Text & Presentation is an annual publication devoted to all aspects of theatre scholarship. This new volume represents a selection of the best research presented at the 34th international, interdisciplinary Comparative Drama Conference held in Los Angeles in 2010. Topics covered include metatheatrical experiments and adaptations of Greek tragedy, early Soviet orientalist plays, the working class on the 1920s Broadway stage, Tennessee Williams’s grandfather as character model, psychotherapy on stage, and African American musicals, among other topics. Reviews of eight selected books are also included.

Kiki Gounaridou teaches theatre history and theory in the Department of Theatre at Smith College. She has published articles, books, and reviews on theatre. An award-winning theatre director, she lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Edited by Kiki Gounaridou
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 193
Bibliographic Info: 4 photos, notes, bibliographies, index
Copyright Date: 2011
pISBN: 978-0-7864-4730-5
eISBN: 978-0-7864-8581-9
Imprint: McFarland
Series: The Comparative Drama Conference Series

Acknowledgments      v

Preface      1

1. Metatheatre and Metaphysics in Two Late Greek Tragedies      5

(Francis M. Dunn)

2. Manipulating Memory: An Examination of the Ghost Road Company’s Ensemble- Devised Adaptation of The Oresteia      19

(Katharine Noon)

3. Romantic Male Role Types: Kabuki’s Nimaime and the Innamorato of Commedia dell’Arte      28

(Katherine Saltzman- Li)

4. Between Factography and Ethnography: Sergei Tretyakov’sRoar, China! and Soviet Orientalist Discourse

(Robert Crane)

5. Staging the Public Sphere: Karl Kraus and Romain Rolland’s Critical Theatre in World War I      54

(Christa Zorn)

6. No Kick Coming: The Staging and Taming of the I.W.W. in Sidney Howard’s They Knew What They Wanted      69

(Michael Schwartz)

7. “Gramps, Shush the Preaching”: Family Memories in The Night of the Iguana      77

( Jeffrey B. Loomis)

8. Truth Drugs and Hothouse Flowers: Metatheatre and the Mid-century Psychotherapy Play      92

(Ariel Watson)

9. He Said; She Said: Reversing Roles by Gender in Oleanna      108

(Ann M. Shanahan)

10. Coontown: Utopian Longing and Reification in Black Suburbia      119

(Courtney R. Wilkes)

11. Nostalgia, Irony, and the Re- Emergence of the Reified American Indian Other in August: Osage County      130

(Courtney Elkin Mohler)

12. Plagues and Performance: Broadway Bares as Danse Macabre      143

(Virginia Anderson)

13. Acting, Science, and Gender: A Review Essay      157

(Kiki Gounaridou)

Review of Literature: Selected Books

E. Teresa Choate. Electra USA: American Stagings of Sophocles’ Tragedy      163

(Amanda Wrigley)

Karelisa V. Hartigan. Performance and Cure: Drama and Healing in Ancient Greece and Contemporary America      166

(Rush Rehm)

Emily C. Bartels. Speaking of the Moor: From Alcazar to Othello      168

( Janna Segal)

Jane Goodall. Stage Presence      170

(Kimberly Jannarone)

Heather S. Nathans. Slavery and Sentiment on the American Stage, 1787–1861: Lifting the Veil of Black      173

(Dorothy Chansky)

Philip C. Kolin, ed. The Influence of Tennessee Williams: Essays on Fifteen American Playwrights      175

(David Pellegrini)

James R. Brandon. Kabuki’s Forgotten War: 1931–1945      177

(Yoshiko Fukushima)

S.E. Gontarski, ed. A Companion to Samuel Beckett      179

(Katherine Weiss)

Index      183

“edited with care…preserves the conference experience by extending its scholarly dialogue to the wider reading community…many fine essays”—New England Theatre Journal.