Some of the foremost modern plays are those of Henrik Ibsen in Norway, August Strindberg in Sweden, and Ivan Turgenev and Anton Chekhov in Russia, while in Germany, the expressionist Ernst Toller was followed by the influential Marxist dramatist Bertolt Brecht. All of these have been translated into and performed in English. Times, tastes, and conventions. Dramatists are affected, like all writers, by the presuppositions and fashions of their time and place. Medieval drama derives from the prevailing popular Catholic Christianity, Elizabethan and Jacobean drama reflects contemporary views of status, honour, and revenge, Victorian drama displays the manners and attitudes of the new middle class.
Conventions also affect the structure of plays.
In the 16c and 17c, European drama was often obedient to the demand for the three unities , adding the unity of place to the unities of time and action attributed to Aristotle. Dramatists in English usually disregarded these restraints, supported the main plot with a subplot, and ranged widely through time and space. The printed play became in its own right a branch of literature, with the result that theatrical and textual scholarship has been applied to the work of early dramatists. As time passed, playwrights gave more consideration to the reader. Stage directions evolved from laconic indications of entrances and exits to detailed descriptions of scenes and actions, including sketches of the appearance and nature of the characters.