Drawing room play
{{Short description|Type of literary work}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2024}}
A drawing room play is a type of play, developed during the Victorian period in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. They set upper- and middle-class characters confronting a social problem of the time with a comedic twist.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DlMUSz-hiuEC&dq=%22drawing+room+play%22&pg=PA1|title=The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature|author=David Scott Kastan|date=2006|publisher=Oxford University Press, USA|page=1|isbn=978-0-19-516921-8 }} The play is formed from a blend of three parts: part well-made play, part society drama, part comedy of manners. Exponents of this style include Henrik Ibsen, Arthur Wing Pinero, George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Edward Martyn and George Moore.
The name drawing room play has its origins in the upper and middle classes of Victorian society, who with time on their hands, enacted amateur plays for the pleasure of their families in the drawing room.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xxfiAgAAQBAJ|title=Y Tu Mewn i Gartrefi Cymru / Inside Welsh Homes|author=Rachael Barnwell, Richard Suggett|date=2014|isbn=9781871184501|publisher=RCAHMW|page=101}}
The style was later revisited by playwrights such as Noël Coward and J. B. Priestley; with in turn John Osborne and the Angry young men, in reaction to the revival, creating kitchen sink dramas.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pweHrSjCQrgC&dq=%22drawing+room+play%22&pg=PA87|title=The Anthem Dictionary of Literary Terms and Theory|author=Peter Auger|date=2010|isbn=9780857286703|publisher=Anthem Press|page=87}}
Examples
- Dying for Love by John Maddison Morton{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dk253oWY3LkC&dq=%22drawing+room+play%22&pg=PA20|title=Guide to Selecting Plays Or, Managers' Companion.|author=Wentworth Hogg|date=1881|publisher=S. French|page=20}}
- Orange Blossoms by J. P. Wooler
- Romantic Attachment by Arthur Wood
- Match Making by John Poole{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dk253oWY3LkC&dq=%22drawing+room+play%22&pg=PA20|title=Guide to Selecting Plays Or, Managers' Companion.|author=Wentworth Hogg|date=1881|publisher=S. French|page=26}}
- The Gay Lord Quex by Arthur Wing Pinero
- Lady Frederick by W. Somerset Maugham
- Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest is one of the most widely known examples of the drawing room play. His other plays in this style are Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance and An Ideal Husband.
- Aren't We All? by Frederick Lonsdale{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/04/28/theater/whatever-happened-to-drawing-room-comedy.html|title=WHATEVER HAPPENED TO DRAWING-ROOM COMEDY?|newspaper=New York Times|date=28 April 1985}}
- Relative Values by Noël Coward
- An Inspector Calls by J. B. Priestley{{cite magazine|url=https://www.newagebd.net/article/58816/an-inspector-calls-a-riveting-drawing-room-play|title=An Inspector Calls: a riveting drawing room play|magazine=New Age|date=14 December 2018}}
- Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee.{{cite magazine|url=https://www.broadstreetreview.com/reviews/walnut-street-theatre-presents-edward-albees-whos-afraid-of-virginia-woolf|title=The last word on the drawing-room play Walnut Street Theatre presents Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?|magazine=Briad Street Review|date=22 January 2024}}