Middeke Martin - The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary American Playwrights

THE METHUEN DRAMA GUIDE TO CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHTS

Martin Middeke is Professor and Chair of English Literature at the University of Augsburg and Visiting Professor of English at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Peter Paul Schnierer is Professor and Chair of English Literature at the University of Heidelberg, Germany.

Christopher Innes is Professor of English at York University, Canada, and holds the Canada Research Chair in Performance and Culture.

Matthew C. Roudan is Professor and Chair of English at Georgia State University, USA.

in the same series from Bloomsbury Methuen Drama :

The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary Irish Playwrights

Edited by Martin Middeke and Peter Paul Schnierer

The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary British Playwrights

Edited by Martin Middeke, Peter Paul Schnierer and Aleks Sierz

THE METHUEN DRAMA GUIDE TO CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHTS

Edited and with an introduction by Martin Middeke, Peter Paul Schnierer, Christopher Innes and Matthew C. Roudan

Bloomsbury Methuen Drama

An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

www.bloomsbury.com

Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published 2014

Martin Middeke, Peter Paul Schnierer, Christopher Innes and Matthew C. Roudan, 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

Christopher Innes, Matthew C. Roudan, Martin Middeke and Peter Paul Schnierer have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as authors of this work.

No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ePub ISBN: 978-1-4081-3481-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The Methuen drama guide to contemporary American playwrights/edited and with an introduction by Martin Middeke, Peter Paul Schnierer, Christopher Innes and Matthew C. Roudan?.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4081-3479-5 ISBN 978-1-4725-2007-4 ISBN 978-1-4081-3481-8 ISBN 978-1-4081-3480-1 1. American drama20th centuryHistory and criticism. 2. American drama21st centuryHistory and criticism. I. Middeke, Martin, 1963 editor of compilation.

PS350.M38 2013

812.509dc23

2013033622

Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

CONTENTS

Thomas P. Adler

Scott T. Cummings

Jochen Achilles, Ina Bergmann

Ken Urban

Russell Vandenbroucke

Klaus Benesch

James Fisher

Christopher Innes

Toby Zinman

Kerstin Schmidt

Peter Paul Schnierer

Susan C. W. Abbotson

Annalisa Brugnoli

Ilka Saal

Deborah Geis

Annette J. Saddik

Martin Middeke

Katherine Weiss

Stephen Bottoms

Jorge Huerta

Joanna Mansbridge

Pia Wiegmink

Frazer Lively

Sandra G. Shannon

Birgit Dwes

Christopher Innes, Martin Middeke, Matthew C. Roudan, Peter Paul Schnierer

This collection surveys 25 representative playwrights of contemporary American drama, with an emphasis on those whose work first appeared in the 1970s or later. The chapters are written by a team of internationally renowned specialists from the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Italy and Germany. Each chapter has a four-part structure: an introduction which includes a short biographical sketch of each playwright; a concise analysis of the major work of the respective author in chronological order; a summary of the playwrights particular contribution to contemporary American theatre, including an assessment of their characteristic themes, stylistic features and the critical reception of their work; and, finally, a bibliography of primary texts and a selection of critical material. The 25 chapters in this volume discuss a total of more than 140 plays in detail (while many more are mentioned on the way) an abundant body of work, which enables conclusions to be drawn about the development as well as the state of affairs in contemporary American playwriting and provides helpful suggestions for further research. With Arthur Miller and Edward Albee American drama features two acclaimed figureheads with worldwide impact, who have been productive over the entire second half of the twentieth century. In the immediate context of this volume, however, emphasis has been placed on Millers and Albees post-1970 work. More than a third of the plays discussed in detail in this volume were premiered in the first decade of the twenty-first century.

* * *

American dramatists since 1970 have progressed towards the centre of the national artistic consciousness. The best, including those featured in this volume, have done so by making significant and original contributions to the rhetoric of nationhood, to the language of the stage, and to the symbology of the self. The plays discussed here, indeed, capture selected public issues of the nation as those issues are reflected within the private anxieties of the individual. Perhaps one of the most distinguishing shifts in recent American drama concerns its relationship to Broadway. When Eugene ONeill, Susan Glaspell and Thornton Wilder first conferred upon the American stage its modernity, Broadway in New York City was the site of dramatic originality and vitality. Broadway was the launching site for playwrights who defined the scope and range of serious American theatre. When ONeills The Hairy Ape opened the same year as the appearance of James Joyces Ulysses and T. S. Eliots The Waste Land 1922 the Mayor of New York City, troubled by the plays themes, tried, unsuccessfully, to close the production. The public flocked to see the show that is considered one of the first successful Expressionistic plays staged by an American. When at mid-century Lillian Hellman, William Inge, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller and Lorraine Hansberry extended as they refreshed notions of American theatrical modernity, Broadway was still a vibrant source of dramatic energy. Four plays in a 4-year span confirm the point: The Glass Menagerie (1945), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), All My Sons (1947) and Death of a Salesman (1949) together ran for 2,466 shows.

As the twenty-first century unspools before us, however, Broadway has changed. The earlier Broadway was an initiating theatre. This is where key plays played. Today, many of the best American playwrights open their shows both geographically and symbolically well beyond Broadway. The decentralization is unmistakable. Edward Albee opened Counting the Ways (1976) in London and Marriage Play (1987) and Three Tall Women (1992) in Vienna. David Mamet staged Glengarry Glen Ross (1983) and The Cryptogram (1994) in London. Sam Shepard staged his recent plays Kicking a Dead Horse (2007) and Ages of the Moon (2009) in Dublin. Tony Kushners Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches was first staged in Los Angeles in 1990, in San Francisco in 1991, in London and then back to Los Angeles in 1992, and, finally in New York City in 1993. Iris Bahrs one-woman show, played by Bahr herself, DAI enough (2008) premiered in Edinburgh. And on and on. Further, many playwrights began directing their own works, exercising authorial control rarely seen during the mid-twentieth-century glory days of such directors as Elia Kazan and Jos Quintero.