Category Archives: Drama

September 29

Breaking Boundaries in TV Drama

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On the 29th of September 2013, the long-awaited final episode of American drama Breaking Bad (2008-2013) was aired to U.S. television audiences. Vince Gilligan’s AMC TV series turned out to be a complex and complicated work of cinematic art. The most striking first impression is the film’s atmospheric intensity. The warm hues of the American southwest landscape with […]

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April 02

Shakespeare in Politics: Ustinov’s Romanoff and Juliet

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On the 2nd of April 1956, German-Russian born director Peter Ustinov’s screenplay Romanoff and Juliet premiered as a theatrical performance in Manchester, England. A Broadway production followed and a Hollywood film adaptation, all starring and directed by Ustinov himself. An impressive cultural figurehead worldwide, Ustinov holds multiple awards for this work, such as the Tony, […]

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January 26

Theatre and Morality: Synge’s Playboy of the Western World

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On the 26th of January 1907, The Playboy of the Western World, a three-act drama, written by Irish playwright John Millington Synge, was first performed at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Synge’s main writing interest revolved around the life of churchgoing Roman Catholic peasants of rural Ireland, paradoxically, the raw paganism of the way they […]

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January 17

Chekhov’s ‘The Cherry Orchard’: Comedy or Tragedy?

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On the 17th of January 1904, The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov had its premiere at the Moscow Art Theatre. The play was staged by the famous actor/director and creator of the eponymous Stanislavski method, known as “method acting”, Constantin Stanislavski. The original intention of Chekhov was for The Cherry Orchard to be a comedy; […]

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December 01

Christine Jorgensen: The First Transsexual Celebrity

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On the 1st of December 1952, the headlines on the front page of the New York Daily read: “Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty: Operations Transform Bronx Youth”. They were announcing the ‘sex change’ of Christine Jorgensen (born George William Jorgensen, Jr.), the first ever person in the United States to have undergone sex reassignment surgery. The […]

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November 26

Deconstructing Language and Meaning with Eugène Ionesco

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On the 26th of November 1909, the playwright Eugen Ionescu was born in Slatina, Judetul Olt, Romania. Having trained as a French teacher in ‘Little Paris’, as Bucharest had become known between the two world wars, Ionesco followed on to Paris where he completed his doctorate in 1938. He returned to France during the war […]

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