- published: 06 Aug 2014
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A closet drama is a play that is not intended to be performed onstage, but read by a solitary reader or, sometimes, out loud in a small group. A related form, the "closet screenplay," developed during the 20th century.
Any drama in a written form that does not depend to any significant degree upon improvisation for its effect can be read as literature without being performed. Closet dramas, however, are designed especially for reading and do not concern themselves with stage technique. Featuring little action but often rich in philosophical rhetoric, they are seldom produced for the stage.
The philosophical dialogues of ancient Greek and Roman writers such as Plato were written in the form of conversations between "characters" and are therefore similar to closet drama (for example "Myth about Erotes").
Beginning with Friedrich von Schlegel, many have argued that the tragedies of Seneca the Younger in the first century AD were written to be recited at small parties rather than performed. Although that theory has become widely pervasive in the history of theater, there is no evidence to support the contention that his plays were intended to be read or recited at small gatherings of the wealthy. The emperor Nero, a pupil of Seneca's, may even have performed in some of them. Some of the drama of the Middle Ages was of the closet-drama type, such as the drama of Hroswitha of Gandersheim, or dialectical works such as The Debate of Body and Soul or the Interludium de Clerico et Puella.