Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory Commons^™

The Wild Dark Or, La Oscuridad Salvaje: Illuminating Identity Through Failure, Worley B. Gierhart

Undergraduate Theses

This thesis, "The Wild Dark or, La oscuridad salvaje: Illuminating Identity Through Failure," explores how the narrative power of darkness can serve as a catalyst for profound self-discovery, particularly in the aftermath of significant failure. Drawing upon literary analysis and the author's personal experience of shifting academic paths, the study examines how confronting metaphorical darkness allows for a critical rebuilding of identity and self-concept. The play referenced in the title, "The Wild Dark or, La oscuridad salvaje," serves as a central point of analysis, investigating the interplay of theme, setting, and scenario in depicting this transformative process. By engaging with …

“Be Yo’Self. It’S Just A Show”: Performing Community Through The Comic Grotesque In Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’S Neighbors, Annette Saddik

Publications and Research

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s play Neighbors, which premiered at the Public Theater in 2010, explores the history of Black representation in the theater and, subsequently, the performance of Black identity in the US through its depiction of a complex and contradictory minstrelsy that cannot easily be classified as satirical or subversive. Generating what Jacobs-Jenkins has called “wrong laughter” through contradiction, ambiguity, and ambivalence, Neighbors engages the unstable space of the comic grotesque in order to open up pathways for something new to emerge. In this play, the figure of the clown – a grotesque outlaw who moves between, within, across, and beyond …

Bedeviled Beauty: My Journey Through White American Theater Institutions, J'Aila C. Price

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Game console: Oculus Quest

World: American Theater Institutions

Player: Minority

Place: United States

Level: “Ain’t no way.”

This thesis explores the contrast between the Westernized philosophies ingrained in my education and my identity as a Black female artist. It sheds light on the difficulties of pursuing higher education in the arts and the gaps that arise from limited exposure to culturally diverse Black resources, revealing the systemic issues in Western performance education. The paper also discusses the insights gained from my journey as a Black female artist, focusing on my thesis performance of Blood at the Root, which is …

Three Forms Of Death In David Rabe’S The Basic Training Of Pavlo Hummel And Sticks And Bones, Sloan Garner

Honors Theses

In this thesis, I argue there are three main forms of death that progress chronologically in David Rabe’s The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel and Sticks and Bones. First, the death of civilian identity as the soldier conforms to the military. Secondly, the soldier’s killing—metaphoric or literal—of others, which is part of his attempt to fit with his new military identity. Third, the soldier’s sacrificial suicide as his escape from the military identity. In this paper, I provide evidence and close reading to support my argument that the protagonists in both plays, Pavlo and David, encounter, enact, or experience …

In Search Of National Identity: Portraits Of Motherless Women In Clarín And Galdós, Leslie I. Quezada

LSU Master's Theses

Drawing on novels by Leopoldo Alas Clarín and Benito Pérez Galdós, I will examine the portraits of women in La Regenta (1885), Tristana (1892), andLa de San Quintín (1894). By exploring how women in the works are reflected in terms of identity and nature of their role from a male-authored perspective, I will study how different aspects influence the development of their character, as well as the issues they face when searching for their identity. Galdós and Clarín unravel the women to embody the nation of Spain and the conditions it was going through before the …

Théâtre Burkinabè Contemporain Et Dramaturgie De L’Entre-Deux : Aristide Tarnagda Et Sophie Kam, Christophe Konkobo

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

What do contours of contemporary Burkinabe drama look like? By attempting to answer such a question, we analyzed a number of plays written by both Aristide Tarnagda and Sophie Heidi Kam, two young playwrights from Burkina Faso. The works examined in this article show first and foremost aesthetic approaches and thematic concerns not often seen in previous dramatic writings. The contemporary plays are always set in symbolically defined “empty spaces” where characters seek to define their identity against internal and external pressures.

Introduction To New Work On Immigration And Identity In Contemporary France, Québec, And Ireland, Dervila Cooke

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided for the introduction.

Thematic Bibliography To New Work On Immigration And Identity In Contemporary France, Québec, And Ireland, Dervila Cooke

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Dancing On Checkers' Grave By Eric Lane, Allison Kump

Honors Projects

My proposed honors project consists of directing my own, fully-actualized production of Eric Lane’s play Dancing on Checkers’ Grave within the BGSU’s Department of Theatre & Film Elsewhere season. As the director, I must hone in on the play’s relevance to today’s society and shape my storytelling tools to clearly communicate the narrative, establishing a relationship between the performers and the audience.

Dancing on Checkers’ Grave is a play about two very different teenage girls who come to bond over homework, “munchkining,” relationships, and nail polish. Rooted within the text are topics of sexual identity, what it means to be …

Ships That Do Not Sail: Antinauticalism, Antitheatricalism, And Irrationality In Stephen Gosson, Kent Lehnhof

English Faculty Articles and Research

Stephen Gosson's similes, particularly in 1579's The Schoole of Abuse, commend affective restraint, value stasis over motion, and idealize immobility. Combined with his Platonic mistrust of emotion and his dislike of stage plays for the emotional response they provoke, his criticisms can be seen to express a desire to slow cultural change and social mobility. The effect of this in The Schoole of Abuse is that it deprives objects and agents of their essential identify by removing the action that best defines them, implying that to become our best selves, we must give up the very qualities that define us.