THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL AND SUBJECTIVE SIGNIFICANCE ON THE SAUDI THEATER BETWEEN 2000 AND 2020

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the most significant social and individual issues experienced by Saudi society between 2000 and 2020, analyzing their manifestation in the dramatic structure of theatrical language. Besides, it explores if Saudi playwrights, through narrative techniques such as the four key elements of this study (dialogue, description, narration, and intertextuality), were able to express the social transformations in a theatre language with aesthetic elements which carries within it the changes that society and the individual experience and the problems they are suffering from. The findings reveal that societal influences emerged as social signifiers addressing a variety of issues, most notably women’s empowerment and their societal roles, as well as family-related concerns. Themes of personal isolation and alienation that some individuals of this generation experienced were also revealed in some texts. In order to get around different kinds of censorship, the majority of Saudi playwrights have turned to the philosophical idea of alienation or distancing, employing fantasy literature as a vehicle of expressing this alienation.