Contemporary American Drama / / Annette Saddik.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Edinburgh University Press Backlist eBook-Package 2013-2000
• VerfasserIn: Saddik, Annette,
• MitwirkendeR: Halliwell, Martin,; Mousley, Andy,
• Place / Publishing House: Edinburgh : : Edinburgh University Press, , [2022]; ©2007
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: Edinburgh Critical Guides to Literature : ECGL
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (248 p.) :; 12 B/W illustrations

GBS_insertPreviewButtonPopup('ISBN:9780748624942);This book explores the development of contemporary theatre in the United States in its historical, political and theoretical dimensions. It focuses on representative plays and performance texts that experiment with form and content, discussing influential playwrights and performance artists such as Tennessee Williams, Adrienne Kennedy, Sam Shepard, Tony Kushner, Charles Ludlum, Anna Deavere Smith, Karen Finley and Will Power, alongside avant-garde theatre groups. Saddik traces the development of contemporary drama since 1945, and discusses the cross-cultural impact of postwar British and European innovations on American theatre from the 1950s to the present day in order to examine the performance of American identity. She argues that contemporary American theatre is primarily a postmodern drama of inclusion and diversity that destabilizes the notion of fixed identity and questions the nature of reality. Key FeaturesExamines the influence of international figures such as Aristotle, Brecht, Artaud and Boal who are central to theatre as a disciplineExplores realistic and anti-realistic styles of American drama and their political and social implications, along with key critical terms and movementsPlaces the complexity of contemporary American drama within its political, sexual and ethnic contextsIncludes rare images from La MaMa Archive/Ellen Stewart Private CollectionDiscusses in detail Stairs to the Roof and Camino Real by Tennessee Williams, Death of a Salesman and The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Dutchman and The Slave by Amira Baraka, Funnyhouse of a Negro by Adrienne Kennedy, The Tooth of Crime and True West by Sam Shepherd and American Buffalo by David Mamet as well as a range of other texts and performers."

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Series Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Chronology -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. Experimental Innovations After the Second World War -- Chapter 2. Revisiting the American Dream -- Chapter 3. African-American Theatre: Voices from the Margins -- Chapter 4. Avant-Garde Theatre Groups: Revolutions in Performance -- Chapter 5. Postmodern Presentations: Questioning Boundaries of Representation -- Chapter 6. The Politics of Identity and Exclusion -- Chapter 7. Fragmented Representations of American Identity in the Theatre of the Vietnam War -- Chapter 8. The ‘NEA Four’ and Performance Art: Making Visible the Invisible -- Conclusion -- Student Resources -- Index