Change In Theatre

The origins of theatre are not known for certain because there are a collection of ideas and theories behind the origins, but one thing that we can be certain about is that ancient theatre in comparison to modern day theatre has changed and there must be reasons for these changes. I for one think that these elements range from large scale events to subtly changes in society and how we interpret ideas in general. Although the change in theatre is clear, in my opinion they were dependant on factors including Gender and equality, Theatre styles, Practitioners and Technology, but others may disagree that these were primary factors. In order to give a clear view on how theatre has changed I will be focusing on two relatively recent century’s in

I personally believe that the change in theatre is clear and you simply need to view one piece of theatre from each century for the idea to be demonstrated. I would say that the primary cause of the change in this case has to be the Women’s Rights Movement and the protests carried out by the suffragettes, I consider this due to the fact that since the moment in which they had their voices heard and people took into account there ideas, everything took a drastic turn for the better. This is not the only reason I think gender equality changed in theatre, during the 20th century both World War I and II occurred and while the war was going on women were needed to take on jobs that the men had occupied previously while they were at war. When investigating this it became apparent to me that women of this century may have been lucky because they had the opportunity to prove that they could work just as well as men. This leads me to consider the War another primary factor along with female rights as a key point that encouraged change in

There are great concerns that to this day we still view gender inequality in film and even Theatre. A cartoonist author names Alison Betchdel created the Betchdel test, which has proven that in present day there are still subtle inequalities. The female characters in films are typically not substantial, especially compared to the male characters they "share" the screen/ stage with. The women are often portrayed as one-dimensional and male-dependent (Waletzko, 2015). In order to pass the test three things are required: Two female characters (preferably named), Who talk to each other, with a topic based on something other than a man. Upon investigating this many films and Plays have failed this test and this only encourages some people to believe that there Gender equality has not really played a role in the development and change within theatre from the 19th century to present day. It is merely case that with growth and demand for Theatre female roles have increased and in actual fact the ratio of men to women in theatre has remain similar. New research by the Guardian, in collaboration with Elizabeth Freestone of Pentabus Theatre, shows that women are still badly under represented, with a persistent 2:1 male-to-female ratio (Sedghi,