American Drama And The Postmodern

This study seeks to reunite American drama with more of the mainstream of American literature using contemporary literary theories of feminism, Derrida, Lacan, as well as the nature of language. It also focuses on the theatrical ways that plays work through performance and staging. This reveals how contemporary playwrights see themselves not as authors, but as parts of a team of designers, actors, and directors. Stage directions are largely omitted, but knowledge of original productions--both as seen live and recorded on tapes archived at Lincoln Center--reveal aspects of fragmentation of scenery, minimalist acting, emphasis on the "unsayable," which makes these plays far more postmodern than they might seem merely as read. More importantly, the final chapter reveals how these techniques culminate in 1990s play' ability to extend beyond the real in a myriad of ways, all united by a new, postmodern view of the divine as interpenetrating reality.In one sense, this seems to be juggling quite a few different items-poststructural theory, modernist realists, as well postmodern deconstructive realists and theatrical practice. All fit together neatly, however, in each chapter through a focus on performance, staging is seen as central to the dramatic experience, with reviews, photographs, and archival videotapes of productions used to verify and explore the plays' meanings.The plays, taken as a whole, reflect the key issues of American society from reactions to the Vietnam War, through issues of sexual preference, race, and feminism and its backlash, through issues of wealth and poverty to arrive at a new vision of a forgiving divine which accepts without judgment all the issues of diversity.American Drama and the Postmodern is an important book for collections in American literature, drama and theatre, as well as for literary theory.

Assesses monologue's postmodern disruptions of linear narrative and character development.

The Theater of Transformation: Postmodernism in American Drama offers a fresh and innovative reading of the contemporary experimental American theater scene and navigates through the contested and contentious relationship between postmodernism and contemporary drama. This book addresses gender and class as well as racial issues in the context of a theoretical discussion of dramatic texts, textuality, and performance. Transformation is contemporary drama's answer to the questions of postmodernism and a major technique in the development of a postmodern language for the stage. In order to demonstrate the multi-faceted nature of the postmodern theater of transformation, this study draws on a wide range of plays: from early experimental plays of the 1960s by Jean-Claude van Itallie through feminist plays by Megan Terry and Rochelle Owens to more recent drama by the African-American playwright Suzan-Lori Parks. The Theater of Transformation: Postmodernism in American Drama is written for anyone interested in contemporary American drama and theater as well as in postmodernism and contemporary literary theory. It appeals even more broadly to a readership intrigued by the ubiquitous aspects of popular culture, by feminism and ethnicity, and by issues pertaining to the so-called 'society of spectacle' and the study of contemporary media.

Provides a new way of defining--and understanding--postmodern drama

Scrutinizing the critical tendency to label texts or writers as "postmodern", scholar Stephen Watt argues that "reading post modernly" merely implies reading culture more broadly. In contemporary drama, Watt considers postmodernity less a question of genre or media than a mode of subjectivity shared by both playwright and audience. 6 illustrations.

This volume represents perspectives on a number of aspects of modern Anglo-American drama and dramatists written by scholars from ex-Yugoslav republics, resulting from long years of common interest and cooperation in the field between the corresponding English Departments in the region. The volume was inspired by the Word across Cultures conference, organised by the Institute of Foreign Languages of the University of Montenegro in Podgorica, Montenegro, in July 2014. The researchers who participated in the conference’s literature section were testament to the growing interest in drama among regional literature scholars. The book will appeal to both an academic and non-academic readership. The former will, certainly, benefit from this book since English and, especially, American drama is not appropriately represented by the number of published books it deserves world-wide. The volume provides a South-East European perspective on Anglo-American drama, and represents a valuable addition to existing drama scholarship, since all the contributors are from the ex-Yugoslav republics and write from a standpoint of multiple othernesses. It will also be of interest to theatre and film scholars, as well as theatre and film enthusiasts, because of the variety of approaches adopted in the papers.