The paper explores the connection between Joyce and drama, which strongly influences the young artist, both personally and aesthetically. Joyce grew up in Dublin at the turn of the century when theatre was the most powerful tool being used by the Revivalist movement to forge the Irish people`s nationalistic consciences. During his youth Joyce fed off this atmosphere and was utterly fascinated by the theatrical medium. But he soon felt oppressed and disappointed by the politics of the cultural panorama that sourrounded him. As "The Day of Rabblement" shows, even the theatrical medium was not spared his scorn: he thought that Revivalist theatre was doing little more than recreate an unconvincing "world of fairies." Joyce thus decided to expand his horizons to the great European theatre and he found in a dramatist, Henrik Ibsen, one of his great masters. Drama (as theatre) played an important role in Joyce`s life and he tried to explore the medium from different perspectives (actor, critic, author, producer). Even from abroad, Joyce kept following the activities of the Abbey Theatre and it can be assumed that he also tried (unsuccessfully) to take an active part in it, in order, of course, to change it. Drama, by the time, became for Joyce the supreme form of art "in whatever way unfolded" and it is what he always tried to achieve since his early epiphanies right through Finnegans Wake. This paper will focus on the influence of drama in the developement of Joyce`s aesthetic identity, first as "theatre" and then in the more extended joycean sense. A close reading of the early Critical Writings, with all their yourthful and provocative enthusiasm, will help us understand those theatrical elements which Joyce assimilates, includes and eventually surpasses in his later works.