bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
A Tentative Stemma for Drafts and Revisions of Tennessee Williams's Suddenly Last Summer (1958)
Authors: Parker Brian 
Published: April 2013

Any attempt to sequence the manuscript evidence behind Suddenly Last Summer must be even more tentative than previous stemmata for The Rose Tattoo, Camino Real and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof because not only are extra drafts for the play sure to surface in the next few years (as with the other plays), but the evidence for Suddenly Last Summer also presents problems of its own. Like the other three plays, Suddenly Last Summer shares the difficulties of Williams's obsessive rewriting and accretive mode of composition. His habit was to work by the intuitive "feel" of a situation rather than by a detailed outline, compulsively typing new drafts at great speed, then revising by hand, often independently, on the many working carbons or mimeograph copies he made for each draft; constantly fidgeting with details but, more characteristically, rewriting in larger scenes or whole acts, then fitting various sections of separate drafts together experimentally like mosaics. During rehearsals, tryouts and even Broadway performances he would continue vigorously "workshopping" his scripts in response to suggestions from his actors and director, often continuing to revise (as in this case) after a play had been favourably reviewed, was already in print, and had been released as a very successful movie. Moreover, he rarely dated drafts, frequently returned to material from superseded versions (so that there is never a simple, straight line of development to trace) and had a habit of mixing revised pages with pages from earlier drafts that needed no change, then collecting the various stages of discard together into large undifferentiated piles.
From Jug Band to Dixieland: The Musical Development behind August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Authors: Abbotson Susan 
Published: April 2013

Ma Rainey takes place in 1927 and introduces us to a fictionalized version of the real blues singer Ma Rainey, spending an afternoon in the recording studio with her backup band. The latter dominates the action, and we watch as Cutler, Slow Drag, Toledo, and Levee practise a few tunes, chat about their lives, and squabble over their differences while being overseen by the people who have the real control: the white producer, Sturdyvant, and the band's agent, Irvin. Ma, with her entourage, appears late in the play to make her recording, and although she is a powerful symbol, it is Levee who dominates the action of the play and provides the shocking denouement in which he kills Toledo. One question the play raises is, Whom should we support — Ma or Levee? The play's title attests to the ambivalence of Wilson's answer. Although it names Ma, it actually refers to the song rather than to the person, and it is a song that Levee is trying to claim for his own. The similarities between the characters ensure that we cannot easily dismiss the claims of either one..
Book Reviews
Authors: Witham Barry , Krasner David , Barlow Judith , Chamber Jonathan , Chansky Dorthy , Jones Jennifer , Bennett Susan , Harvie Jennifer , Houston Andrew , Fox Ann 
Published: April 2013

Don B. Wilmeth and Christopher Bigsby, ed., The Cambridge History of American Theatre, Vol II: 1870-1945, reviewed by Barry B. Witham Annemarie Bean, ed., A Sourcebook of African-American Performance: Plays, People, Movements, reviewed by David Krasner Alice Griffin and Geraldine Thorsten, Understanding Lilian Hellman, reviewed by Judith E. Barlow Brenda Murphy, Congressional Theatre: Dramatizing McCarthyism on Stage, Film and Television, reviewed by Jonathan Chamber s Philip Auslander, Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture, reviewed by Dorothy Chansky Tracy C. Davis and Ellen Donkin, eds., Women and Playwritting in Nineteenth-Century Britian, reviewed by Jennifer Jones Dominic Shellard, ed., British Theatre in the 1950s, reviewed by Susan Bennett Dominic Shellard, British Theatre Since the War, reviewed by Susan Bennett Philip Roberts, The Royal Court Theatre and the Modern Stage, reviewed by Susan Bennett Gabriella Giannachi and Mary Luckhurst, ed., On Directing: Interviews with Directors, reviewed by Jennifer Harvie Tim Etchellis, Certain Fragments: Contemporary Performance and Forced Entertainment, reviewed by Andrew Houston Elaine Aston, Feminist Theatre Practice: A Handbook, reviewed by Ann M. Fox
August Wilson, Doubling, Madness, and Modern African-American Drama
Authors: Elam, Jr. Harry 
Published: April 2013

My first association with August Wilson came in the spring of 1987 when I was cast in the Studio Theater's production of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom in Washington, DC. This was the second professional production of the play, and so August Wilson came in from Minneapolis to see the production. It was a hit and ran for over twelve weeks, well into the swelteringly hot and humid DC summer. I played Ma's stuttering nephew, Sylvester. Sylvester's — and my — shining moment occurs well into the second act, when, after unsuccessfully stuttering through two previous attempts to record the intro to the title song, "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," with Ma's coaxing he/I steps trembling up to the mike and produces a stammer-free rendition.[…] Sylvester marks Wilson's first venture into a form of character that becomes a repeated trope in his dramaturgy, one he develops through Gabriel in Fences, Hambone in Two Trains Running, Hedley in Seven Guitars, and Stool Pigeon in King Hedley II: figures who appear mentally or physically handicapped. Paradoxically, in Wilson's works those characters who appear mentally impaired, besieged by madness, unable to grasp the reality of the world around them, represent a connection to a powerful, transgressive spirituality, to a lost African consciousness, and to a legacy of black social activism. By "madness" here I mean a condition within these figures that operates on both symbolic and literal planes. Their madness has both individual and cultural significance; it both constrains and empowers these characters. Unlike the others, Sylvester does not suffer from madness; his sense of consciousness or activism is rather nascent. Nonetheless, his act of delivering the song intro without stuttering is a moment of personal and collective transcendence that benefits the gathered community. As such, it serves as precursor to the redemptive acts and transgressive rituals performed by these other figures in Wilson's subsequent dramas, rituals that will be the focus of this paper.
Book Reviews
Authors: Crow Brian , Dugan James , Gilbert Reid , Worrall Nick , Oppenheim Lois , Kobialka Michal , Rayfield Donald , Hardison Felicia , Senelick Laurence , Stevenson Mariela , Isser Edward 
Published: April 2013

Helen Gilbert, ed., (Post)Colonial Stages: Critical and Creative Views on Drama, Theatre and Performance, reviewed by Brian Crow Anton Wagner, ed., Establishing Our Boundaries: Engligh-Canadian Theatre Criticism, reviewed by James Dugan Ric Knowles, The Theatre of Form and the Production of Meaning: Contemporary Canadian Dramaturgies, reviewed by Reid Gilbert Nicholas Grene, The Polirics of Irish Drama: Plays in Contex from Boucicault to Friel, reviewed by Nick Worrall Katharine Worth, Samuel Beckett's Theatre: Life Journeys, reviewed by Lois Oppenheim Kalina Stefaniva, ed, Eastern European Theater after the Iron Curtain, reviewed by Michal Kobialka Robert Leach and Victor Borovsky, ed.,A History of the Russian Theatre, reviewed by Donald Rayfield Donald Rayfield, Understanding Chekhov: A Critical Study of Chekhov's Prose and Drama, reviewed by Felicia Hardison David Allen, Performing Chekov, reviewed by Laurence Senelick Vivan M. Patraka, Spectacular Suffering: Theatre, Fascism and the Holocaust, reviewed by Mariela Stevenson Anat Feinberg, Embodied Memory: The Theatre of George Tabori, reviewed by Edward Isser
Book Reviews
Authors: Fuegi John , Kerr Rosalind , Scheie Timothy , Taylor Diana , Chambers Jonathan , Kolin Philip , Crandell George , Blood Melanie , Bottoms stephen , Fortier Mark 
Published: April 2013

Carol Martin and Henry Bial, eds., Brecht Sourcbook, reviewed by John Fuegi Joseph Farrell and Antonio Scuderi, eds., Fo: Stage, Text, and Tradition, reviewed by Rosalind Kerr, David Williamd, eds., aborative Theatre: The Thetitre du Soleil Sourcebook, reviewed by Timothy Scheie Jean Graham-Jones, Exorcising History: Argentine Theater under Dictatorship, reviewed by Diana Taylor Stephen A. Marino, ed., "The Salesman Has a Birthday": Essays Celebrating the Fiftieth Anniversary of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, reviewed by Diana Taylor Susan C.W. Abbotson, Student Companion to Arthur Miller, reviewed by Diana Taylor Brenda Murphy and Susan C.W. Abbotson, Understanding Death of a Salesman: A Student Casebook to Issues, reviewed by Jonathan Chambers Albert J. Devlin and Nancy M. Tischler, eds., The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams. Vol I — 1920–1945, reviewed by Philip C. Kolin Philip C. Kolin, Williams: A Streetcar Named Desire, reviewed by George W. Crandell Christopher Bigsby, Contemporary American Playwrights, reviewed by Melanie Blood Gordon Rogoff, Vanishing Acts: Theater since the Sixties., reviewed by Stephen J. Bottoms Bonnie Marranca and Gautam Dashupta eds., Conversations on Art and Petformance, reviewed by Mark Fortier
Introduction: Modernism and Anti-theatricality
Authors: Ackerman Alan 
Published: April 2013

Twenty years ago, Jonas Barish identified a disposition within Western culture that he termed the anti-theatrical prejudice. From the Greeks to the present, he cites instances of a bias against the expressive, the imitative, the deceptive, the spectacular, and the subject that arouses, or even acknowledges, an audience. Exposing the philosophical, moral, and aesthetic assumptions made by the enemies of the theatre throughout the centuries, his Antitheatrical Prejudice sought to fortify theatre's defenses against its detractors. This special issue of Modern Dramo offers a critical appraisal of Barish's seminal study. While indebted to him, the collection argues that Barish's trans-historical notion both of anti-theatricalism and, by extension, of the theatre itself is in need of a number of revisions. By focusing on aspects of modem drama (including its intersections with other cultural forms), the articles that follow insist on a historical grounding of any understanding of anti-theatricalism and therefore explore various forms of a specifically modernist critique of theatre. In doing so, the collection moves beyond Barish's monolithic understanding of "the theatre" and proposes to see modem theatre as a field marked by competing, and often contradictory, impulses and developments, a field in which different theatres are engaged in a contentious struggle with one another.
Book Reviews
Authors: Bank Rosemar , McLaren Joseph , Kolin Philip , Bigsb Christopher , Krasner David , Miller Tice , Cutler Mary , Blackadder Neil , Lee Carrie Kathryn , Aldama Frederick Luis 
Published: April 2013

Roger A. Hall, Performing the American Frontier, 1870-1906, reviewed by Rosemarie K. Bank Susan Duffy, The Political Plays of Langston Hughes, reviewed by Joseph McLaren Robert F. Gross, ed., Tennessee Williams: A Casebook, reviewed by Philip C. Kolin Stephen J. Bottoms, Albee: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, reviewed by Christopher Bigsby Leslie Kane, ed., David Mamet in Conversation, reviewed by David Krasner Leslie Kane, Weasels and Wisemen: Ethics and Ethnicity in the Work of David Mamet, reviewed by David Krasner Gene A. Plunka, The Black Comedy of John Guare, reviewed by Tice L. Miller James Fisher, The Theater of Tony Kushner: Living Past Hope, reviewed by Mary L. Cutler Robert Baker White, The Text in Play: Representations of Rehearsal in Modem Drama, reviewed by Neil Blackadder Anne Bogart, A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theatre, reviewed by Carrie Kathryn Lee Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Dangerous Border Crossers: The Artist Talks Back, reviewed by Frederick Luis Aldama.
Book Reviews
Authors: Chauduri Una , Srinivasan Priya , Smith Brian , Little Edward , Smith Brian , Fox Ann , Chemers Michael , Kerr Rosalind , Gross Robert 
Published: April 2013

Helen Gilbert, ed., Postcolonial Plays: An Anthology, reviewed by Una Chaudhuri Julie Holledge and Joanne Tompkins, Women's Intercultural Performance, reviewed by Priya Srinivasan Susan C. Haedicke and Tobin Nellhaus, ed., Performing Democracy: International Perspectives on Urban Community-Based Performance, reviewed by Brian Smith Eugene Van Erven, Community Theatre: Global Perspectives, reviewed by Edward Little Augusto Boal, Hamlet and the Baker's Son: My Life in Theatre and Politics, reviewed by Brian Smith Susan Crutchfield and Marcy Epstein, ed., Points of Contact: Disability, Art, and Culture, reviewed by Ann M. Fox Rachel Adams, Sideshow U.S.A.: Freaks and the American Cultural Imagination, reviewed by Michael M. Chemers Jill Dolan, Geographies of Learning: Theory and Practice, Activism and Performance, reviewed by Rosalind Kerr Herbert Blau, The Dubious Spectacle: Extremities of Theatre, 1976-2000, reviewed by Robert F. Gross
Book Reviews
Authors: Nelson Robert , Bennett Susan , Bean Kellie , Shepherd-Barr Kristen , De Vos Laurens , HOuston Andrew , Loiselle Andre , Osburn John , Gross Robert 
Published: April 2013

Mark Fortier Theory/Theatre: An Introduction, reviewed by Robin Nelson Peter Buse, Drama + Theory: Critical Approaches to Modern British Drama, reviewed by Susan Bennett Lois Gordon, ed. Pinter at 70: A Casebook, reviewed by Kellie Bean Penelope Prentice The Pinter Ethic: The Erotic Aesthetic 2nd ed., reviewed by Kellie Bean John Fleming, Stoppard’s Theatre: Finding Order amid Chaos, reviewed by Kirsten Shepherd-Barr Katherine E. Kelly, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard, reviewed by Kirsten Shepherd-Barr Graham Saunders, ‘Love Me or Kill Me:’ Sarah Kane and the Theatre of Extremes, reviewed by Laurens De Vos Nick Kaye, Site-Specific Art: Performance, Place and Documentation, reviewed by Andrew Houston Elizabeth Klaver, Performing Television: Contemporary Drama and the Media Culture, reviewed by Andre Loiselle Eckhart Voigts-Virchow, ed., Mediated Drama / Dramatized Media , reviewed by Andre Loiselle Egil Törnqvist, Ibsen, Strindberg and the Intimate Theatre: Studies in TV Presentation, reviewed by John Osburn Egil Törnqvist, Strindberg’s “The Ghost Sonata”, reviewed by Robert F. Gross
Book Reviews
Authors: McKinnie Michael , Hurley Erin , Reinelt Janelle , Crehan Helena , Tait Peta , Defraeye Piet , Eisen Kurt , Bank Rosemarie , Jones Jennifer , Shackelford D. Dean , Frieze James 
Published: April 2013

Alan Filewood, Performing Canada: The Nation Enacted in the Imagined Theatre. Textual Studies in Canada, reviewed by Michael McKinnie, Michael Tremblay, Twelve Opening Acts, reviewed by Erin Hurley Marc Maufort and Franca Bellarsi, eds., Crucible of Cultures: Anglophone Drama at the Dawn of a New Millennium, reviewed by Janelle Reinelt Peta Tait, ed., Body Shawls: Australian Viewings of Live Performance, reviewed by Helena Crehan Helen Grehan, Mapping Cultural Identity in Contemporary Australian Performance, reviewed by Peta Tait Lionel Pilkington, Theatre and the State in Twentieth-Century Ireland: Cultivating the People, reviewed by Piet Defraeye S.E. Wilmer, Theatre, Society and the Nation: Staging American Identities, reviewed by Kurt Eisen David BEasley, McKee Rankin and the Heyday of American Theater, reviewed by Rosemarie K. Bank J. Ellen Gainor, Susan Glaspell in Context: American Theater. Culture, and Politics, 1915-48, reviewed by Jennifer Jones Brena Murphy, O'Neill: Long Day's Journey into Night, reviewed by Kurt Eisen Philip C. Kolin, ed., The Undiscovered Country: The Later Plays of Tennessee Williams, reviewed by D. Dean Shackelford Susan Letzler Cole, Playwrights in Rehearsal: The Seduction of Company, reviewed by James Frieze
Book Reviews
Authors: Sinfield Alan , Goldie Terry , Whyman Rose , Blood Melanie , Carney Sean , Gorman Sarah 
Published: April 2013

David Savran, A Queer Sort of Materialism: Recontextualizing American Theater, reviewed by Alan Sinfield Michael Mangan, Staging Masculinities: History, Gender, Peformance, reviewed by Terry Goldie Peta Tait, Performing Emotions: Gender, Bodies, Spaces, in Chekhov's Drama and Stanislavski's Theatre, reviewed by Rose Whyman Shannon Jackson, Lines of Activity: Performance, Historiography , Hull-House Domesticity, reviewed by Melanie Blood Maria M. Delgado and Caridad Svich, Theatre in Crisis? Performance Manifestos for a New Century, reviewed by Sean Carney Sonja Kuftinec, Staging America: Cornerstone and Community-Based Theater, reviewed by Sarah Gorman
Book Reviews
Authors: Carlson Marvin , Farfan Penny , Shaughnessy Nicola , Ferris Lesley , Werry Margaret , Gross Robert 
Published: April 2013

Tracy C. Davis and Thomas Postlewait, Theatricality, reviewed by Marvin Carlson Jennifer Jones, Medea's Daughters: Forming and Performing the Woman Who Kills, reviewed by Penny Farfan Sarah Bay-Cheng, Mama Dada: Gertrude Stein's Avant-Garde Theater, reviewed by Nicola Shaughnessy Lynn C. Miller, Jacqueline Taylor, and Heather Carver, eds.,Voices Made Flesh: Performing Women's Autobiography, reviewed by Lesley Ferris Ian Watson, Negotiating Cultures: Eugenio Barba and the Intercultural Debate, reviewed by Margaret Werry Stacy Wolf, A Problem Like Maria: Gender and Sexuality in the American Musical, reviewed by Robert F. Gross
Book Reviews
Authors: Morash Chris , Holdsworth Nadine , Bhatia Nandi , Roach Joseph , Grossman Elwira , Eisen Kurt , Baker-White Robert , Krasner David , Sofer Andrew 
Published: April 2013

Joan Fitzpatrick Dean, Riot and Great Anger: Stage Censorship in Twentieth-Century Ireland, reviewed by Chris Morash Steve Nicholson, The Censorship of British Drama 1900–1968, reviewed by Nadine Holdsworth Gabriele Griffin, Contemporary Black and Asian Women Playwrights in Britain, reviewed by Nandi Bhatia Jane R. Goodall, Performance and Evolution in the Age of Darwin: Out of the Natural Order, reviewed by Joseph Roach Wlodzimierz Staniewski with Alison Hodge, Hidden Territories: The Theatre of Gardzienice, reviewed by Elwira M. Grossman Barry B. Witham., The Federal Theatre Project: A Case Study, reviewed by Kurt Eisen, Konstantinos Blatanis, Popular Culture Icons in Contemporary American Drama, reviewed by Robert Baker-White Andrea Most, Making Americans: Jews and the Broadway Musical, reviewed by David Krasner Philip C. Kolin, ed., The Tennessee Williams Encyclopedia, reviewed by Andrew Sofer
Book Reviews
Authors: LoMonaco Martha , Watson Ian , Owens Craig , Brask  , Harvie Jen , D'Cruz Glenn , Grace Jeff 
Published: April 2013

Brenda Murphy, The Provincetown Players and the Culture of Modernity, reviewed by Martha S. LoMonaco, Julia A. Walker, Expressionism and Modernism in the American Theatre: Bodies, Voices, Words, reviewed by Martha S. LoMonaco Jonathan Pitches, Science and the Stanislavsky Tradition of Acting, reviewed by Ian Watson John Pilling, A Samuel Beckett Chronology, reviewed by Craig N. Owens Mary Luckhurst, Dramaturgy: A Revolution in Theatre, reviewed by P.K. Brask Baz Kershaw, Since 1895. Vol. 3 of The Cambridge History of British Theatre, reviewed by Jen Harvie L.M. Bogad, Electoral Guerilla Theatre: Radical Ridicule and Social Movements, reviewed by Glenn D’Cruz Aparna Bhargava Dharwadker, Theatres of Independence: Drama, Theory, and Urban Performance in India since 1947, reviewed by Jeff D. Grace
Book Reviews
Authors: Garner, Jr. Stanton , Singleton Brian , Wilson Ann , Emeljanow Victor , Kuppers Petra , Robb David , Fuentes Marcela , Johnston Kristy , Moller Lorraine 
Published: April 2013

Benjamin Bennett All Theater Is Revolutionary Theater, reviewed by Stanton B. Garner, Jr. Neil Blackadder, Performing Opposition: Modern Theater And The Scandalized Audience, reviewed by Brian Singleton Penny Farfan, Women, Modernism, And Performance, reviewed by Ann Wilson John Mccormick, in Collaboration With Clodagh Mccormick And John Phillips, The Victorian Marionette Theatre, reviewed by Victor Emeljanow Vicky Ann Cremona, Peter Eversmann, Hans Van Maanen, Willmar Sauter, And John Tulloch, eds., Theatrical Events: Borders, Dynamics, Frames, reviewed by Richard Fotheringham Nicolas Whybrow, Street Scenes: Brecht, Benjamin And Berlin, reviewed by Petra Kuppers Ralf E. Remshardt, Staging The Savage God: The Grotesque In Performance, reviewed by David Robb Daniel M. Goldstein, The Spectacular City: Violence And Performance In Urban Bolivia, reviewed by Marcela A. Fuentes Richard Boon And Jane Plastow, eds., Theatre And Empowerment: Community Drama On The World Stage, reviewed by Kirsty Johnston Michael Balfour, ed., Theatre In Prison: Theory And Practice, reviewed by Lorraine F. Moller
The Tragic Vision of Ibsen’s Rosmersholm
Authors: Van Laan Thomas 
Published: April 2013

Rosmersholm has a readily perceptible line of action that takes Rosmer and Rebecca step by step toward going ‘‘the same way that Beata went’’ (398/547, 436/582),1 although we may not be sure how some of these individual steps work precisely. Early on, Rosmer still cannot walk on the bridge from which his wife Beata threw herself into the mill-race, and he is not eager to tell Kroll about his changed views on social, political, and religious matters, but he insists that he is entirely at ease concerning Beata’s death and Kroll’s hostile reaction. His tranquillity is shattered during Act Two by the new information about Beata that Kroll and Mortensgard provide and by Rebecca’s shocking response to his proposal of marriage. Rosmer, as he emphatically insists to Rebecca, is now overcome with guilt and convinced that he will never be able to fulfil his dream of creating an ideal social and political order in the land by ennobling all those capable of intellectual and spiritual growth. Kroll’s probing of Rebecca’s age and origins in Act Three shatters her sense of well-being as well. This apparently makes her more responsive to Rosmer’s suffering, for she promises to restore him to his happy state of innocence and then confesses that he should feel no guilt for Beata’s suicide because it was she who caused it by luring Beata into it. Rather than having its intended effect, Rebecca’s confession destroys Rosmer’s dream and puts both him and her in deep despair. In an attempt to free himself from despair, Rosmer demands proof from Rebecca of her love for him and faith in him and of his having fulfilled his dream at least to the extent of ennobling her. This proof is her going to her death in the mill-race, and when she agrees to do it, he decides to join her. But what are we to make of this line of action? How are we to get to the bottom of it?
Book Reviews
Authors: Bails Jane , Jurs-Munby Karen , Aston Elain , Wood Nicholas , Mathews  
Published: April 2013

Jill Dolan, Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope at the Theater, reviewed by Sara Jane Bailes David Barnett, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and the German Theatre, reviewed by Karen Jurs-Munby Dimple Godiwala, Queer Mythologies: The Original Stageplays of Pam Gems, reviewed by Elaine Aston Jinnie Schiele, Off-Centre Stages: Fringe Theatre at the Open Space and the Round House 1968–1983, reviewed by Nicholas Wood James Moran, Staging the Easter Rising: 1916 as Theatre, reviewed by P.J. Mathews
Book Reviews
Authors: Griffith  , Wellwarth George , Kuhn George Ross Ridge , Ganz Arthur , Ruhl Klaus 
Published: April 2013

Winifred L. Dusenbury, The Theme Of Loneliness In Modern American Drama, reviewed by E. E. Grffith Bertolt Brecht, Seven Plays, reviewed by George Wellwarth MLaurence Kitchin, Mid-Century Drama, reviewed by George Ross Ridge Martin Esslin, The Theatre Of The Absurd, , reviewed by Reinhard Kuhn David E. Jones, The Plays Of T. S. Eliot, reviewed by Arthur Ganz Walter Hinck, Die Dramaturgie Des Spli.Ten Brecht, , reviewed by Klaus Ruhl