Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory Commons^™

“Boadicea Onstage Before 1800, A Theatrical And Colonial History.” Studies In English Literature 1500-1900 49.3 (Summer 2009): 595-614., Wendy Nielsen

Wendy Nielsen

This essay examines the theatrical legacy of Boadicea, the British warrior queen defeated by the Romans around 61 AD, in three plays: John Fletcher's "The Tragedy of Bonduca, or the British Heroine" and two unrelated dramas titled "Boadicea" by Charles Hopkins and Richard Glover. Performance histories attempt to explain why audiences respond to Boadicea with ambivalence. Each production underplays the defeated queen and gives starring roles to one or more of her daughters and a male lead, who contrast with Boadicea's supposed brutality and provide British audiences with lessons about ways to rule in an ostensibly civilized fashion.

Rethinking Ionesco’S Absurd: The Bald Soprano In The Interlingual Context Of Vichy And Postwar France, Julia Elsky

Julia Elsky

Rereading Eugène Ionesco’s postwar play La cantatrice chauve (The Bald Soprano) in the light of the original, wartime Romanian version alongside archival materials concerning his political activity in Vichy France allows us to reconsider his role in the theater of the absurd. Instead of staging the emptiness of language in a conformist world, the Romanian play dramatizes how language and language exchange created meaning but also upheld state violence during the Second World War. Although the French version of the play adapts this theme to the postwar context, traces of state power over language remain. This new approach …

Hate Speech As Theater, Adam White

Adam White

Sophie Treadwell's Machinal: Electrifying The Female Body, Katherine Weiss

Katherine Weiss

Excerpt: The American playwright and journalist Sophie Treadwell dedicated her literary career to exploring the lives and motives of lonely and trapped individuals.

Exploding Bombs: Masculinity And War Trauma In Sam Shepard’S Drama, Katherine Weiss

Katherine Weiss

This paper examines violence and masculinity in Sam Shepard's work as a symptom of war trauma, apparent in his characterization of several of his male characters as war veterans and the violent language accompanying his other characters. War becomes a cultural disease infesting and destroying the family on Shepard's stage.

The Comedy Of Scholarship: Review Of Hugh Kenner’S Flaubert, Joyce And Beckett: The Stoic Comedians, Katherine Weiss

Katherine Weiss

Review of Flaubert, Joyce and Beckett: The Stoic Comedians. by Hugh Kenner

Book Review Of Emma Creedon, Sam Shepard And The Aesthetics Of Performance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), Katherine Weiss

Katherine Weiss

Review of Emma Creedon, Sam Shepard and the Aesthetics of Performance Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, xi + 199 pp., $90.00.

"... Long Before The Stars Were Torn Down...": Sam Shepard And Bob Dylan's "Brownsville Girl", Katherine Weiss

Katherine Weiss

Excerpt: In 1975, Bob Dylan invited Sam Shepard, the young playwright who had ignited the Off-Broadway and London theatre scene, to go on tour with him in order to write scenes and dialogue for a film of the Rolling Thunder Revue.

Women’S Literacy In Early Modern Spain And The New World, Ed. By Anne J. Cruz And Rosilie Hernández, Kirsten Schultz

Kirsten Schultz

No abstract provided.

“A Little History Here, A Little Hollywood There”: (Counter-) Identifying With The Spanish Fantasy In Carlos Morton’S Rancho Hollywood And Theresa Chavez’S L.A. Real, Courtney Mohler

Courtney Mohler

Often considered the final conquest and ultimate summation of Manifest Destiny, California holds a unique place in the American imaginary. While the popular mythology of the Spanish fantasy has served to obscure the use of violence and racialized oppression throughout the colonization of the American Southwest, traces of such struggle remain in memories of the colonized as they continue to occupy this contested space. This paper examines Carlos Morton’s ensemble-based political satire, Rancho Hollywood, and Theresa Chavez’s one-woman show, L.A. Real, to navigate the dynamic experience of contemporary Southern Californian racialized identity. These two pieces diverge stylistically but share an …

Little (White) Women: Locating Whiteness In (De)Constructions Of The American Female From Alcott To Split Britches, Courtney Mohler

Courtney Mohler

In 1988, the feminist/lesbian performance group Split Britches performed a deconstruction of Louisa May Alcott’s canonical Little Women. Their play, Little Women, the Tragedy (LWTT) highlighted the division within the feminist movement at the time over pornography, and called into question the norms of morality and feminine virtue reflected in and by Alcott’s classic ‘American girls’ novel.’ The play, however, illustrates a problematic construction of feminist/lesbian identity as outside of racial discourse. This paper argues that feminist performances which aim to deconstruct gender and sexuality should also be examined in terms of racialization; the common omission of whiteness as a …

Three Readings Of Reading, Pennsylvania: Approaching Lynn Nottage’S Sweat And Douglas Carter Beane’S Shows For Days, Courtney Mohler, Christina Mcmahon, David Román

Courtney Mohler

No abstract provided.

Romeo And Juliet, Courtney Mohler

Courtney Mohler

No abstract provided.

Dancing Philosophy: What Happens To Philosophy When Considered From The Point Of View Of A Dancer, Aili W. Bresnahan

Aili Bresnahan

Western philosophical aesthetics tends to answer the question, “What is art?” by starting with the perspective of the art appreciator. What does the spectator perceive in the artistic entity at issue? For example, are these properties formal and tangible, an arrangement of lines and colors as provided by Clive Bell’s theory of significant form? Are they contextual—are they, for example, the expression of the experience of a particular culture? Or are these properties relational in the sense of being a comment on or response to another art-historical movement, such as Cubism?

Starting from this perspective, the methodology tends to begin …

A Kaleidoscopic Book That'll Make Your 'World Spin', Wendy Macleod

Wendy MacLeod

No abstract provided.

Theatre And Drama: The Art Of Paradox, Andrew Vorder Bruegge

Andrew Vorder Bruegge, Ph.D.

This is a textbook for THRT 210: Script Analysis at Winthrop University. The publisher has withdrawn the rights to reprint the text I have been using for several years That motivated me to create my own textbook. During 2014-15 I am working with a theatre major who took THRT 210 with me last year. She helped me with editing and writing of the content. I will use it with students in draft form the next time I teach the course and revise it and expand it until it is ready to offer to a publisher for national distribution.

Lighting Design For Tom Stoppard’S Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead: Chapman University Spring 2015, Nikolai B. Eiteneer

Nikolai B Eiteneer

In the Spring of 2015 I had the privilege of being selected as the Associate Lighting Designer on Chapman University's production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard. As part of this position, I created a sampling of research of the production and lighting technology, leading to the creation of a preliminary lighting key, which I in turn used to inform my decisions throughout the production. I would like to thank my professor and mentor, Don Guy, who was the Lighting Designer of the production, as well as the Chapman University Department of Theatre for allowing me this …

Review Of "The Norton Anthology Of Drama", Andrew Vorder Bruegge

Andrew Vorder Bruegge, Ph.D.

Review of new edition of a drama anthology/textbook.

Seventeenth-Century Social Hierarchy And Character Interpretation In "The Country Wife", Andrew Vorder Bruegge

Andrew Vorder Bruegge, Ph.D.

Analysis of characters in the drama within their cultural context. Four of the principal female characters succeed in attaining upward mobility in social class over the course of the action. The URL for the full-text document is: http://dx.doi.org/10.15640/ijmpa.v2n2a3

Romeo Castellucci: The Four Seasons Restaurant, Daniel Sack

Daniel Sack

No abstract provided.

Memory And Remembering: Sacred History And The York Plays, Clifford Davidson

Clifford Davidson

I'M Not Finished/Done, Dimitri A Cacouris

Dimitri A Cacouris

No abstract provided.

Bibliography For Work In Digital Humanities And (Inter)Mediality Studies, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven & Totosy de Zepetnek, Steven

No abstract provided.

'A Sort Of Buzzing' Queer Sound In David Malouf's Blood Relations, James Marland

James Grice Thomas Marland

No abstract provided.

Playing The Changeling Architecturally, Kim Solga

Kim Solga

Performing Environments is an original and important collection examining site specificity in a diverse range of medieval and early modern performance cultures. The chapters take up theories of site specificity more commonly deployed in the study of contemporary work in order to raise new questions and suggest innovative approaches to the study of performance in the historical past. The book provides an introduction to site specific theories as well as a review of the recent 'geographical turn' in medieval and early modern scholarship that frames the studies for both novice and expert readers. Individual chapters explore both theatrical performances and …

A Monumental Mistake: Newly Discovered Letters To Handel Editor Samuel Arnold, Jeremy Barlow, Todd Gilman

Todd Gilman

On Losing One's Voice: Two Performances From Romeo Castellucci, Daniel Sack

Daniel Sack

Regarding The Pain Of Others (Part 2 Of 2): Brett Bailey's Exhibit B, Daniel Sack

Daniel Sack

No abstract provided.

Regarding The Pain Of Others (Part 1 Of 2): Romeo Castellucci's Schwanengesang D744, Daniel Sack

Daniel Sack

No abstract provided.

’Tis Pity She’S A Realist: A Conversational Case Study In Realism And Early Modern Theater Today, Kim Solga, Roberta Barker, Cary Mazer

Kim Solga

No abstract provided.