2025 № 2 (53)
Theatre in Time and Time in Theatre. Tom Stoppard and Others
UDC 792.2
LBC 85.333; 85.334
DOI: 10.51678/2226-0072-2025-2-10-45
For cit.: Khaichenko E.G. Theatre in Time and Time in Theatre. Tom Stoppard and Others. Hudozhestvennaya kul’tura [Art & Culture Studies], 2025, no. 2, pp. 10–45. https://doi.org/10.51678/2226-0072-2025-2-10-45. (In Russian)
Khaichenko Elena G.
D.Sc. (in Art History), Leading Researcher, Western Contemporary Art Department, State Institute for Art Studies, 5 Kozitsky Lane, Moscow, 125375, Russia
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9362-5717
Researcher ID: MIK-1023-2025
Theatre in Time and Time in Theatre. Tom Stoppard and Others
Abstract. The article examines the category of time in relation to theatrical art in its historical development and the change of stylistic eras. It is about the duration of the action, the volume of events depicted, and the understanding of time as a philosophical category. In the ancient era, myths suggested the perception of time as a resting duration. At the same time, the evolution of ancient Greek tragedy itself was associated with the process of formation of the concept of historical time, which fully manifested itself in the Renaissance in W. Shakespeare’s chronicles. On the stage of the 17th century, a classicist performance, the series of events of which covered one day, coexisted with mannerist and baroque, where a mixture of the real and the fantasy, the illusory and the actual immersed the action in a situation of elusive time bordering on eternity. In the 19th century, the desire to concentrate the action in time and space manifested itself again in the works of the new European drama. Moreover, if in the plays by H. Ibsen and A. Strindberg the movement of time is determined by the change of time of day, in the plays by A.P. Chekhov — by the change of seasons. The flow of time in them is irreversible, it moves in one direction only: fr om the past through the present to the future.
With the appearance of H.G. Wells’s novel The Time Machine in 1895, a new idea of time in literature and art was born — it became a subjective category. The author illustrates this using the example of plays by F.G. Lorca, T. Wilder, J.B. Priestley, and E. O’Neill, in which time is condensed, concentrated, and easily runs forward and then returns back. A separate section of the article is devoted to the play by T. Stoppard Leopoldstadt, wh ere the movement of the action determines the course of history itself, projected by the author onto his autobiography.
Keywords: drama, theatre, time, history, W. Shakespeare, birth, death, F.G. Lorca, T. Wilder, J.B. Priestley, E. O’Neill, T. Stoppard
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Received 09.02.2025
Accepted 11.03.2025
