A CHRONOLOGY OF
AVANT-GARDE THEATRE

(Below is an unextensive chronology of avant-garde plays and playwrights.  The later years are still under construction.)

1837

Georg Buchner's Woyzeck is written.  With it's fragmented structure and nightmarish atmosphere, it is regarded by many as a precursor to German Expressionism and avant-garde theatre.

1890s

Alfred Jarry's Ubu plays (Ubu Roi, Ubu Cuckolded and Ubu in Chains) are written.  The trilogy is arguably the beginning of absurdist theatre, influencing numerous later works, including Beckett's Waiting for Godot.

Oskar Panizza's play The Council of Love (1893) is written.  This tale of how syphilis came into being landed its author in prison for blasphemy.  It  influenced later Expressionists, Dadaists and Surrealists.

1909

Kokoschka's short play Murderer, the Hope of Women (1909) is written, regarded by some as the first expressionist drama.  Its premiere in Vienna featured violent, exaggerated movements by the performers, as well as lighting that flooded the stage with bold and vibrant colors. 

1912

An adaptation of Raymond Roussel's Impressions of Africa is staged in Paris.  The production features acts such as "The Dwarf Philippo whose normally-developed head equals in height the rest of his body" and "The one-legged Lelgoualch playing the flute made of his own tibia."  It influences countless Dadaists and Surrealists.

Georg Kaiser's expressionist play From Morning to Midnight is written in Germany.

1916

The Dada Cabaret is created in Zurich, Switzerland by Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, Tristan Tzara and Jean Arp, among others.

1917

Guillaume Apollinaire's The Breasts of Tiresias is staged in Paris, carrying on the absurdist tradition of Jarry.

1918

Georg Kaiser's expressionist play Gas is performed in Germany. (Gas II  follows in 1920.)  Other expressionist works written include Ivan Goll's The Immortal One, Oskar Kokoschka's Orpheus und Eurydike and Bertolt Brecht's first play Baal.

Vladimir Mayakovsky writes Mystery Bouffe in Moscow, later staged by Meyerhold in 1921.

1920s

Ernst Toller's expressionist plays Man and the Masses (1921), The Machine Wreckers (1922) and Hoppla, We're Alive! (1927) are performed, the later  staged by Erwin Piscator in Berlin.

Yvan Goll writes Methusalem (1922).

In Italy, Luigi Pirandello writes Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921) and Henry IV (1922), which explore the creative process, internal thought and madness. For some, they contain an absudist flavor, later expanded by playwrights such as Beckett and Ionesco.

Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, a leading figure in the Polish avant-garde during the 1920s, writes numerous plays, including The Water Hen (1921), Metaphysics of a Two-Headed Calf (1921), The Madman and the Nun (1923), The Crazy Locomotive (1923) and The Mother (1924).

Antonin Artaud's first dramatic work, Jet of Blood (1925), is included in his collection Umbilical Limbo. 

Artaud and Roger Vitrac form the Alfred Jarry Theatre in Paris.  Two of Vitrac's best known plays are presented there: The Mysteries of Love (1927) and The Children Are In Power (1928). Artaud begins developing his theories on A Theatre of Cruelty.

Several French Surrealist writers create works for the stage, including Juliette or The Key to Dreams (1927) by Georges Neveux and La Place De L'Etoile (1928) by Robert Desnos.

Bertolt Brecht establishes many of the theories and conventions associated with epic theater. Among his plays during the decade are A Man's A Man (1926)  and The Threepenny Opera (1928), done in collaboration with composer Kurt Weill.

Along with Brecht, Erwin Pisactor, a German theatre producer and director,  helps lay the foundation for epic theater.  His productions in Berlin during the 1920s blend films, music, mechanized sets, lectures, and strong left-wing politics. Perhaps his greatest achievement is his 1928 stage adaptation of the Czech novel The Good Soldier Schweik, featuring projected images by artist George Grosz and contributions by Brecht.

Michel de Ghelderode, a Belgian dramatist whose work often conjures up the images of Hieronymus Bosch, writes several avant-garde plays, including A Night of Pity (1921), The Woman at the Tomb (1928) and Chronicles of Hell (1929).

Vsevolod Meyerhold forms his own theatre company in Moscow in 1922. Many of his productions feature Constructivist sets, strong political messages, and the use of biomechanics, a physical, circus-like approach to performing. Among his most important stagings are productions of Vladimir Mayakovsky's Mystery-Bouffe (1921) and The Bedbug (1929), Fernand Crommelynck's The Magnificent Cuckold (1922) and Alexander Sukhovo-Kobylin's Tarelkin's Death (1923).

Josef and Karel Capek write The Insect Play (1923) in Czechoslovakia.

1930s

Several Bertolt Brecht works are staged throughout Germany, including the opera The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1930), with music by Kurt Weill, and a landmark revival of Mann ist Mann, starring Peter Lorre.  Other plays written during the decade include The Round Heads and the Pointed Heads (1931-34), Life of Galileo (1937-39) and Mother Courage and Her Children (1938-39).

Vladimir Mayakovsky's The Bathhouse (1930) is performed in Moscow, directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold.

Federico Garcia Lorca writes The Public (1930) and When Five Years Pass (1931).  Both plays are surrealist in nature, perhaps influenced by his close friendships with Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali. 

Antonin Artaud's The Cenci (1935) is performed in Paris.  He also writes The Theatre and Its Double (1938), perhaps his most famous book, featuring manifestos and theoretical writing concerning the theater. 

Michel de Ghelderode writes Red Magic (1931) and Ballad of the Grand Macabre (1934), the later of which is transformed into an opera by composer Gyorgy Ligeti during the 1970s.

1940s

Bertolt Brecht plays written during the decade include The Good Person of Szechwan (1939-42), The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1941), Schwyck in the Second World War (1941-43) and The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1943-45).  Brecht forms his own theatre company, The Berliner Ensemble, in 1949.

Several French Existentialists write plays, including Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit (1944), The Flies (1943), The Respectful Prostitute (1946) and Dirty Hands (1948); Jean Genet's The Maids (1947); and Albert Camus' The State of Siege (1948) and The Just Assassins (1949).

1950s

Eugene Ionesco's The Bald Soprano (1950), The Lesson (1951), The Chairs (1952), The Killer (1958) and Rhinoceros (1959) are performed. Along with Samuel Beckett, Ionesco is placed at the forefront of The Theatre of the Absurd.

Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot takes the theatre world by storm in 1953. The "tragicomedy" explores humanity's will to survive, even in an incomprehensible world, and in the face of despair.  Beckett's other plays from the decade include Endgame (1957) and Krapp's Last Tape (1958).

Tadeusz Kantor, a Polish writer, painter, set-designer and director,  forms the theatre company Circot 2 in 1955. Often experimenting with a combination of live actors and mannequins, his innovative productions gain recognition around the world.  Among his early productions are several interpretations of plays by Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz.

Several of Bertolt Brecht's plays are staged at the Berliner Ensemble, which gains international noteriety after a number of continental tours.  Schwyck in the Second World War receives it's first production.

Kinjiki (Forbidden Colours), a dance piece by Tatsumi Hijikata, is performed in Japan in 1959.  Some regard it as the first Butoh performance. 

1960s

Kazuo Ohno gains recognition for his Butoh performances.  He often performs in white makeup, transforming his body into an array of grotesque forms.  Born out of the horrors of World War II, and inspired by writers such as Mishima, Lautreamont, Artaud and De Sade, Butoh delves deeply into the worlds of darkness and decay, featuring dance movements and physical transformations that are dream-like and haunting.

Jerzy Grotowski directs numerous experimental productions in Poland.  He first gains recognition in the west with a staging of Stanislaw Witkiewicz's Acropolis  at the Edinburgh Festival in 1964.

Samuel Beckett's Happy Days (1960) and Eugene Ionesco's Exit the King (1962) are performed. 

The Viennese Actionists, including Gunter Brus, Otto Muhl, Hermann Nitsch and Rudolf Schwarzkogler, stage several violent "actions", often depicting nudity, mutilation, animal parts, and painted bodies.  A number of brief jail terms are served by participants for violations of decency laws.

Numerous forms of performance art are presented throughout the decade.

In 1968, Richard Forman  forms the Ontological-Hysteric Theater in New York City, devoted to performing his own plays.  Angelface is presented later that year.

1970s

In 1972, German dancer Pina Bausch forms the Wuppertal Opera Ballet (later renamed the "Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch), performing several adventurous productions that mix elements of modern dance and  theatre.

Tadeusz Kantor stages numerous productions of his landmark work The Dead Class (1975), gaining international noteriety.

Heiner Muller, a German dramatist and director, gains recognition for his plays Germania Death in Berlin (1978), Hamletmachine (1979) and The Mission (1979).

Richard Foreman's The Cliffs (1972) and Classical Therapy, or a Week Under The Influence (1973) are performed.

1980s

Tadeusz Kantor's Wielopole, wielopole (1980) is performed.

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SANCTUS
FUMIGACI
a collection of
Surrealist Plays

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