Canonical figures, such as Strindberg, Yeats, Beckett, Ionesco, Cocteau and Stoppard are studied, along with neglected figures, such as Wassily Kandinsky, better known as an expressionist painter, and Halper Leivick, author of the Yiddish play "The Golem", and innovative new performance troupes and individual artists, such as Squat Theatre and Spalding Gray. Concluding essays are devoted to contemporary experimental theatre and postmodern drama. A study of science fiction on stage includes an annotated listing of 40 English-language plays. Concerned with the interstice of theatre and the fantastic, this work should be valuable to students and scholars of both, of genre studies, and of contemporary literature in general.
The Fantastic Mode in Modern Drama
Hardback
Publication Date: 30/11/1992
"Staging the Impossible" explores recent critical thinking on the relationship between the literary mode of the fantastic and the literary genre of drama with respect to modern theatre. While a few monographs treat a particular dimension of the fantastic in drama, the Gothic or the fairy tale for instance, this volume aims to provide a critically sophisticated introduction to the diversity of fantastic drama written and performed in this century. The essays here lay to rest the illusion that realism is the only genuine form of theatrical expression and the notion that cinema special effects have rendered science fiction and the stage incompatible. Competing with the realism of the first half of the 20th century and the "new realism" of the second half have been a range of successful theatrical repertoires, including the absurd, the horrific, the supernatural, the mythic, the dream-vision quest, the postmodern, the hyper-realistic and the science fictional. Wide ranging in time and space, this volume comprises 14 essays on the fantastic on the modern stage, assessing dramatic works from the United States, Ireland, England, Western Europe and the Caribbean.
Canonical figures, such as Strindberg, Yeats, Beckett, Ionesco, Cocteau and Stoppard are studied, along with neglected figures, such as Wassily Kandinsky, better known as an expressionist painter, and Halper Leivick, author of the Yiddish play "The Golem", and innovative new performance troupes and individual artists, such as Squat Theatre and Spalding Gray. Concluding essays are devoted to contemporary experimental theatre and postmodern drama. A study of science fiction on stage includes an annotated listing of 40 English-language plays. Concerned with the interstice of theatre and the fantastic, this work should be valuable to students and scholars of both, of genre studies, and of contemporary literature in general.
Canonical figures, such as Strindberg, Yeats, Beckett, Ionesco, Cocteau and Stoppard are studied, along with neglected figures, such as Wassily Kandinsky, better known as an expressionist painter, and Halper Leivick, author of the Yiddish play "The Golem", and innovative new performance troupes and individual artists, such as Squat Theatre and Spalding Gray. Concluding essays are devoted to contemporary experimental theatre and postmodern drama. A study of science fiction on stage includes an annotated listing of 40 English-language plays. Concerned with the interstice of theatre and the fantastic, this work should be valuable to students and scholars of both, of genre studies, and of contemporary literature in general.
- ISBN:
- 9780313272707
- 9780313272707
- Category:
- Literary studies: plays & playwrights
- Format:
- Hardback
- Publication Date:
- 30-11-1992
- Publisher:
- Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Country of origin:
- United States
- Pages:
- 256
- Dimensions (mm):
- 234x156x15mm
- Weight:
- 0.54kg
Click 'Notify Me' to get an email alert when this item becomes available
Great!
Click on Save to My Library / Lists
Click on Save to My Library / Lists
Select the List you'd like to categorise as, or add your own
Here you can mark if you have read this book, reading it or want to read
Awesome! You added your first item into your Library
Great! The fun begins.
Click on My Library / My Lists and I will take you there
Click on My Library / My Lists and I will take you there
Reviews
Be the first to review Staging the Impossible.
Share This Book: