CONTENTS VOLUME I 1900-1939 A ckn o) v ledgen len ts x vi i Chronological Table of Reprinted Articles and Chapters xxi Introduction 1 PART 1 Critical overviews 5 1 Some new American plays 7 WILLIAM DEAN HO WELLS 2 Some American plays from the feminist viewpoint 14 FLORENCE KII'ER 3 The Negro and the American stage 22 W. E. B. Dv BO IS 4 The drama of Negro life 24 ALAIN LOCKE 5 A criticism of the Negro drama as it relates to the Negro dramatist and artist 29 EULALIE SPENCE 6 The American realist playwrights 31 MARY MCCARTHY 7 Comedy and the comic spirit in America 44 ERIC BENTLEY CON TEN TS PART 2 Susan Glaspell 53 8 "Murder, she wrote": the genesis of Susan Glaspeli's Trifles 55 LINDA BEN-ZVI 9 Extract from Susan Glaspell in Context 79 J. ELLEN GAINOR PART 3 The 1920s 109 10 Voodoo, music, and humor: Zora Neale Hurston's antidotes for the "Color Struck" 111 MARTHA OILMAN BOWER 11 Sensualizing and sanctifying technology: Machinal (1928) 134 DENNIS G. JERZ PART 4 Eugene O'Neill 161 12 Trying to like O'Neill 163 ERIC BE NT LEY 13 Brief Encounter: The Hairy Ape 175 TIMO TIUSANEN 14 Extract from Contour in Time 187 TRAVIS BOGARD 15 Novelization and the drama of consciousness in Strange Interlude 208 KURT EISEN 16 I lie banished prince revisited: a feminist reading of More Stately Mansions 215 I.AURIN PORTER 17 The Emperor Jones: naturalistic tragedy in hemispheric perspective 234 PHILIP j. HANSON VI CONTENTS Eugene O'Neill and "The Myth of America": Ephraim Cabot as the American Adam MARK A. MOSSMAN PART 5 The 1930s 259 19 The technique of the living newspaper 261 ARTHUR A RENT 20 The shifting pacifism of Robert E. Sherwood 267 R. BAIRD SHUMAN 21 Psychodrama on Broadway: three plays of psychodrama by Philip Barry 274 DAVID C. GUT) 22 The very high comedy of Philip Barry 291 GERALD WHALES 23 Maxwell Anderson's dramatic theory and Key Largo 295 JEFFREY D. MASON 24 Chaos and cruelty in the theatrical space: Horse Eats Hat, Hellzapoppin', and the pleasure of farce in depression America 313 MARK. FRARNOW 25 From protest to soul fest: Langston Hughes' Gospel plays 328 JOSEPH MCLAREN 26 Atom and Eve: a consideration of Gertrude Stein's Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights 346 SARAH BAY-CHENG PART 6 Lillian Hellman 367 27 Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine: realism, gender, and historical crisis 369 VIVIAN M. PATRAKA 28 Murdering the lesbian: Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour 387 MARY TITUS Vll _ —- jut1*— ""^** CONTENTS VOLUME II 1940-1959 Acknowledgements ix Introduction ! PART 7 Overview * 29 American playwrights and the birth of the atomic age 7 CHARLES A. CARPENTER PART 8 Arthur Miller 37 30 Tragedy and the common man 39 ARTHUR MILLER 31 The realism of Arthur Miller 43 RAYMOND WILLIAMS 32 Acres of diamonds: Death of a Salesman 53 THOMAS E. PORTER 33 Arthur Miller's Incident at Vichy: a Sartrean interpretation 76 LAWRENCE D. LOWENTHAL 34 Arthur Miller's The Crucible: backgrounds and sources 89 ROBERT A. MARTIN 35 Unblessed rage for order: Arthur Miller's After the Fall 103 STEVEN R. CENTOLA 36 Re(dis)covering the witches in Arthur Miller's The Crucible: a feminist reading 110 WENDY SC HISS EL 37 Informers BRENDA MURPHY Vlll C O N T E N T S 38 Issues of Identity in Broken Glass: a humanist response to a postmodern world 139 SUSAN C. W. ABBOTSON 39 Extract from The Temptation of Innocence in the Dramas of Arthur Millet- 152 TERRY OTTEN 40 Extract from Arthur Miller: A Critical Study 163 CHRISTOPHER BIGSBY PART 9 Tennessee Williams 181 41 The synthetic myth 183 ESTHER MERLE JACKSON 42 The distorted mirror: Tennessee Williams' self-portraits 203 NANCY M. TISCHLER 43 Realism and theatricaSism in A Streetcar Named Desire 214 MARY ANN CORRIGAN 44 When ghosts supplant memories: Tennessee Williams' Clothes for a Summer Hotel 226 THOMAS P. ADLER 45 Sleeping with Caliban: the politics of race in Tennessee Witliams's Kingdom of Earth 240 PHILIP C. KOLIN 46 The pleasures of brick: Eros and the gay spectator in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 258 ROBERT F. GROSS 47 Williams: masculinity and homophobia 271 JOHN M. CLUM 48 "The inexpressible regret of all her regrets": Tennessee Williams's later plays as Artaudian theater of cruelty 289 ANNETTE J. SADDIK 49 Extract from "A true story of our time" 310 MICHAEL PALLER IX C O N T Ii N T S PART 10 Selected playwrights 333 50 Social and cultural prophecy in the works of William Inge 335 JANE- COURANT 5! Sounding the rumble of dreams deferred: Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun 353 HELENS KEYSSAR 52 Nobody knows best: Carson IVIcCullers's plays as social criticism 385 BROOKE HORVATH AND LISA LOGAN VOLUME III 1960-1979 A ckno i vledgemen ts i x Introduction 1 PART 11 Issues 5 53 Which theatre is the absurd one? 7 EDWARD ALBEE 54 Homosexual drama and its disguises 13 STANLEY KALIFTMANN 55 The Black Arts Movement 17 LARRY NEAL 56 Redefining Black theatre 31 MARGARET B. WILKERSON 57 Realism, narrative, and the feminist playwright: a problem of reception 45 JEAN IE FORTE 58 American drama, feminist discourse, and dramatic form: in defense of critical pluralism 58 PATRICIA R. SCHROEDER C O N T E N T S PART 12 Edward Albee 73 59 Who's afraid of Edward Albee? 75 RICHARD SCHECHNER 60 Why so afraid? 79 ALAN SCHNEIDER 6! The verbal murders of Edward Albee 82 RUBY COHN 62 Albee's Seascape: humanity at the second threshold 98 THOMAS P. ADLER 63 Thematic unity in the theater of Edward Albee 106 MATTHEW C. ROUDANE 64 Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance', a rite of passage from sterility to tranquility 112 GENE A. PLUNKA 65 Staging hypereSoquence: Edward Albee and the monologic voice 121 DEBORAH R. GEIS 66 Albee's substitute children: reading adoption as a performative 129 JILL R. DEANS PART 13 The 1960s 151 67 Performance theatre: Dionysus in 69 and The Serpent 153 FOSTER HIRSCH 68 Bullins, Baraka, and Elder: the dawn of grandeur in Black drama 165 LANCE JEFFERS 69 The corrupted warrior heroes: Amsri Baraka's The Toilet 178 ROBERT L. TENER 70 Theater of Black reality: The Blues drama of Ed Bullins 187 W. D. E. ANDREWS XI CONTENTS 71 Extract from "The Experimental Theatre" 198 j. vv. FENN PART 14 Maria Irene Fornes 205 72 Wordscapes of the body: performative language as Gestus in Maria Irene Forties's plays 207 DEBORAH R. GEIS 73 Fefu and her friends 225 DIANE LYNN MOROFF PART 15 The 1970s 251 74 Search and destroy: the drama of the Vietnam war 253 TOBY SILVERMAN ZINMAN 75 Rethinking identification: Kennedy, Freud, Brecht 277 EL IN DIAMOND 76 Ntozake Shange: the vengeance of difference, or the gender of black cultural identity 292 TEJUMOLA OLANIYAN 77 David Rabe: men under fire 319 CARLA J. McDONOUGH 78 The comic vision of Lanford Wilson 354 MARTIN J. JACOBI 79 The Black comedy of urban neurosis: John Guare's The House of Blue Leaves 369 GENE A. PLUNK A 80 Extract from Popular Culture Icons in Contemporary American Drama: Arthur Kopit's Indians 383 KONSTANTINOS BLATANIS Xll CONTENTS VOLUME iV 1980-2000 A ckn o w I edge ni en ts i x Introduction 1 FART 16 Issues of ethnicity 5 81 Staging America: the subject of history in Chicano/a theatre 7 VV. B. WORT HEN 82 Teatro Chicano and the seduction of nostalgia 32 CATHERINE WILEY 83 Marisol, angels, and apocalyptic migrations 48 JON D. ROSSINI 84 David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly and PhiSip Kan Gotanda's Yankee Dawg You Die: repositioning Chinese American marginality on the American stage 61 JAMES S. MOY PART 17 Sam Shepard 71 85 Mythic levels in Shepard's True West 73 TUCKER OR BISON 86 Sam Shepard's pornographic visions 88 LYNDA MART 87 Sam Shepard 101 MARC ROBINSON PART 18 David Mamet 131 88 The politics of gender, language and hierarchy in Mamet's Oleanna 133 CHRISTINE MACLEOD xin ON TENTS 89 Glengarry Glen Ross, David Mamet 147 ROBERT VORLICKY 90 Decoding cipher space: David Mamet's The Cryptogram and America's dramatic legacy 178 JANET V, HAEDICKE PART 19 August Wilson 191 91 Fences: the sins of the Father 193 KIM PEREIRA 92 Ma Rainey's Black Bottom-, singing Wilson's Blues 209 HARRY J. ELAM, JR 93 A transplant that did not take: August Wilson's views on the Great Migration 225 SANDRA G. SHANNON PART 20 Marsha Norman 235 94 Feminism and the canon: the question of universality 237 JILL DOLAN 95 Jessie and Thelma revisited: Marsha Norman's conceptual challenge in * night Mother 261 WILLIAM W. DEMASTES PART 21 Tony Kushner 273 96 Ambivalence, Utopia, and a queer sort of materialism: how Angels in America reconstructs the nation 275 DAVID SAVRAN 97 Angels, monsters, and Jews: intersections of queer and Jewish identity in Kushner's Angels in America 300 JONATHAN FREEDMAN xiv CONTENTS PART 22 Selected playwrights 319 98 Feminism, postmodernism, and The Heidi Chronicles 321 BETTE MANDL 99 Any baggage yoy don't claim, we trash: living with(in) history in Wolfe's The Colored Museum 329 MARC SILVER STEIN 100 The Dining Room: A Tocquevillian take on the decline of WASP culture 347 BRUCE A. McCONACHIE 101 The sexual world of Paula VogeS 358 ROBERT M. POST 102 The instability of meaning in Suzan-Lori Parks's The America Play 369 HA IKE FRANK 103 John Guare 382 ROBERT J.