British Biblical Drama

Abstract

It is the purpose of the paper to depict the biblical dramas written in Great Britain in the period of 1930-1952. This period is marked by the revival of English biblical drama. Since 1930 the Religious Drama Society has been acting, with Martin Browne as its president. One can distinguish two currents here: professional and amateurish. The professional one is associated with the Mercury Theatre set up in 1945 by the inspiration of Martin Browne. This theatre put on the plays by T.S. Eliot, Ch. Fry, L. Housman, N. Nickolson, R. Duncan, A. Ridler and others. The amateurish religious movement after the war remained under the auspices of the monthly Radius which have been coming out up to now. The characteristic feature of that phenomenon is that drama goes back to the church. The development of the movement becomes more and more hampered by the secularized audience for which the Christian values have ceased to be absolute and unique.