ABSTRACT
The outpouring of new British plays in the eight years which followed 1956 was distinguished by two kinds of revolt; technically, against the 'well-made play' and, emotionally, against the stuffiness of the 'British establishment'. The emotional revolt could mean almost anything, from a considered leftwing attack against a bourgeois, capitalistic society to the jibes against sexual hypocrisy, financial corruption and complacency which could come from almost any political or apolitical direction. The 'second wave' dramatists were faced with a different situation. Unlike Osborne, they were surrounded by technical alternatives. They could write in the style of Brecht and no director would quail. They could write Absurdist plays without necessarily being accused of meaningless obscurity. They would write scenario, without formal dialogue, just hints for improvisational games; or gather together, as Barry Bermange once did, extracts from recorded street interviews, assembling them into a dramatic collage (Darkness Theatre, 1969). They could write for three basic types of stage-arena, thrust and proscenium arch~r for no formal stage at all. While it was perhaps true that their royalties from plays were shrinking, mainly due to the decline of the touring theatres, they could receive incomes from other sources, television, playscript paperbacks and commissions from the reps and the nationals.
