American Theatre Research Articles

Las musas griegas en América Latina: de tuteladoras de la élite a inspiradoras de la cultura popular

This text shows the survival of classical mythology in Latin America through the specific case of the Greek Muses, who inhabited Latin American theater halls during the 19th and 20th centuries. After a diachronic tour of the halls where the presence of the Muses can be observed in the facades and interiors, we will try to get closer to the political meaning of the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne in these spaces of sociability. Once the corpus of coliseums with Muses has been located and systematized, we will propose that Euterpe, Melpomene, Thalia, Terpsichore and their sisters, beyond their ornamental or decorative dimension, could have been the expression of the Latin American bourgeois spirit during the Belle Époque (1870-1920). Later, from the second half of the 20th century, the Muses began to appear in popular and mass culture, democratizing their iconography and meaning without losing their inspirational character.

Two exponents of observational comedy and the stage Irishman in nineteenth-century Irish theatre: Denis Leonard and Patrick Frederick Gallaher

ABSTRACT This article provides a much-needed exploration of Irish comedy and its practitioners during the nineteenth century, particularly addressing the lack of scholarly attention that has been given to this period in Irish theatre. While theatre historians have extensively chronicled the development of comedy, pantomime, and burlesque in Victorian Britain, similar studies are scarce for Irish theatre of the same era. The focus of this article is on two prominent figures in the realm of observational comedy in nineteenth-century Irish theatre: Patrick Frederick Gallaher and Denis (Dan) Leonard. Both actors, whose careers spanned from the early 1800s to the late 1870s, played pivotal roles in shaping Irish theatrical comedy during some of Ireland’s most politically and socially turbulent years. Importantly, their work also marked a significant shift in the depiction of the stage Irishman, a character that has been more commonly analysed in the context of American theatre. By examining the careers of Gallaher and Leonard, this article aims to shed light on how these performers helped to transform the stereotypical stage Irishman into a more nuanced and observationally comedic figure. This evolution, often overlooked by scholars, reveals the complexities of Irish identity and humour during this era.

Black Face White stage: a subaltern discourse on race in the American theater

Black Face White stage: a subaltern discourse on race in the American theater

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This contribution is a record—apparently—of a presentation about the function and effects of dramatic performance within communities. It lurched from the Covid pandemic and the British government’s ‘levelling-up’ project back, over a century earlier, to the beginnings of the municipal and amateur theatre movements. These latter produced some of the earliest formulations of the idea that participation in performance-making enables self-expression and a sense of fellowship, thus building community. But, as Granville Barker, one of its greatest proponents, warned, this same activity, where it’s not rooted in the ‘hearts’ of people is merely a professional product, not ‘vital’. Which produces a dilemma for an author asked to take a live event, shared among participants, and substitute for it a journal article, civic, perhaps, but not necessarily vital. (This article is published in the thematic collection `The arts and humanities: rethinking value for today—views from Fellows of the British Academy’, edited by Isobel Armstrong.)

Katie N. Johnson. Racing the Great White Way: Black Performance, Eugene O’Neill, and the Transformation of Broadway

This book offers a meticulously researched exploration of the performance histories of Eugene O’Neill’s two major “race” plays, demonstrating how these performances negotiated and challenged racism in the theatre and society at large. Its target audiences include scholars of American theatre, Black studies, and global theatre, as well as theatre artists.

Three Midwestern Playwrights: How Floyd Dell, George Cram Cook, and Susan Glaspell Transformed American Theatre by Marcia Noe (review)

Three Midwestern Playwrights: How Floyd Dell, George Cram Cook, and Susan Glaspell Transformed American Theatre by Marcia Noe (review)

Eugene O’Neill and the Unity of Addiction

ABSTRACT Eugene O’Neill has cast a long shadow over the discourse on drug addiction in American theater. Yet, his conception of addiction is unique in theater history. This article explores the ways he infuses his dramaturgy with the cycles and themes related to addiction. It also places O’Neill in a literary context by tracing some potential influences on his conception of addiction. With a primary focus on Long Day’s Journey Into Night and a secondary focus on A Moon for the Misbegotten and The Iceman Cometh, this article examines how the cyclical nature of habituation serves as a scaffolding for characterizations, dialogue, and dramatic structure. It reveals O’Neill’s activation of addiction as part of a grand ontological metaphor and a manifestation of an existential philosophy. This article parses these uses and how they relate to other authors, including Thomas De Quincey, Charles Baudelaire, the British Decadents, and philosophers Schopenhauer and Nietzsche.

The Outsider-Within Representations in Zora Neale Hurston’s and Georgia Douglas Johnson’s Folk Drama

The study aims to explore the shared experiences of Georgia Douglas Johnson and Zora Neale Hurston, incorporating the elements of African-American folklore in American theatre to negotiate the circumstances of black women. In addition, it scrutinizes how Johnson and Hurston utilize folk drama to navigate the political and artistic conflicts in the early 20th century, delving into the intricate interplay of ethnicity, gender, politics, and aesthetics. The study examines two folk plays from the Harlem Renaissance era: Johnson’s Plumes (1927) and Hurston’s Color Struck (1926). Both plays illustrate that the African-American drama probes into the struggles of black women as outsiders-within, challenging the prevailing racism and classism faced by black women in the Southern states. By analyzing the construction of identity in the experiences of black women through Patricia Hill Collins’s Black feminist theory, the study shows how Hurston and Johnson successfully depicted the position of women as ‘outsiders’ in their literary works, with their folk drama centering on women’s experiences and culture, employing black folklore to highlight the social protest of Black feminist theatre.

Not Billington, not Zoella, and Definitely not a ‘Fangirl’: Social Distinction within Communities of Amateur Theatre Critics

Not Billington, not Zoella, and <i>Definitely</i> not a ‘Fangirl’: Social Distinction within Communities of Amateur Theatre Critics

Michael D'Alessandro, Staged Readings: Contesting Culture in Popular American Theater and Literature, 1835–75

Michael D'Alessandro, <i>Staged Readings: Contesting Culture in Popular American Theater and Literature, 1835–75</i>

At the gate to Australia’s heavenly peace: Asian racialization and Australia’s Tiananmen Chinese

ABSTRACT This paper considers the racialization of Asians in Australia through the dialectic of the “yellow peril” and “model minority”. It uses the specific historical case study of People’s Republic of China nationals in Australia at the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre (1989) who were ultimately given permanent residence. Through analysis of archival sources and Australia’s print media in this period (1989–1993), the article identifies how the Tiananmen Chinese were at once characterized as educated, hard-working and worthy additions to the Australian nation (model minority), while also appearing as a threat to the order and integrity of the immigration system (yellow peril). The article draws on Asian American theorist Colleen Lye’s argument about the economistic character of Asian racial form. By using her framework, I suggest the value of deepening engagements with Asian American studies in examining the racialization of Asians in Australia.

Features of creative self-development of adolescents with intellectual disabilities by means of theatrical art

Importance. The problem of creative self-development of adolescents with disabilities is very relevant, since the social adaptation of such adolescents implies the complexity of interaction with others, is characterized by an unformed skills of self-knowledge, self-organization, self-regulation, and other mechanisms of self-development. In particular, the creative self-development of adolescents with intellectual disabilities is associated with the development of thinking, motor skills, and communicative functions. This is possible through amateur theater as a form of social and pedagogical work with young people with disabilities. The purpose of the study is to determine the role and pedagogical possibilities of amateur theatrical art as a means of creative self–development of adolescents with disabilities, taking into account the specifics of adolescents with intellectual disability (mental retardation).Research Methods. In the course of the research, such theoretical methods as generalization, comparison, etc. were used, domestic psychological and pedagogical works in the field of theater pedagogy were studied, empirical methods were used – understanding the experience of working with participants of the psychotherapeutic theater “We”.Results and Discussion. It is revealed and substantiated that amateur theater is a means of creative development and self-development of a personality, that is, an environment where activities aimed at the personal development of adolescents with disabilities can be fully realized on the basis of the existing personal potential in accordance with the norms of morality and cultural context accepted in society. The pedagogical possibilities of theatrical art, realized in specific forms of work (trainings, sketches, effective analysis of a play, staged work, etc.) and used at various stages of organizational and creative activity of an amateur theater group, contribute to the development of appropriate skills of self-knowledge and self-organization, thinking, and communicative abilities of adolescents with intellectual disabilities (mental retardation).Conclusions. The application of the research results contributes to the development of new methods and means of pedagogical work with young people with disabilities, the formation of an effective creative environment for their creative self-development and social adaptation.

Amatérské divadelnictví slezských spiritistů

The study focuses on the phenomenon of amateur theatre of the lower social classes, using the example of the Spiritist Association Bratrství (Brotherhood) in Radvanice in Silesia, today Ostrava-Radvanice (1914–1951). In the years 1918–1939, the association developed a very rich educational, lecture and social activity, headed by exhibitions of media drawings, which was joined in 1926–1939 by an amateur theatre. The dramaturgy of the Brotherhood’s drama department oscillated between original plays with spiritual and occult themes and hilarious plays or musical theatre with the potential to appeal to a wider audience. The company generated two prolific authors who had a major influence on the dramaturgy and artistic quality of the ensemble – Čeňka Štěrbová and Jan Rösner (Kunčický).

Dělnické divadlo na Ostravsku

The article focuses on amateur workers‘ activities in the Ostrava region between 1870 and 1938. The research conducted primarily focused on the area of theatre practices, in this case understood as a set of amateur theatre activities specific to a particular social group in a particular place and time. Such an approach made it possible to examine the issue in broader social and cultural interactions and not to focus the interpretation solely on politically agitational forms of workers‘ theatre. The author of the text also considers the position of workers‘ theatre within a culture that some scholars divide into elite and popular.

Marcia Noe, Three Midwestern Playwrights: How Floyd Dell, George Cram Cook, and Susan Glaspell Transformed American Theatre

Marcia Noe, <i>Three Midwestern Playwrights: How Floyd Dell, George Cram Cook, and Susan Glaspell Transformed American Theatre</i>

Incubating Incubators

Allen Kuharski provides a critical summary and expanded framing of the first neh Institute on transmitting and archiving devised physical ensemble theater in American higher education. Kuharski delineates the goals, structure, and planning of the twelve-day gathering of fifty academics, teaching artists, editors, and archivists hosted by him and Quinn Bauriedel of Philadelphia’s Pig Iron Theater Company. The institute’s goal was to provide a platform for longer-term discussions of the historical, theoretical, and critical teaching of devised physical ensemble theater given the proliferation of the teaching of devising practices around the country. Kuharski also places the concerns of the institute within the larger forces challenging contemporary theater, discussing how on the one hand they seem to threaten the historic legacies of such alternative theater practices while on the other these practices may also provide our best future solutions for a vibrant and reformed American live performance practice. The article concludes with an argument for the central role of higher education in the future incubation of an innovative noncommercial American theater.

美国实验戏剧的反叛起源与精神符号

In the 1950s and 1960s, American theater gradually diversified. Following the impact of the Absurdist theater on American realism and expressionism, American theater also moved from modern theater to exploration of postmodern theater. The experimental theater on Broadway and Broadway posed a challenge to traditional American theater. Experimental drama begins to weaken the story and script in terms of content, and instead invests a large amount of artistic creativity in formal expression. By weakening the script, it emphasizes the relationship between observation and performance, sensory perception, and spiritual state in the field, which distinguishes it from the traditional theatrical stage. This article will start from the cultural trends in the United States and explore the spiritual origins of American experimental drama’s rebellion against tradition; Taking representative figures and their works in American experimental drama as examples, analyze the specific characteristics and trends in content and form of American experimental drama, and understand the postmodern spiritual symbols conveyed in American experimental drama; Deeply understand the essence of the spirit of American experimental drama and the philosophical discussions conveyed by the concept of experimental drama.

Inessential Anti-Blackness: Re-Imagining a Post-Lockdown Tempest

ABSTRACT As professional and academic theatres re-opened their doors to the public for the 2021/2022 season, the first following the Covid-19 lockdowns, they decided upon plays to welcome back artists and audiences. Curiously, more than 35 American theatres chose Shakespeare’s The Tempest as their inaugural post-lockdown production. This paper examines the reasons for the continued presence of The Tempest on American stages, reading the anti-Black rhetoric inherent in the text – particularly around Caliban – against the increased national attention to racial equity and justice that resulted from the 2020 murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. I interrogate how the play came to be seen as an ‘essential’ Shakespearean text in a post-lockdown America, ultimately concluding that what is essential about The Tempest is not found within Shakespeare’s text, but in the social demand that producing the play places on theatres who wish to reframe the play as anti-racist. In other words, the conditions of the post-lockdown Tempest enable us to see the changing face of American theatre-making.

Formation of the Slavic Collection and its Evolution: a Case Study of the Polish Holdings at the University of Manitoba

The Slavic Collection at the University of Manitoba comprises over 70,000 volumes of books, periodicals, newspapers, and microfilms. It was created in 1949 following the founding of the Department of Slavic Studies that same year. This article focuses on Polonica – the Polish-language materials – available in the collection, its provenance, and potential associated research themes. Four examples of works/bodies of works from the collection are examined as a case study, including two rare books, the Polish Amateur Theatre Pamphlet Collection, published between 1902 and 1947 in Poland and the United States, and the Polish-language newspaper “Czas”, which is the oldest surviving Polish-language newspaper in Canada. These unique resources reflect wider trends in the evolution of the Polish community in Manitoba, while serving as an illustration of collaboration between the Polish community and the UM academic institution.

Recovering Virginie Gireaudeau: Race, Language, and Representation on the American Stage

Abstract: This article recovers the life and career of Virginie Gireaudeau, one of the first African American actresses to appear in a major North American theater. Performing in New Orleans in 1826, she played the female lead in two tragedies, supported by a group of white professional actors and actresses from France. But despite Gireaudeau’s obvious significance for American theater historiography, her story has not yet found its way into theater criticism or history. The article suggests that Gireaudeau’s marginalization is symptomatic of an American “national” theater historiography that is largely focused on the anglophone stage. Drawing on a multilingual approach and the careful analysis of a range of newspaper accounts and notarial records, the article argues for the inclusion of non-English-language voices and materials. It demonstrates how broadening our perspective in this way can provide new insights into the life and work of underrepresented performers while enhancing our understanding of the complexity of early American theater as a whole.