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The Dialogism of Self and Other in Contemporary American Drama

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The Dialogism of Self and Other in Contemporary American Drama View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Louisiana State University Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2010 The dialogism of self and other in contemporary American drama Shih-Yi Huang Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, shuang3@tigers.lsu.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Theatre and Performance Studies Commons Recommended Citation Huang, Shih-Yi, "The dialogism of self and other in contemporary American drama" (2010). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 41. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/41 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contactgradetd@lsu.edu. THE DIALOGISM OF SELF AND OTHER IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN DRAMA A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Theatre by Shih-Yi Huang B.S., Tunghai University (Taiwan), 1999 M.S., National Chengchi University (Taiwan), 2002 May 2010 Acknowledgements This project, inspired by the way humans look at the world, rekindles my passion for a career in academia. I impart my sincerest gratitude to my advisor Dr. Leslie A. Wade, without whose guidance this project would remain only a jumble of shapeless inspirations, and without whose encouragement and support would never have been completed on time. I would also like to thank Dr. Leigh Clemons, Dr. John Fletcher, Dr. Rachel Hall and Dr. Joseph Kronick, who not only pointed out the theoretical limitations of the project but also opened up future potentialities of the work. Last but not least, I would like to show my appreciation to all those who have helped me in my directing work on Sound of a Voice, a significant source of illustrative material for this project. I particularly appreciate Dr. Michael Tick, for allowing me to take his advanced- level directing course, and Dr. Femi Euba who helped advise the directing work. I am blessed to have had this experience here, studying and working in LSU’s Theatre Department. For me, this will remain a life-long memory. My thanks also goes to my best friend here in the U.S., Michelle Mouton, who carefully helped me proofread the work and has been the most significant source of emotional support during this endeavor; my friends Fanny Wu and Yu-hsin Hsueh who accompanied me through the most emotionally turbulent days; and many other friends who helped me either emotionally or on technical computer matters. All the toil has paid off, and been balanced with all the fun times we have had together. Finally, I would love to show my deepest thanks to my family who are always there for me whenever I need them, without whose support this work would never have been accomplished. ii Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………….…….ii LIST OF ABBREVIATION ……………………………………………………………...iv ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………….vi CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................1 CHAPTER TWO: INTIMATE ETHICS AND NATIONAL POLITICS...........................28 CHAPTER THREE: HUMAN RELATIONS AND THE FACE OF THE OTHER IN THE PLAYS OF EDWARD ALBEE...............................................72 CHAPTER FOUR: CULTURAL DIFFERENCES AND EPISTEMOLOGY...........................................................................113 CHAPTER FIVE: THE FEMALE AND DESUBJECTIFICATION................................151 CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION......................................................................................197 WORKS CITED AND CONSULTED……………………………..……………………216 VITA………………………………………………………………………………….….231 iii List of Abbreviations Works of Lévinas BPW Lévinas, Emmanuel. Basic Philosophical Writings. Eds. by Adriann T. Peperzak, Simon Critchley, and Robert Bernasconi. Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 1996. Print. DF Lévinas, Emmanuel. Difficult freedom: Essays on Judaism. Trans. Seán Hand. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1990. Print. EE Lévinas, Emmanuel. Existence and Existents. Trans. Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh, Pa.: Duquesne UP, 2001. Print. MHO Lévinas, Emmanuel. Lévinas, Emmanuel. “Martin Heidegger and Ontology.” Diacritics. 26.1 (Spring 1996), 11-32. Web. NTR Lévinas, Emmanuel. Nine Talmudic Readings. Trans. Annette Aronowicz. Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 1994. Print. OB Lévinas, Emmanuel. Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence. Trans. Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP, 1998. Print. TI Lévinas, Emmanuel. Totality and Infinity. Trans. Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne UP, 1969. Print. TOAE Lévinas, Emmanuel. Time and the Other and Additional Essays. Trans. Richard A. Cohen. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP, 1987. Print. Works of other authors: Millennium Kushner, Tony. “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. Part I: Millennium Approaches.” The Wadsworth Anthology of Drama. Ed. W.B. Worthen. 5th ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2007. 1211-1241. Print. Perestroika Kushner, Tony. Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. Part II: Perestroika. New York: Theatre Communication Group, Inc., 1994. Print. SMM Albee, Edward. Stretching My Mind. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2005. Print. iv TDFLH Chanter, Tina. Time, Death, and the Feminine: Lévinas with Heidegger. Standford: Stanford UP, 2001. Print. TKNE Fisher, James, ed. Tony Kushner: New Essays on the Art and Politics of the Plays. Jefferson: McFarland & Co., 2006. Print. TTO Peperzak, Adriaan Theodoor. To The Other: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Emmanuel Lévinas. West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue UP, 1993. Print. UTK Fisher, James, ed. Understanding Tony Kushner. Columbia: South Carolina UP, 2008. Print. v Abstract This work is interdisciplinary in orientation and brings together American theatre (and culture) and contemporary ethical philosophy. I am introducing the French philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas and his theory of Self and Other to an analysis of contemporary American drama—a mode of approach that is new to the discipline of theatre studies. Lévinas’s insights are particularly relevant to the concerns of the 21st century and how we might rethink relationships and values. My work looks at contemporary American plays in terms of nationalism, gender politics, racial dynamics and ecological issues. I contend that these playwrights are attempting to go beyond conventional views on such matters and are modeling a sort of Lévinasian ethic in their works, one informed by an honoring of difference and a responsibility for the Other. vi Chapter One: Introduction One of the primary moments of inspiration for this study occurred when I attended a production of Mary Zimmerman’s play Metamorphoses (produced by Louisiana State University in the fall of 2006). In viewing Zimmerman’s reworking of Ovid’s texts, which posed questions of myth and science for a contemporary audience, I was greatly stirred and prompted to consider basic questions of how people look at the world, how people relate to one another and to the natural environment. My thinking on these questions was further inspired by my encounter with the scholar Silva Benso and her analysis of the co-existence and interplay of mythos and logos. It was at this point in my coursework (and with the writing of Benso) that I learned of the philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas and his unique ideas about the relationship between Self and Other. These various influences led me to look at the world through a new lens and caused me to re-evaluate the contemporary Western value system and its fundamental components, namely, those of logos, reason, and domination, that are central to its reasoning. I began to think of the role that theatre plays in this process as we examine and envision the world. Should theatre seek to “copy” reality or “re-create” an alternate reality for us to model? In bringing these questions to recent American drama, I gave particular attention to Putlizer Prize plays after 1995 as indicators of concerns and issues confronted by noted dramatists of the American theatre. In these works I found a preoccupation and fascination with issues of Self- Other relationships—subjects central to the work of Lévinas—and how they were expressed and explored through dramatic means, how philosophical issues were brought to a more personal level. This reading made me wonder how such plays might lead to a reconsideration of ethics, a rethinking of the top-down political totality, as Lévinas proposes. I looked for tendencies of an - 1 - alternative ethics and ideas in these plays that might call for a questioning of politics as Lévinas had hoped. Given that much contemporary theatre is of an experimental nature, and that many contemporary American dramas give embodiment to a reconsideration of the Self-Other relationship (in a political totality), this project takes theatre as a lab for testifying to a new ethical relationship—a dialogism between violence and love. Bringing this aspect to light shows how theatre is grappling with issues fundamental to how we see ourselves (how theatre addresses issues central to recent ethical theory), and how the characters and events depicted on stage might point to an ethical
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