Theater of Transformation : Postmodernism in American Drama.
Title:
Theater of Transformation : Postmodernism in American Drama.
Author:
Schmidt, Kerstin.
ISBN:
9789401202473
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (231 pages)
Series:
Postmodern Studies, 37 ; v.37
Postmodern Studies, 37
Contents:
Contents -- I Introduction: The Postmodern Condition of Drama -- Postmodernism, an Assessment for the Theater -- The Repoliticization of Postmodernism -- Survey of Selected Secondary Studies -- II Theorizing Dramatic Form: Aspects of Transformation in Postmodern Drama -- II.1 The Postmodern Sense of Self -- II.2 The Dramatic Text, Performance, and Postmodern Authorship -- II.3 Theatrical Space and Mediatized Culture -- III Jean-Claude van Itallie: Mediatized Culture and the Postmodern Self -- III.1 Transformative Selves in "Interview" -- III.2 "TV": The Screen Takes Over -- III.3 "Motel": Cyborgean Visions of American Motel Culture -- IV Megan Terry and Rochelle Owens: Transformation and Postmodern Feminism -- IV.1 Megan Terry's Keep Tightly Closed in a Cool Dry Place: Transforming the Prison House of the Self -- IV.2 Emma Instigated Me: Rochelle Owens's Play "in the process of becoming" -- V Suzan-Lori Parks: "Rep & Rev" Postmodernism -- V.1 Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom: "Histironical Amendments" and the Third Space -- V.2 The America Play: Playing America -- VI Works Cited -- VI.1 Primary Sources/Plays -- VI.2 Secondary Sources.
Abstract:
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.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
Genre:
Electronic Access:
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