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Abstract

Drama in England witnessed various stages of development and catered to the aesthetic aspirations and entertainment needs of the masses. Starting from the renaissance enlightenment through the Restoration down to the modern period of George Bernard Shaw, one could see arrays of focal areas drama basked in. However, the post World War II dramatic scenario offers a breakthrough to the theatre with the emergence of what is popularly known as Kitchen Sink Drama. The earlier preoccupation in tragedy with characters from ‘high degree’ and issues of perennial import, gave way to the emergence of playwrights such as J. B. Priestley, John Osborne and others experimenting with characters from the lowest ebb of the society and every day common domestic issues. Aristotle and Shakespeare seem to have been lost in the labyrinth of gap created by time. Besides thematic changes in drama, twentieth century witnessed changes in the way the protagonists position themselves in the society, experience it and live through it. The question of catharsis stands adequately answered even in a drama that chooses common issues of common masses which otherwise was alien to Shakespearean and classical plays.  Kitchen Sink drama held the breath of the world in the 1950s through the 1970s with characteristics that distinguished it as a break even from the forms of drama that were popular prior to the advent of Angry Young Man Movement. Such plays could be compared against theatrical movements such as avant garde theater, or the theater of the absurd, popularized by Samuel Beckett. An otherwise common and most often ignored issue of an underemployed or unemployed youth in post World War Britain came to be at the center stage of this kind of play. The protagonist observes the society and its attitude towards the educated and capable youths marginalized by the incapable and uneducated capitalists. Class issue is dominant in the play which foregrounds the massive discontent of the lower class educated youth unable to shed the

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