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Revision, Nostalgia, and Resistance in Contemporary American Drama Sinan Gul University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

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Revision, Nostalgia, and Resistance in Contemporary American Drama Sinan Gul University of Arkansas, Fayetteville University of Arkansas, Fayetteville ScholarWorks@UARK Theses and Dissertations 8-2017 Persistence of Memory: Revision, Nostalgia, and Resistance in Contemporary American Drama Sinan Gul University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd Part of the American Literature Commons, and the Theatre History Commons Recommended Citation Gul, Sinan, "Persistence of Memory: Revision, Nostalgia, and Resistance in Contemporary American Drama" (2017). Theses and Dissertations. 2404. http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/2404 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Persistence of Memory: Revision, Nostalgia, and Resistance in Contemporary American Drama A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English by Sinan Gul Ege University Bachelors of Art in English Language and Literature, 2005 Dokuz Eylul University Master of Fine Arts in Stage Arts, 2010 August 2017 University of Arkansas This dissertation is approved for recommendation of the Graduate Council. _________________________ Robert Cochran, PhD Dissertation Director _________________________ _________________________ Dorothy Stephens, PhD Les Wade, PhD Committee Member Committee Member Abstract This dissertation focuses on the usages of memory in contemporary American drama. Analyzing selected mainstream and alternative dramatic texts, The Persistence of Memory is a study of personal and communal reflections of the past within contemporary plays. The introduction provides examples from modern plays, major terms, and vital concepts for memory studies and locates their merits in dramatic texts. The first chapter makes a critique of family plays, which uses historical elements to indicate a revisionist yearning for the past as well as the American Dream. Similarly, the second chapter contains business plays, which implement a heavy feeling of nostalgia towards the past, and offer the past as a comforting refuge from the troubles of the present. Third chapter makes an account of documentary plays and illustrates how their approach to history has been different, in order to create a resistance and alternative stand against mainstream formulations. In contrast to other plays, documentary plays employ an opposing tone to conventional usages of history to point at its flaws, strengths, and fallacies. The fourth chapter involves historical plays, which have historical events and characters at their cores. Historical plays like documentary plays have a protesting tone, and the material they handle reveals the playwrights’ ideological tendencies. Given the abundance of memory and history in contemporary dramatic texts, the significance of these components on creating meanings in the present is the main center of interest in this study. ©2017 by Sinan Gul All Rights Reserved Acknowledgments I started this project believing I had the answers, but the more I researched the less confident I felt about my preconceived ideas. I came to conquer the United States and to tell my story. Now, I am returning to Turkey with a newfound knowledge of other people’s stories and a belief in life-long learning. I would like to thank Les Wade who has been a great teacher, listener, and adviser throughout my entire experience at the University of Arkansas. As a member of the drama department, he has always been a helpful guide from the very beginning of this project. He has shown great patience for my rough drafts and given them an academic shape. This dissertation would have not been possible without the assistance and encouragement of my advisors, Dr. Robert Cochran and Dr. Dorothy Stephens. Their diligent work ethic and profound wisdom that I witnessed in their classes were a revelation for me. Dr. Cochran taught me how to write. Coming from a non–English speaking country, I always had a set of misperceptions for academic writing. His editing of my drafts has been one of the most instructive aspects of my doctoral journey. He is a wonderful writer whose writing contains great humor, precise instruction, and intelligent observation. In addition to being a keen editor with inspired vision, Dr. Stephens has been a great teacher. Her ability to detect mechanical and rhetorical errors in academic texts is the result of her work ethic, character and intelligence. Her feedback on my writing has been invaluable. Dr. Cochran and Dr. Stephens have been crucial in the process of completing my dissertation. I also have to thank my colleagues who read my drafts in the quality writing center, especially, Erin Daughterty, whose astute criticism allowed me to improve my rhetoric as well as language. My family, sometimes with their presence and sometimes with their absence, has always been supportive. A doctoral program is not a family’s friend. This is for Naz, Eldo, and Keros for all the time we have spent separately. Table of Contents Introduction: Reflections of Memory in Dramatic Texts……………………………….. 1 Chapter 1: Remembering the Dysfunctional Family……………………………………. 23 Chapter 2: Nostalgia in Business Plays…………………………………………………. 53 Chapter 3: Resistance in Documentary Plays…………………………………………… 87 Chapter 4: Dramatic Revision of Forgotten History………………………………….... 141 Conclusion...……………………………………………………………………………. 185 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………….. 190 1 Introduction Rachel Corrie was an American activist and student killed by an Israeli bulldozer while protesting the demolitions of the Palestinians’ houses in the Gaza Strip in March 2003. Having assembled most of its content from Corrie’s diaries and emails, Katharine Viner and Alan Rickman wrote a play called My Name is Rachel Corrie . It was staged in April 2005 at the Royal Court Theatre, London, and won the Theatregoers’ Choice Awards for Best Director and Best New Play. Everything seemed normal for the play until it was scheduled to be transferred to the New York Theatre Workshop in March 2006. The play was “postponed immediately” as several Jewish groups raised their discontent for the play. Although the play was staged in different cities in the USA and all over the world, it had to wait longer than usual for the aegis of James Hammerstein Productions to access Broadway. What was the reason for this clear censorship in twenty-first century America? Was it anti-Semitic propaganda? Probably not. Was it the flaws of dramatic construction in the play? Many critics refrained from calling this text a play, and they pointed at flaws such as Corrie’s “curiously weightless observations,” “misguided politics,” (McCarter) and “eerie patterns of recurring images” (Brantley 2006) in it, but this was not the reason. What drove the Jewish community to stop this play was Rachel Corrie’s memories. Of all communities on earth, the Jews are the ones who know the importance of memory better than anyone else. That’s why there are Holocaust museums all over the world. They know if people forget, their existence and sufferings will be devaluated. They are the ones who diligently memorize their scriptural texts to maintain their identity. The biggest conflict in the Middle East region still originates from historical claims to certain parts of land, especially Israel. 2 Rachel Corrie is not a part of Persistence of Memory as it focuses on mainstream dramatic works, but My Name is Rachel Corrie is a testament to memory’s power in dramatic texts because when the present is established through fictional past, which is based on personal observations and records, its authority is amplified. Besides, the ruckus this play has caused generated a dialogue on the variations of memory in dramatic texts. This dissertation analyzes dramatic constructions of memory, whether they are from a specific person or from a communal history, irrespective of sources. Exploring issues closely associated with time has become an important component of contemporary dramatic structures for a long while and its potential to create dramatic conflicts has been immense. The way playwrights have integrated branches of memory into their plots has been diverse. Memory and history have brought a wide array of meanings into plays which have gone, to a certain extent, unnoticed in academia. This study is an attempt to shed some light on this trend. For example, domestic plays analyzed in this study demonstrate a revisionist method that attempts to review and reminisce about the miseries of the past. The demise of a family member in each play functions as a catalyst to encounter the tragic events in the past. This can be the death of a child as seen in Rabbit Hole and Clybourne Park , or the suicide of the father in August: Osage County . These losses unveil forgotten familial memories and the disappearance of these characters revive the suppressed history within the family. As other playwrights (Jon Rabin Baitz’ Other Desert Cities , Christopher Shinn’s Where Do We Live , and Lisa D’Amour’s Detroit ) have also shown, revision of the past is an unnegotiable part of inner peace for these characters. Assessing personal memories and voicing the uncomfortable parts to each other's face has been a strong method of modern drama and contemporary American drama follows suit. 3 This revisionist strategy has been substituted by a nostalgic version in plays where characters have financial
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