... noise to a life of
inconsequence. For a writer such as Nelson, whose plays have been con-
Contemporary American playwrights
8
Richard Nelson, Roots in Water (New York, ), p. .
9
Peter ... Fo’s
play, would find a working-class audience. Indeed Max’s commitment is
paper-thin, no more than a series of postures, slogans and pieties, ridi-
Contemporary American playwrig...
... as he has remarked,
John Guare
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHTS
Beginning in the cafés, lofts and small spaces of Off-Off-Broadway,
and continuing in the Off-Broadway and regional theatres of ... Christopher Bigsby explores the works and influences of
ten contemporary American playwrights: John Guare, Tina Howe,
Tony Kushner, Emily Mann, Richard Nelson, Marsha Norman,
David Rabe...
... years later, by which time it had become a sub-
stantial one-act drama. It was a further three or four years, however,
Contemporary American playwrights
grandchildren. We learn that Ozzie’s ... a deeper anxiety just as male camaraderie
proves self-limiting and ambiguous. The scatological language, the lin-
Contemporary American playwrights
logic to the events, though a log...
... the trau-
matic effect’.
3
Distilled, however, the monologues, ‘found their own
Contemporary American playwrights
3
Kathleen Betsko and Rachel Koenig, Interviews With Contemporary Women Playwrights ... Mann herself chose to call a ‘theatre of testi-
mony’. But this literal trial is presented in the context of the wider com-
Contemporary American playwrights
decision to...
... the Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway
movement of the s Guare’s prospects, along with those of so many
other writers, would not have been bright. He regarded these as per-
Contemporary American ... what strikes one most is the calm air, the
Contemporary American playwrights
illness, to Amos Mason, now a successful politician and would-be presi-
dential candidate. And so the ta...
... invisibil-
ity, initially foregrounding the spacial or organizational role of architec-
ture in a set representing an isolated middle-class or lower-middle-class
Contemporary American playwrights
... itself. Characters obligingly spell out the philosoph-
ical implications of their remarks. The stage is studded with symbolic
Contemporary American playwrights
Mother, thereby...
... consciousness and behaviour of figures who them-
selves lack substance.
The play is divided into what Bauer describes as forty-nine ‘takes’,
with four- to five-second black-outs between each take, the structure
reflecting ... spectrum of African -American dramatists. We
import our political plays about race; we import our plays about history.
We will not do Richard Nelson or John Guare’s hi...
... Charles Ludlam and Kenneth
Contemporary American playwrights
1
Philip C. Kolin and Colby H. Kullman, Speaking on Stage: Interviews with Contemporary American
Playwrights (Tuscaloosa, AL ), ... institutional changes – the
emergence of O - and Off-Off-Broadway – facilitated the careers of
playwrights for whom experimentation was a primary objective, play-
wrights who no lo...
... the
situation of the African -American in America, who had him- or herself
always acted as a defining opposite, he significantly recalled a passage
Contemporary American playwrights
be ‘the ideological ... the age of Ronald Reagan, himself an image,
for many gay Americans, of something more than disregard and con-
Contemporary American playwrights
Asked what he wanted audien...