Western Theatre Trends and their Influence on the Iraqi Theatre Discourse: The play “A Chapter from Macbeth” as a Model

Abstract

The current research summarizes the study of Western theater trends and their effects on the Iraqi theater discourse. The research consists of four chapters. The first chapter (the methodological framework) includes the research problem, which revolves around the extent of the effectiveness of the theater’s influence in transferring the culture of societies to others for the purpose of learning about them. Through the fusion of cultures, new intellectual ideologies are generated that contribute to correcting the course of the reality of those societies to achieve the principle of human freedom by proving their human selves. Therefore, the research problem ended with the following question: (Did Western theater trends cause influential intellectual changes in the discourse of the Iraqi theater?) The importance of the research: It was embodied in knowing the change that occurred at the level of the reality of Iraqi theater through the cross-pollination of the ideas of Iraqi theater professionals with the ideas that came out of the founders of Western theater trends. This mixing contributed to the birth of Iraqi theater trends that carry visions and ideas that harmonize the reality of Iraqi society, while the goal of the research was to identify the extent of the influence of Western theater trends on theatrical discourse through the addition that these innovations made to the development of Iraqi theater. The limits of the research included studying Western theater trends and their effects on the discourse of the Iraqi theater, the time limit The year (2014) was represented by the spatial limit (Iraq) and the objective limit was crystallized by studying the trends represented by the theories, trends and schools of Western theater and their effects on theatrical discourse. The chapter ended with the indicators of the theoretical framework. The third chapter was represented by the research procedures represented by the research community, the research sample and its analysis. The fourth chapter included the results and conclusions, including: The presentation of (the play A Scene from Macbeth) showed the researchers the extent to which the author of the play, the Iraqi writer Mithal Ghazi, was influenced by the plays of the English writer (William Shakespeare), who built some of the stories of his plays on the conspiracies that overthrow their kings by characters close to that king, as in (the play Hamlet and the play Macbeth). Then the research ended with a list of sources.