Download or read book Myth and Modern American Drama written by Thomas E. Porter and published by Detroit : Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 1969 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contemporary student of dramatic criticism in America, unlike his counterparts in poetry and fiction, does not have a well-developed theoretical and analytical foundation from which to proceed. Apart from a "heterogenous collection of aphorisms and traditional tags," dramatic criticism tends toward a discrete focus, based on the shifting ground of personal opinion. Seeking a more integral view, Father Porter persuasively recommends a course suggested by the Cambridge Anthropologists as a means to a more fundamental approach to dramatic criticism. His approach relates drama to the cultural milieu in which it is produced, and creates a basis upon which to examine dramatic structure and meaning in a unified context. In the Introduction, the author examines what is involved in the cultural milieu as it relates to the theater. He includes the immediate American cultural situation as well as the dramatic tradition inherited by the playwright from his predecessors and the heritage of Western culture, "in effect, all those attitudes, ideals and traditions that determine or affect values, supply strategies and pattern human activities." A careful analysis of each of the major components of the cultural milieu utilizes illustrations from the plays subsequently studied in the book. On the basis of this thorough groundwork, Father Porter has selected nine American plays for analysis. Some-Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra, T. S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party, and Archibald MacLeish's J. B.-draw on traditional or conventional literary and dramatic sources which are molded into a new dramatic shape by their fusion with American attitudes. Others-Sidney Kingsley's Detective Story, Miller's Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, Thornton Wilder's Our Town, and Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?-use popular sub-literary genres or contemporary institutions to forge new patterns of dramatic action. Just as the preceding nine chapters illustrate the utility of a general theoretical approach to dramatic criticism in the analysis of individual works, the concluding chapter vindicates the approach in terms of the light it enables Father Porter to shed on American drama per se. This work combines the virtues of an agreeable style and clarity of presentation with scholarly analysis. It will be valuable to scholars and students and the theatergoing public.
Download or read book The Myth of Identity in Modern Drama written by Jeremy Ekberg and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2015-09-18 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Myth of Identity in Modern Drama is the first book-length study on existential authenticity and its relation to ontological embodiment treated via analyses of characters of modern drama. Furthermore, it offers new methods of exploring characters and characterization and new ways of thinking about identity. Through its investigations of the plays of Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco and Jean-Paul Sartre, the book shows that the study of embodiment will allow for a new method of analyzing characters and how they form, or attempt to form, ever-changing identities.
Download or read book Modern American Drama written by Narindar S. Pradhan and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Modern American Drama 1945 2000 written by C. W. E. Bigsby and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2000-12-21 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New edition of Modern American Drama completes the survey and comes up to 2000.
Download or read book The Presence of the Past in Modern American Drama written by Patricia R. Schroeder and published by Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study focuses on Eugene O'Neill, Thornton Wilder, Arthur Miller, and Tennessee Williams, who, within the overall framework of formal realism, reshaped dramatic form to depict a past that interacts with the present in complex and often surprising ways. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Award in Modern Drama.
Download or read book Modern American Drama Playwriting in the 1970s written by Michael Vanden Heuvel and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-11-14 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Decades of Modern American Drama series provides a comprehensive survey and study of the theatre produced in each decade from the 1930s to 2009 in eight volumes. Each volume equips readers with a detailed understanding of the context from which work emerged: an introduction considers life in the decade with a focus on domestic life and conditions, social changes, culture, media, technology, industry and political events; while a chapter on the theatre of the decade offers a wide-ranging and thorough survey of theatres, companies, dramatists, new movements and developments in response to the economic and political conditions of the day. The work of the four most prominent playwrights from the decade receives in-depth analysis and re-evaluation by a team of experts, together with commentary on their subsequent work and legacy. A final section brings together original documents such as interviews with the playwrights and with directors, drafts of play scenes, and other previously unpublished material. The major playwrights and their works to receive in-depth coverage in this volume include: * David Rabe: The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel; Sticks and Bones; and Streamers; * Sam Shepard: Curse of the Starving Class; Buried Child; and True West; * Ntozake Shange: For colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf; Spell #7; and Boogie-Woogie Landscapes * Richard Foreman: Sophia = (Wisdom) Part 3; The Cliffs; Pandering to the Masses: A Misrepresentation; and Rhoda in Potatoland (Her Fall-Starts).
Download or read book Edward Albee written by Anita Stenz and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2012-01-02 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Modern American Drama on Screen written by William Robert Bray and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-08 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on key texts, leading scholars explore how Hollywood has given an enduring life to the classics of Broadway theater.
Download or read book Masterpieces of 20th Century American Drama written by Susan C. W. Abbotson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2005-09-30 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American playwrights have made enormous contributions to world drama during the last century, and their works are widely read and performed. This reference conveniently introduces 10 of the most important modern American plays read by students. An introductory essay concisely overviews modern American drama, and each of the chapters that follow examines a particular play. Among the plays discussed are Thornton Wilder's Our Town, Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, and August Wilson's The Piano Lesson. Each chapter includes a biography, a plot summary, an analysis of the play's themes, characters, and dramatic art, and a review of its historical background and reception. Chapters list works for further reading, and the volume closes with a selected, general bibliography.
Download or read book Essays on Modern American Drama written by Dorothy Parker and published by Sterling/Main Street. This book was released on 1987 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology gathers some of Modern Drama's most distinguished pieces on America's four most important playwrights since Eugene O'Neill: Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, and Sam Shepard. While Parker has chosen these authors "as representative of the main stream of American dramatic tradition," she does not offer a general overview of the plays or playwrights, nor any general orientation to aid the reader. These essays are written by scholars for serious students of American drama. The majority of the essays concentrate on a single play, and while they appeared decades ago, all were major articles in the field. Old but solid, they should still be of interest to students and scholars alike.
Download or read book Modern American Drama Playwriting in the 1980s written by Sandra G. Shannon and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-11-14 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Decades of Modern American Playwriting series provides a comprehensive survey and study of the theatre produced in each decade from the 1930s to 2009 in eight volumes. Each volume equips readers with a detailed understanding of the context from which work emerged: an introduction considers life in the decade with a focus on domestic life and conditions, social changes, culture, media, technology, industry and political events; while a chapter on the theatre of the decade offers a wide-ranging and thorough survey of theatres, companies, dramatists, new movements and developments in response to the economic and political conditions of the day. The work of the four most prominent playwrights from the decade receives in-depth analysis and re-evaluation by a team of experts, together with commentary on their subsequent work and legacy. A final section brings together original documents such as interviews with the playwrights and with directors, drafts of play scenes, and other previously unpublished material. The major playwrights and their plays to receive in-depth coverage in this volume include: David Mamet: Edmond (1982), Glengarry Glen Ross (1984), Speed-the-Plow (1988) and Oleanna (1992); David Henry Hwang: Family Devotions (1981), The Sound of a Voice (1983) and M. Butterfly (1988); Maria Irene Fornès: The Danube (1982), Mud (1983) and The Conduct of Life (1985); August Wilson: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1984), Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1984) and Fences (1987).
Download or read book Realism and the American Dramatic Tradition written by William W. Demastes and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 1996-08-30 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reconsiders realism on the American stage by addressing the great variety and richness of the plays that form the American theatre canon.
Download or read book Reader s Guide to Literature in English written by Mark Hawkins-Dady and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 1024 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reader's Guide Literature in English provides expert guidance to, and critical analysis of, the vast number of books available within the subject of English literature, from Anglo-Saxon times to the current American, British and Commonwealth scene. It is designed to help students, teachers and librarians choose the most appropriate books for research and study.
Download or read book The Absent Father in Modern Drama written by Paul Rosefeldt and published by Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers. This book was released on 1995 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "From the Freudians to the feminists, the role of the absent or hidden father figure has played a part in narrative and cultural theory. This work presents the first full-length examination of the absent father in modern drama. It closely analyzes major works by Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Williams, Miller, Shepard, Rabe, Henley, Norman, Pielmeier, Shaffer, Osborne, Churchill, and Fugard. Using the critical framework of psychological, deconstructive, and myth criticism, this book demonstrates how the consistent focus on an imposing father figure who never physically appears onstage affects the psychological, social, and metaphysical structure of major modern dramas."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Tennessee Williams written by Matthew C. Roudané and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997-12-11 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a collection of thirteen original essays from a team of leading scholars in the field. In this wide-ranging volume, the contributors cover a healthy sampling of Williams's works, from the early apprenticeship years in the 1930s through to his last play before his death in 1983, Something Cloudy, Something Clear. In addition to essays on such major plays as The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, among others, the contributors also consider selected minor plays, short stories, poems, and biographical concerns. The Companion also features a chapter on selected key productions as well as a bibliographic essay surveying the major critical statements on Williams.
Download or read book Modern American Drama Playwriting in the 1960s written by Mike Sell and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-11-14 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Decades of Modern American Drama series provides a comprehensive survey and study of the theatre produced in each decade from the 1930s to 2009 in eight volumes. Each volume equips readers with a detailed understanding of the context from which work emerged: an introduction considers life in the decade with a focus on domestic life and conditions, social changes, culture, media, technology, industry and political events; while a chapter on the theatre of the decade offers a wide-ranging and thorough survey of theatres, companies, dramatists, new movements and developments in response to the economic and political conditions of the day. The work of the four most prominent playwrights from the decade receives in-depth analysis and re-evaluation by a team of experts, together with commentary on their subsequent work and legacy. A final section brings together original documents such as interviews with the playwrights and with directors, drafts of play scenes, and other previously unpublished material. The major playwrights and their plays to receive in-depth coverage in this volume include: * Edward Albee: The American Dream (1960), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962), A Delicate Balance (1966) and Tiny Alice (1964 ); * Amiri Baraka: Dutchman (1964), The Slave (1964) and Slaveship (1967); * Adrienne Kennedy: Funnyhouse of a Negro (1964), Cities in Bezique (The Owl Answers and A Beast's Story, 1969), and A Rat's Mass (1967); * Jean-Claude van Itallie: American Hurrah (1966), The Serpent (1968) and War (1963).
Download or read book Dramatic Revisions of Myths Fairy Tales and Legends written by Verna A. Foster and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2012-10-10 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These new essays explore the ways in which contemporary dramatists have retold or otherwise made use of myths, fairy tales and legends from a variety of cultures, including Greek, West African, North American, Japanese, and various parts of Europe. The dramatists discussed range from well-established playwrights such as Tony Kushner, Caryl Churchill, and Timberlake Wertenbaker to new theatrical stars such as Sarah Ruhl and Tarell Alvin McCraney. The book contributes to the current discussion of adaptation theory by examining the different ways, and for what purposes, plays revise mythic stories and characters. The essays contribute to studies of literary uses of myth by focusing on how recent dramatists have used myths, fairy tales and legends to address contemporary concerns, especially changing representations of women and the politics of gender relations but also topics such as damage to the environment and political violence.
