Functions of stage directions in the plays of Arthur Miller.

Abstract

Arthur Miller is a talented successor of the traditions of realistic drama in its modern epic form. The playwright’s works are intensely contemporary and reflect widely topical social and ethical problems of our time. All theatrical and literary components of his works are subjected to there issues, the author’s stage directions among them, though they usually play a supplementary role in the text of drama. The analysis of the author’s stage directions in Arthur Miller’s plays of the 40s-60s proves that, for the most part, they are fictionalized. They contain not only entirely traditional information: description of stage setting, indication of time and place, directions on acting – gestures, mimic, speech pattern of the personages, but also historical and ethnographic, publicistic commentary to the developing action alongside with the exposition of previous experiences of main personages. Most descriptions of their earlier experiences are accompanied by the author’s characterization of the personages as well as by recount of their participation in the events preceding the action of the play. Arthur Miller employs stage directions which are considered to be a «secondary», in the art of drama, text, for implementation on his artistic ideas, redirecting it into a social and political context of the dramatic action.