Gertrude Stein’s New Drama: Play as The Essence of What Happened

Abstract

American playwright, novelist, story and biography writer Gertrude Stein, with her avant-garde perception destructing the theatre conventions, became one of the inspiring playwrights for the experimental theater in the twentieth century. Stein's plays were interpreted by directors and performance artists from various disciplines such as painting, music, plastic arts and literature. When we look at her theoretical texts alongside her literary works, the concept of "continuous present" emerges as a strategy developed by Stein against the "tension" she feels due to the “syncopation” between the time of the audience and the time of the play in the conventional theater. The "nervousness" she felt towards the conventional theater also led Gertrude Stein to introduce a new definition of play. Gertrude Stein, whose literary activities can be examined under three periods, describes her plays written in the first period as "the essence of what happened". Contrary to the texts in the conventional theater, Stein gave works that could solve the time conflict in the theater through the "subversive" language she used in these early plays. She wrote without focusing on a story. Within the scope of this article, the use of “continuous present” is to be examined through Stein's play What Happened (1913) and the literary strategy developed by her is to be interpreted as a dramaturgical method that will help us understand the avant-garde plays.