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English Studies :‫المسلك‬

S5P1 :‫الفصل‬
M28 :‫الوحدة‬
« DRAMA » :‫المادة‬
Khalid Chaouch :‫األستاذ‬

Sultan Moulay Slimane University ‘DRAMA’ Course (M28)

Faculty of Letters and Humanities 5th Semester, 2021-2022
English Dept., Beni Mellal. Pr. Khalid Chaouch.

III- Contemporary American Drama and Theatre

This is an overview on the main figures, forms and movements of modern and
contemporary American drama and theatre. As you can see, the 20th century is
more or less divided according to decades, each being neatly characterized by a
certain form of theatre. The beginning of the 21st century has been equally
witnessing a more multi-cultural form of American theatre, especially as regards
themes and issues.

1. Before the 1920s:

- Styles related to expressionism and radical realism
- Since 1913: the opening of ‘Dramatic Arts’ Departments in the American Universities
- The ‘Little theatres’: The Washington Square Players (1914); the Provincetown
Players (1915)
- The emergence of Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953), the father of modern American theatre
- The American theatre was still relying on the long-established conventions of dramatic
art.

2. The Jazzy Age and the Theatre Guild

The carefree, prospering 1920s: Jazz music, the Prohibition, and theatre.
European forms: Chekhov’s naturalism, Strindberg’s Expressionism and Ibsen’s Realism.
The Stanislavski System (the Moscow Art Theatre, 1923) on the art of acting on stage.
Elmer Rice, The Adding Machine (1924): an early example of the Theatre of the Absurd
Eugene O’Neill became the spokesman of the 1920s: The Emperor Jones, 1920; Anna
Christie, 1921; The Hairy Ape, 1922.
Theatre Groups: The Civic Repertory Theatre, the New York Theater, and the Theatre Guild.
The Harlem Renaissance (1920s+1930s): revival and rebirth of Afro-American arts and
literature.
3. The Fervent Years (1930s)
The 1930s are also known as the “Depression”, the “Black Years”, the “Red Decade”
- A time of social protest: Clifford Odets (known as “Revolution’s Number One
Boy”) cried: ‘What’s the use of writing pretty novels about ladies and gentlemen?’
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- The Stanislavski System: the professional training of an actor.

- ‘Agit-prop’ or left-wing theatre groups: The New Playwrights' Group, the Theatre
Union, the Federal Theatre Project, the Labor Stage, the Theatre of Action, the
Group Theatre…
- Great stress on theatricality and the techniques of acting and performance.
- Sidney Kingsley, Lillian Hellman, and Clifford Odets (Waiting for Lefty).

4. The Theatre of Figures (1945-1960)

a. Eugene O’Neill’s Last Plays

The Iceman Cometh, Long Day’s Journey into Night, A Touch of the Poet, and Hughie.
The striking characteristics of such plays: the unusual length of their stage directions, a
stress on the psychological depth, and what Arthur Miller calls ‘the tragedy of the
common man.’

b. Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller

- Tennessee Williams’s “poetical realism”: a kind of poetic romanticism and
intensive symbolism, mainly intended to help contemporary Man to look for a lost
identity or a lost self. His plays include: The Glass Menagerie (1945), A Streetcar
Named Desire (1947) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955).
- Arthur Miller: a kind of Ibsenic (Henrik Ibsen!) “critical realism”. In modern theatre,
in general, and Miller’s theater in particular, it is the ordinary man who is perceived
as a hero, not kings or characters of noble staff. His plays include: All My Sons, Death
of a Salesman (1947), The Crucible (1953) and A View from the Bridge (1955).

c. The Established Playwrights

Maxwell Anderson: historical plays (Anne of the Thousand Days);
G. S. Kaufman returned to his comments on American life.
Lillian Hellman (Toys in the Attic, 1960) and
Clifford Odets (The Big Knife, Country Girl, and The Flowering Peach)

d. The Emergence of New Playwrights:

William Wister Haines (Mister Roberts, 1948), William Inge (Picnic, 1953, and Bus
Stop, 1955), Edward Albee: The Zoo Story, The American Dream, Fam and Yam…

5. Performance Schools: The 1960s and 1970s

Main concerns of the period: bringing about new techniques and going through new
experiments that laid much stress on performance. The new sensibility: The play itself
was subordinate to the techniques of acting and directing: design, lighting, sound
effects, decoration, architectural or space investigations...
a. Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams.
b. Afro-American Theater: Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun (1959); Amiri
Baraka, Dutchman (1961) and The Slave (1961)…
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c. John Cage and the Happenings: John Cage’s play, Silence 4’ 33’’
d. Collective improvisations: The Living Theatre, The Open Theatre:
e. Off-Off-Broadway: The Cafe Cino, La Mama Experimental Theatre, Church
Theatres… and Sam Shepard: the leading figure of Off-Off-Broadway theatre from
mid-1970s to mid-1990s.

6. The 1980s and 1990s: Decentralization of theatre

a- Sam Sheppard is still experimenting with new devices in language, themes and
settings. True West (1980) and A Lie of the Mind, States of Shock (1991)
b- Charles H. Fuller (born 1939), A Soldier’s Play (1981).
c- August Wilson (1945-2005), The Piano Lesson (1995).
d- Main characteristics of the period:
- Less concern with ‘linguistic’ forms
- Presenting spectacles ‘as open to interpretation as the world around us.’
- Performance tendency: a type of experimental theater.

7. American theatre in the 21st century

The emergence of a new generation of off-Broadway playwrights who seek to
represent, question or even change certain aspects of contemporary American society.
The main themes and concerns of such a theatre evolve around gender, race, the
politics of identity, multiculturalism, the American Dream, individual aspirations
versus society, or what is personal opposed to what is public or collective… Compared
to the previous decades, this era is conspicuously marked by the rise of female
playwrights; the other appealing characteristic of this new American theatre is the
emergence of cultural voices which find themselves being torn between their American
belonging and their original cultural heritage. The hyphenated identities of some
playwrights attest to the emergence of multicultural stage that is in the process of
becoming an American fact more than ever.

Amiri Baraka (1934-2014): Most Dangerous Man in America (W. E. B. Du Bois) (2015)
August Wilson (1945-2005): How I Learned What I Learned (2002) and the remaining
‘Pittsburgh Cycle’ plays (aka the ‘Century Cycle’): Gem of the Ocean (2003), and
Radio Golf (2005)
Anna Deavere Smith (born 1950, Afro-American origin): House Arrest (2000) and Let
Me Down Easy (2008)
Bruce Norris (born 1960), Clybourne Park (2010): The Low Road (2013), and The
Qualms (2014)
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Stephen Adly Guirgis (born 1965, of Egyptian father and Irish American mother): In
Arabia We'd All Be Kings (1999), The Little Flower of East Orange (2008), and
Between Riverside and Crazy (2014),
David Auburn (born 1969): Proof (2000), The Columnist (2012), and Lost Lake (2014)
Ayad Akhtar (born 1970, of Pakistani origin): Disgraced (2013) and The Who & The
What (2014) and The Invisible Hand (2014)
Heidi Schreck (born 1971): What the Constitution Means to Me (2018-2019)
Quiara Alegría Hudes (born 1977): Elliot, A Soldier's Fugue (2006) and Miss You Like
Hell (2016) (with singer/songwriter Erin McKeown)
J. T. Rogers (born 1968): Blood and Gifts (2016) and Oslo (2016)
Martyna Majok (born 1985, Polish American playwright): Sanctuary City (2020) and
Ironbound (2015)

IV- Main themes of modern and contemporary American theatre

 Social protest
 Home, homelessness
 Racism (Fascism, Nazism, anti-semitism…)
 Getting ahead, American Dream,
 Religion
 Home, homelessness
 Travel, change, escape
 The struggle to survive
 Individual vs. society
 Obstructed will; thwarted dreams; broken dreams
 Love, obstacles, love triangle
 Power and politics
 Having a good time, obstacles
 Music as a hobby and as pastime
 Love, obstacles, love triangle
 Gender attitudes and issues, male/female
 Self-victimizing
 Other issues and themes …

For more information on the American theatre in the 20th century, you can consult
my paper entitled “The Cult of Newness in 20th-Century American Theatre.”1

V- Clifford Odets (1906-1963)

1This paper can be accessed on this link:
https://www.academia.edu/35100750/The_Cult_of_Newness_in_Twentieth_Century_American_Theatre