Longman Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Drama, The: A Global Perspective

by Greenwald, Michael; Pomo, Roberto Dario; Welsh, Anne Marie; Schultz, Roger

• ISBN13: 9780321107916
• ISBN10: 0321107918
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-01-01
• Publisher: Longman

Summary

This collection of 31 American and international plays offers a truly global perspective of the drama and theater that has been produced during the past 150 years. In addition to essential plays from the West's modern canon, this anthology offers a richly varied selection of plays from regions underrepresented in other texts, such as Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The book's pedagogical features all work together to provide students with the historical and cultural background they need to read plays into context. Accessible, interesting, and inclusive, the broad range of plays in this anthology will inspire, intrigue, and provoke readers to understand more deeply the literary and production history of modern and contemporary drama. One reviewer says, The coverage is great: in terms of geography, gender, race, aesthetics, and cultural issues, the editors have selected plays that are recognized for their importance within an ongoing narrative history of world drama. I've seen no other anthology like this on the market. Matthew Roudan, Georgia State University

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Prologue: The Precursors of Modern Drama	1	(3)
Premodern Theater and Drama	4	(1)
Romanticism	4	(3)
The Melodrama	7	(2)
Showcase: ``Hernani: The Romantic Melodrama That Change Western Theater''
The Well-Made Play	9	(2)
Showcase: ``Eugene Scribe's Well-Made Play: The Glass of Water''
The Problem Play	11	(3)
Showcase: ``The Original Problem Play: La Dame Aux Camelias [Camille]''
The ``Other'' First Modern Play?	14	(17)
Woyzeck
Georg Buchner
PART I: Early Modern Drama: 1870--1918	31	(162)
Realism	34	(1)
Influences on Realism	34	(3)
Showcase: ``Influences on Realism: The Rise of the Director and Germany's Meiningen Players''
Naturalism	37	(2)
The First Generation of Realists: Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, and Stanislavksy	39	(2)
Showcase: ``The Provincetown Playhouse and Susan Glaspell: the Birthplace (and the Mother) of the modern American Theater''
Alternatives to Realism and Naturalism	41	(152)
Relativism	41	(1)
Expressionism	42	(40)
A Doll's House	44	(38)
Henrik Ibsen
Showcase: ``The Tarantella and other healing Dances''
The Cherry Orchard	82	(30)
Anton Chekhov
Showcase: ``The Stanislavsky System and the Moscow art Theater''
Riders to the Sea	112	(12)
John Millington Synge
Showcase: ``The Irish Renaissance''
The Ghost Sonata	124	(20)
August Strindberg
Showcase: ``Independent and Intimate Theaters''
Heartbreak House	144	(49)
Bernard Shaw
Showcase: ``Notes fro a Production of Heartbreak House'' (Harold Clurman)
PART II: Late Modern Drama: 1920--63	193	(290)
The Aftermath of World War I	196	(2)
Showcase: ``The Prototype of the Relativist Drama: Pirandello's six Characters in Search of an Author''
Other ``Isms''	198	(2)
Surrealism	198	(1)
Futurism	199	(1)
Constructivism	199	(1)
Popular Culture	200	(1)
The Epic Theatre	201	(3)
Showcase: ``The epic theatre: the Berliner Ensemble of Bertolt Brecht: 1949-99''
The Second Generation of Realists	204	(6)
African-American Theater	205	(1)
Showcase: ``A Raisin in the sun: Portrait of America in Transition''
England and Europe	205	(3)
Asia, Africa, and Latin America	208	(2)
Showcase: ``Pioneers in Puerto Rican theater: the Rollin' theater of Puerto Rico and Rene Marques's the oxcart''
The Theater of the Absurd	210	(273)
Showcase: ``Forerunners of the Absurd: Alred Jarry's ubu Roi and Jean-Paul Sartre's no exit''
Machinal	214	(36)
Sophie Treadwell
Showcase: ``Theater in the Industrial Age''
Blood Wedding	250	(30)
Federico Garcia Lorca
Showcase: ``Designing the scenery for blood Wedding'' (Haibo Yu)
The Good Woman of Setzuan	280	(41)
Bertolt Brecht
Showcase: ``The Conventions of Chinese Theater''
A Moon for the Misbegotten	321	(48)
Eugene O'Neill
Showcase: ``A great American Play: Arthur Miller and Death of a Salesman''
Showcase: ``Designing a Play: Death of a salesman'' (Jo Mielziner)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof	369	(47)
Tennessee Williams
Showcase: ``American Acting Matures: the Group theatre and the actors Studio''
The Birthday Party	416	(36)
Harold Pinter
Showcase: ``Britain's Theater Revolution of 1956''
Krapp's Last Tape	452	(11)
Samuel Beckett
Showcase: ``A Modern Masterpiece: Waiting For Godot''
The American Dream	463	(20)
Edward Albee
PART III: Contemporary and Postmodern Drama: 1964-The Present	483	(504)
A New Theater for a New World	486	(1)
Influences on Contemporary Thought	486	(2)
Postmodernism and the Theater	488	(2)
Artaud and the Theatre of Cruelty	490	(3)
Showcase: ``The Theatre of Cruelty at Work: Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade''
Theater Collectives and Alternative Theater	493	(3)
Showcase: ``The Living Theatre and Other Theater Collectives''
Contemporary Playwriting	496	(4)
Showcase: ``Dario Fo: Nobel Laureate, Anarchist, and Clown''
Acting in Contemporary Plays	500	(1)
Contemporary Dramatic Criticism: Deconstruction, Theory, New Approaches	500	(487)
Showcase: ``Performance Art''
Showcase: ``Docudrama''
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead	506	(45)
Tom Stoppard
Supplement: ``A Hamlet Primer''
Showcase: ``Reconstituting The Classics''
Paper Flowers	551	(32)
Egon Wolff
Showcase: ``Theater in a Dangerous Time: Latin American Theater Under The Gun''
Death and the King's Horseman	583	(42)
Wole Soyinka
Showcase: ``The Yoruba Obatala Festival in Ede, Nigeria, West Africa''
Hamletmachine	625	(27)
Heiner Muller
Showcase: ``From The Theater Out: Feminist Performances'' (Lynda Hart And Peggy Phelan)
Zoot Suit	652	(38)
Luis Valdez
Showcase: ``Pre-Columbian Theater in Mesoamerica''
Pantomime	690	(27)
Derek Walcott
Showcase: ``The Trinidad Carnival''
True West	717	(32)
Sam Shepard
Showcase: ``Myth and the Theater''
``MASTER HAROLD'' . . . and the boys	749	(27)
Athol Fugard
Showcase: ``South African Township Theater''
The Dance and the Railroad	776	(16)
David Henry Hwang
Top Girls	792	(34)
Caryl Churchill
The Bus Stop	826	(25)
Gao Xingjian
Showcase: ``China's National Drama: The White Haired Girl''
Fences	851	(38)
August Wilson
Showcase: ``From `Building Fences: an Interview with Mary Alice and James earl Jones''' (Heather Henderson)
Personal Effects	889	(9)
Griselda Gambaro
Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches	898	(42)
Tony Kushner
Showcase: ``Tony Kushner on Bertolt Brecht Brecht and Alternatives to Capitalism''
The Woman Who Was a Red Deer Dressed for the Deer Dance	940	(12)
Diane Glancy
Showcase: ``Native American Theater''
Topdog/Underdog	952	(35)
Suzan-Lori Parks
Appendix: Glossary of Terms	987	(8)
Credits	995	(2)
Index	997