POSTMODERN AMERICAN DRAMA: AN INTRODUCTION
Dr. Ana Fernández-Caparrós Turina
Universidad de Extremadura, Spain
[email protected]
Università degli Studi di Bergamo 4th-8th May 2012
(LLP Erasmus Program 2011-2012- Visiting Scholar al corso
Letteratura angloamericana)
SYLLABUS
1. INTRODUCTION: How can we define postmodern drama?
The features of the theatrical perfomance
The problematics inherent in the label ‘postmodernism’: a few
definitions
Key concepts: Fragmented narrative (as opposed to seamless narrative
plot), deconstruction of character, acknowledgement of popular and
mass culture, self-consciousness of performance.
2. A BIT OF HISTORY: The Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway
Movements
3. THE PLAYWRIGHTS: The main focus will be on Sam Shepard; other
playwrights such as David Mamet, Tony Kushner, Suzan-Lori Parks
and others, will be at least briefly discussed.
READINGS
Excerpts/Scenes from:
Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1949)
Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story (1960)
Sam Shepard’s The Mad Dog Blues (1971), The Tooth of Crime (1972), True West
(1980)
David Mamet’s American Buffalo (1970), Glengarry Glenn Ross (1984)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Suggested Secondary Sources
BIGSBY, Christopher. A Critical Introduction to Twentieth Century American Drama, Volume
Two: Williams/Miller/Albee. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
-------. A Critical Introduction to Twentieth Century American Drama, Volume Three: Beyond
Broadway. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
-------. David Mamet. London and New York: Methuen, 1985.
-------. Contemporary American Playwrights. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
-------. Modern American Drama 1945-1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
BIRRINGER, Johannes. “Postmodernism and Theatrical Performance” International
Postmodernism: Theory and literary practice. Ed. Hans Bertens and Douwe Fokkema.
Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1997, 129-140.
BOTTOMS, Stephen J. The Theatre of Sam Shepard: States of Crisis, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1998.
-------. Playing Underground: A Critical History of the 1960’s Off-Off-Broadway Movement. Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004.
BRANDT, George W. (Ed.) Modern Theories of Drama: A selection of Writings on Drama and
Theatre 1850-1990. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.
CHAIKIN, Joseph. The Presence of the Actor. New York: Theatre Communication Group,
1991.
DIAMOND, Elin. Unmaking Mimesis: Essays on Feminism and Theater. London, New
York: Routldge, 1997.
GEIS, Deborah. Postmodern Theatric(k)s: Monologue in Contemporary American Drama, Ann
Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1993.
GILMAN, Richard. “Introduction”. Sam Shepard: Plays 2. By Sam Shepard. London,
Boston: Faber and Faber, 1997, xi-xxvii.
HERMAN, William. Understanding Contemporary American Drama. Columbia: University of
South Carolina Press, 1987.
HUTCHEON, Linda. A poetics of postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. New York and
London: Routledge, 1990.
KRASNER, David. (Ed.) A Companion to Twentieth-Century American Drama. Malden, MA:
Blackwell, 2005.
MURPHY, Brenda. “Theatre”. The Cambridge Companion to Modern American Culture. Ed.
Christopher Bigsby. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006,
411-429.
ROBINSON, Marc. The Other American Drama. New York: Cambridge University Press,
1994.
ROUDANÉ, Matthew. Public Issues, Private Tensions: Contemporary American Drama. New
York: AMS Press, 1993.
-------. American Drama since 1960: A Critical History. New York: Twayne, 1996.
-------. The Cambridge Companion to Sam Shepard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2002.
SADDIK, Annette. Contemporary American Drama. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,
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VANDEN HEUVEL, Michael. Performing drama/dramatizing performance: alternative theater and
the dramatic text. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991.
WILCOX, Leonard. “Modernism vs. Postmodernism: Shepard’s The Tooth of Crime and the
Discourses of Popular Culture”. Modern Drama 30, 4 (1987): 560-73.
WILLIAMS, Raymond. Drama from Ibsen to Brecht. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981.
WORTHEN, William B. Modern Drama and the Rhetoric of Theatre. Berkeley, Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1992.