges”. • He was French but wrote melodramatic plays that were performed in Victorian theatre. • FUN FACT!!!! “THE DOG OF MONTARGES” WAS BASED UPON A LETTER BY JULIUS CAESAR!!!!

6. Douglas Jerrold • The audience were largely working class and he appealed to this with his plays such as “Black Eyed Susan”. • “I am proud to have helped in this success in obtaining freedom for the people’s amusement. Never again will you be deprived of free theatre.”

7. Oscar Wilde • Irish born and student at the University of Oxford. • Wilde’s most distinctive and engaging plays are the four comedies; Lady Windermone’s Fan, An Ideal Husband, A Woman of No Importance and The Importance of Being Earnest.

8. THE END I found that quite interesting indeed!