Essay on Theatre

Challenges in Establishing an American Theatre Heritage

Because of the widespread belief that theater encouraged immorality at the time, it was challenging to establish an America Theatre heritage in the early years of our nation. There were laws that forbade playhouses and theater because colonists, especially those in the North, thought they would encourage decadence in the public sphere. For instance, in 1750, the General Court of Massachusetts established an Act that forbade theatrical entertainment. Religious considerations were another reason why it was challenging to establish an American theater culture at the time. There was a belief amongst religious leaders that theatre promoted indulgence while the role of religion was to trim excesses and indulgence. As such, Colonialists were against the founding or building of a theatre tradition in the United States. Judge Daly’s anecdote on theatre shows the negative view towards theatre that was in existence at the time. The anecdote pertained to the use of curtains in theatre which was viewed as being used for concealment which therefore suggested that there was impropriety (Marker).

Difficulties and Prejudices in Contemporary American Theatre

The legacy of contemporary American Society when it comes to art and entertainment is the tolerance which allows for freedom of expression. The contemporary American Society is open to the expression of various ideas and themes in art including ideas that critically examine themes such as racism, morality and politics. The difficulties and prejudices that contemporary artistes in American Theatre face are: discrimination of artistes based on image. American Theatre is currently obsessed with the expression of the perfect image where most actors are white. For female artistes in American Theatre, the image that is most preferred is that of thin and beautiful artistes (Davies and Smith). This distorts the actual reality of American Theatre as it does not accurately portray the society within which it is derived from.

Bibliography

Davies, Jude and Carol R. Smith. Gender, ethnicity and sexuality in contemporary American film. Routledge, 2013.

Marker, Lise-Lone. David Belasco: naturalism in the American theatre. Princeton University, 2015.