by David Krasner (1997)
The history of African American performance and theatre is a topic that few scholars have closely studied or discussed as a critical part of American culture. In this fascinating interdisciplinary volume, David Krasner reveals such a history to be a tremendously rich one, focusing particularly on the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. The fields of history, black literary theory, cultural studies, performance studies, and postcolonial theory are utilized in an examination of several major productions. In addition, Krasner looks at the aesthetic significance of African American performers on the American stage and the meaning of the technique entitled "cakewalking."
Phyllis T. Dircks
"This book covers the canon of playwright Edward Albee. Comprehensive entries detail each of the plays and major characters, and all works are cross referenced with important themes. Other features include biographical information focusing on Albee's artistic beliefs, his understanding of the playwright's responsibility, the importance of music in drama, and the technical craft of writing plays"--Provided by publisher.
Dorothy Parker
This anthology gathers some of Modern Drama's most distinguished pieces on America's four most important playwrights since Eugene O'Neill: Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, and Sam Shepard. While Parker has chosen these authors "as representative of the main stream of American dramatic tradition," she does not offer a general overview of the plays or playwrights, nor any general orientation to aid the reader. These essays are written by scholars for serious students of American drama. The majority of the essays concentrate on a single play, and while they appeared decades ago, all were major articles in the field. Old but solid, they should still be of interest to students and scholars alike.
Evie Shockley
Beginning with a deceptively simple question—What do we mean when we designate behaviors, values, or forms of expression as “black”?—Evie Shockley’s <em>Renegade Poetics</em> separates what we think we know about black aesthetics from the more complex and nuanced possibilities the concept has long encompassed. The study reminds us, first, that even among the radicalized young poets and theorists who associated themselves with the Black Arts Movement that began in the mid-1960s, the contours of black aesthetics were deeply contested and, second, that debates about the relationship between aesthetics and politics for African American artists continue into the twenty-first century. Shockley argues that a rigid notion of black aesthetics commonly circulates that is little more than a caricature of the concept. She sees the Black Aesthetic as influencing not only African American poets and their poetic production, but also, through its shaping of criteria and values, the reception of their work. Taking as its starting point the young BAM artists’ and activists’ insistence upon the interconnectedness of culture and politics, this study delineates how African American poets—in particular, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sonia Sanchez, Harryette Mullen, Anne Spencer, Ed Roberson, and Will Alexander—generate formally innovative responses to their various historical and cultural contexts. Out of her readings, Shockley eloquently builds a case for redefining black aesthetics descriptively, to account for nearly a century of efforts by African American poets and critics to name and tackle issues of racial identity and self-determination. In the process, she resituates innovative poetry that has been dismissed, marginalized, or misread because its experiments were not “recognizably black”—or, in relation to the avant-garde tradition, because they <em>were</em>.
[by] Francis Huxley
As all the readers of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland will know, when Alice sat down (uninvited) at the mad tea party, the Hatter opened his eyes very wide and asked, "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" The riddle is famous because when Alice in turn asked, "What's the answer?" the Hatter replied that he hadn't the faintest idea. It has provoked ingenious possible answers from many great minds, but in this utterly engaging "Enquiry," Francis Huxley has undertaken the first investigation in depth. - Jacket flap.