All The World's A Stage Trivia Quiz

429 BC

Plays are very much a case of art imitating life. Entertainment was very important to the ancient Greeks. They used drama to explain the world they lived in, and what it meant to be human. The Greeks had three genres of drama including comedy, tragedy, and satyr plays. The latter were short plays performed between the acts of tragedies and satirised the unfortunate situations of the tragedy's characters.

The first comedies were usually satirical and mocked authority figures for their vanity and foolishness. Aristophanes was the principal playwright in ancient Greece who wrote in this genre.

Tragedy covered themes of love, loss, power abuse and the difficult relationships between mortals and gods. The three great tragedy playwrights were Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Aristotle stated that through tragedy pity and terror were expressed by characters in the plays, the heart was 'cleansed' and men were purged of their minor concerns and problems. He argued there was nobility in suffering which he called 'catharsis'.

Aristotle admired Sophocles because he developed well-argued plots about important people. Many people consider Sophocles the greatest Greek playwright. He wrote a total of 123 plays, but only seven survived.

"Oedipus the King", first performed in 429 BC, was a murder mystery, a political thriller, and a whodunnit. Oedipus, King of Thebes, is told by an oracle that for the plague to end he must find the murderer of Laius, the King before Oedipus. The revealing and punishment of the murderer would end the plague. This is a story about patricide and incest. Sophocles stresses the irony of a man determined to identify and punish an assassin, who turns out to be himself. Oedipus realises that he killed his father and married his mother, and is distraught about his actions. He finds that the queen, his mother Jocasta, has killed herself, so the tortured Oedipus takes pins from her gown and rakes out his eyes so that he can no longer look upon the misery he caused. He is disgraced and begs to be exiled. Creon, Jocasta's brother, becomes the next Theban king.

1587

Christopher Marlowe was an English playwright and poet and, with Shakespeare, was among the most famous of the Elizabethan playwrights. While he was known for many plays, including "Doctor Faustus" (c.1588) and "The Jew of Malta" (c.?1589-1590), modern scholars consider him to have been the preeminent dramatist in England because of his signature play "Tamburlaine", written just 6 years before he died in mysterious circumstances in 1593 aged 29. Many historians believe that he profoundly influenced William Shakespeare, who succeeded him as the foremost Elizabethan playwright. His life was controversial, as he was accused of being an atheist (therefore an enemy of the state), spy, homosexual, and a counterfeiter.

"Tamburlaine" (c.1587), also known as "Tamburlaine the Great", is a two-part play based on the life of Timur, the Central Asian emperor. The plot commences with the incumbent Persian emperor, Mycetes, who orders his troops that Tamburlaine, a Scythian shepherd, should be killed. Meanwhile, in Scythia, Tamburlaine is trying to win the hand of Zenocrate, the daughter of the Egyptian king. He convinces Mycetes' troops to kill Mycetes instead, which duly occurs and Tamburlaine becomes the new emperor. He then goes on to conquer Africa and Damascus, which means he would have had to kill his future father-in-law, an Egyptian sultan. Zenocrate begs Tamburlaine to spare her father, which he does, making the sultan a tributary king. The play concludes with the wedding of Tamburlaine and Zenocrate, who is now crowned Empress of Persia.

1599-1601

William Shakespeare (c. April 1564 - 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet, and sometimes actor. He is often described as the greatest writer in the English language and the "world's best dramatist" according to his many biographers. He has been called England's national poet (though this has never been made official). He authored 39 plays, as well as 154 sonnets. His plays have been translated into nearly every major language, and have been performed more often than the plays of any other playwright.

"Hamlet" or more correctly, "The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark", is a tragedy written between 1599 and 1601. The play is set in Denmark, and relates the story of Prince Hamlet, who wants to exact revenge on his uncle, Claudius. He has murdered Hamlet's father, enabling him to seize his throne and marry his mother. It seems trite to label Ophelia as Hamlet's love interest, but he ultimately rejects her. Hamlet kills her father, Polonius, which causes Ophelia to go mad.

"Hamlet" is widely considered to be one of the greatest plays of all time.

1668

Known by his stage name Molière, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (1622 - 1673), was a French playwright, actor, and poet. He was one of the greatest French-language writers and was respected around his contemporaneous world. His body of works, which includes comedies, farces, tragicomedies, and comedy-ballets, have been translated into every major language, and such works are performed in France more often than those of any other known playwright The French language is often referred to as the "language of Molière", such was his influence on French literature. His work was not without controversy: For the impiety in "Tartuffe" (1664), the Catholic Church in France denounced his work as religious hypocrisy, which was then followed by a ban by the French judicial system.

One of his best-known works is "The Miser" (1668), also known as "The Miser, or the School for Lies". The title character Harpegay is a widowed miser who has amassed a small fortune, but wants more and contrives to marry his son and daughter off into wealthy families. Of course, in the tradition of French farces, his whole plan fails, and, indeed, his entire hoard is stolen. Moliere himself played the original title role.

A mark of the quality of this work is reflected in the number of adaptations of Moliere's original work that have been written, including musicals and film versions which number over one hundred.

Molière is considered the originator of modern French comedy. Like Shakespeare in England, Moliere's words or phrases are still used in modern French. Many words or phrases introduced in Molière's plays are still used in current French. For example, a tartuffe is a hypocrite, especially when piety or morality is involved, and a harpagon is an excessively greedy and cheap man.

1879

Henrik Johan Ibsen (1828 - 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. Often referred to as "the father of realism", he was one of the most influential playwrights of the 19th century. He had many major works but the most well-known include "Peer Gynt" (1867), " A Doll's House" (1879), "Ghosts" (1881 ), and "Hedda Gabler" (1890). After Shakespeare, Ibsen is the most frequently performed playwright in the world.

The play concerns the journey of Nora, a mother of three who is married to a banker. Through the course of the play, she realizes how oppressed and unpleasant her life is. Neither her husband nor marriage is what she thought they were, and she comes to see how little opportunity she has had to lead a fulfilled life. Ibsen denied he wrote a feminist play. However, according to Walter et al , who wrote "Four Major Plays" (1998), the play caused a sensation and a "storm of outraged controversy" that traveled from the theatre world into the press and popular media.

In 2006, the centennial of Ibsen's death, "A Doll's House" was the world's most-performed play.

1895

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854 - 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. He was best known, ironically, for his his novel, "The Picture of Dorian Gray", four comedy plays, and, unfortunately, for his behaviour in his personal life He was born into a wealthy family in Dublin. He won scholarships to Dublin University and Oxford University where he studied Classics. After graduation, he was able to live on his inheritance in London where he wrote his first play. Literary success followed, and he enjoyed moving within the social elite in London. In 1895 he brought a libel suit against the Marquess of Queensberry. However, in the trial, his personal life was scrutinised. The Marquess was found not guilty, legal costs bankrupted him, and he was arrested and tried for gross indecency. He was found guilty and sentenced to two years hard labour. On the day of his release, he caught a ship to France, and never returned either to Britain or Ireland. His time in prison affected his health, and he died prematurely of meningitis in 1900 aged 46.

Wilde wrote nine plays altogether between 1879 and 1894. His fame as a dramatist rests on four comedies - "Lady Windermere's Fan" (1892), "A Woman of No Importance (1893)", "An Ideal Husband" (1895), and "The Importance of Being Earnest" (1895). His tragedy "Salomé" was the last play he wrote in 1896.

"The Importance of Being Earnest" is a classic romantic comedy about love, deception, and mistaken identity. It is a satire of Victorian society, showing the intertwined affairs of two young men of some social standing in English society leading double lives to elude "unnecessary" social obligations. Both assume the name Ernest whilst trying to win over the two young women of their affections.

1903

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860 -1904) was a Russian playwright. He was also an innovative short story writer. Chekhov was a physician by profession - he wrote to earn extra money. He often said, "Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress." Four of his plays are considered classics, and, along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of three key figures in the "birth of early modernism in the theatre" according to Harold Bloom in 2002. ("Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds").

Along with "The Seagull", "Three Sisters", and "Uncle Vanya", "The Cherry Orchard", written in 1903 and first performed in 1904 in Moscow, is identified as one of his outstanding plays. The play centers around an aristocratic Russian landowner who returns to her manor house and grounds replete with cherry orchard immediately before it is sold to cover the mortgage debt. It is sold to the son of a former serf. As she and her family leave the estate for the last time, they hear the sound of the cherry orchard being cut down. The plot documents the social and economic forces in Russia of the time, which includes the rise of the middle class after serfdom was abolished in the mid-19th century, resulting in the power of the aristocracy being greatly reduced.

Chekhov's last play was widely regarded as a 20th-century theatre classic. He was destined to write further great plays, but died of tuberculosis in 1904 aged 44.

1944

Thomas (Tennessee) Lanier Williams III (1911-1983) was an American playwright and screenwriter. Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller were his contemporaries, and the trio were known as the "three foremost playwrights of 20th-century American drama" according to Harold Bloom in Williams' biography (1987).

Williams had a string of successful plays, but first became famous with "The Glass Menagerie" (1944), followed by "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1947), "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1955), and "The Night of the Iguana" (1961), among others.

"The Glass Menagerie" play is a memory play told through the eyes of Tom, who may have been an unreliable narrator. He lives in a dingy apartment in St. Louis, supporting his shy sister Laura and Amanda, his mother, a former Southern belle debutante. Amanda wants more than anything for her daughter, Laura, to find a suitor, but the daughter is too shy to leave the house. Tom invites Jim, a work colleague, to dinner, and Laura discovers this was the boy she liked in high school. After dinner the possible couple are left alone, and there are indications that romance may be possible. But when Jim breaks a glass unicorn of Laura's (from her glass menagerie), he tells Laura that he is engaged to be married. He leaves with the broken unicorn, a gift from Laura. The play finishes with Tom as the narrator, stating that he left home shortly after and never returned.

The play moved from Chicago to Broadway where it won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award in 1945.

In 1959 a play by Lorraine Hansberry, "A Raisin in the Sun" debuted on Broadway. The title references Langston Hughes' poem "Harlem", also known as "A Dream Deferred".

It tells the story of the Younger family, a Chicago African-American family who comes into some money to buy a house in a white neighbourhood simply because it is cheaper. This causes tension as the neighbours are concerned about the introduction of Black people to the neighbourhood, and one offers to buy them out with veiled threats.

At the time the play was considered a big risk as all the characters except one were Black - it took 18 months for producer Phillip Rose to raise the funds to stage it. Even then Rose and author Hansberry did not expect the play to be successful, as Robin Bernstein noted in "Modern Drama" that " it could be argued [...] whether the play was 'universal' or particular to the Black experience".

On opening night the play received multiple curtain calls and cries for the author to come on stage. Sidney Poitier, the male lead, jumped into the audience to lead Hansberry onto the stage for her own curtain call. The play ran for 530 sessions, and was nominated for four Tony Awards in 1960.

Hansberry noted in her diaries that her play introduced details of Black life to nearly always-white Broadway audiences. The director Lloyd Richards noted that it was the first play to which large numbers of Black people came to see a play.

1966

Sir Tom Stoppard was born Tomas Straussler on 3 July 1937 in Czechoslovakia, but his family fled to Singapore when Nazi Germany occupied his birth country. His father was killed in Singapore in 1942, and his mother and brother fled to India where his mother, Martha, married British army major Kenneth Stoppard. Stoppard relocated his new family back to the UK after the war in 1946. He adopted his stepfather's name, and completed his schooling in Britain. He became a journalist after finishing school, but never attended university. After he was made a feature writer, in 1958, which introduced him to the theatre. He wrote short radio plays whilst working as a journalist but his first full-length play, "A Walk on the Water" (1960), which was later re-titled "Enter a Free Man" (1968), was staged firstly in Hamburg and then shown on British TV in 1963.

He wrote over thirty plays with "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" (1966) and "The Real Thing" (1982) being his most well-known works.

"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" is an absurdist, existential tragicomedy, set in Denmark revolving around the title characters who are two minor characters from Shakespeare's "Hamlet". Even the title of Stoppard's play is taken from a line from "Hamlet". These two are in the wings of said stage production, replete with character appearances and quotes from the original play itself. The two do not know of the events transpiring onstage and express their confusion.

The play was the first of Stoppard's plays to be performed on Broadway. The play was nominated for eight Tony Awards and won four: Best Play, Scenic Design, Costume Design and Producer.