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A drawing room play is a type of play, developed during the Victorian period in the United Kingdom, in which the actions take place in a drawing room or which is designed to be reenacted in the drawing room of a home. The common practice of entertaining a guest in the home led to the creation of this category of plays. While drawing rooms have largely fallen out of fashion, the play format continues to provide a source of entertainment.
Though the term "drawing room play" lacks a definitive origin, it reflects the English custom of staging short works for guests in the drawing room. Similarly, in French, the term salon refers both to the room itself and the social gathering held within it.
Types
editBeginning with the early forms of drama, the drawing room play has evolved to encompass comedy as well as to include the forms of the dramatic monologue. The play format has also grown from the traditional drawing room performance and back into main street theatre and film. Drawing room comedy is also sometimes called the "comedy of manners." Many of the drawing room plays adapted some form of social criticism in the transition from the Victorian period into the Modern era.
Examples
edit- The Elder Statesman (1959) was the last of T. S. Eliot's drawing room works.
- Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest is one of the most widely known examples of the drawing room play.
- Several of the collected works of Noël Coward are also considered typical of the form.
- Paul Rudnick's Regrets Only is a contemporary drawing room comedy released in 2006.
- Additional authors include Clement Scott, Walter Besant, Grace Luce Irwin and Arnold Bennett.
See also
editSources
edit- Nicholas Cooper, Houses of the Gentry 1480-1680 (English Heritage) 1999: "Parlours and withdrawing rooms" 289-93.