The theatre of naturalism
Subtitle: disappearing act
By: Philip Beitchman
Series: Currents in comparative Romance languages and literatures -- v. 185
Publisher: Peter Lang
Published: 2011
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 139
ISBN-13: 9781433112973
Subjects: Drama; Naturalism in literature; History and criticism
Other titles: Theater of naturalism
Description: The impact of naturalism, a literary approach invented by Zola and especially significant in the field of the novel through his American ±disciples» Crane, Norris, and Dreiser, is well acknowledged and recognized. Not so well recognized, but equally important, is naturalistic theatre; this was a style that also originated with Zola, but its progeny was more international and its significance more radical and insurrectionary than in the less ±spectacular» genre of fiction. The Theatre of Naturalism: Disappearing Act establishes the incipiently revolutionary context (between the Paris Communist Commune, crushed in 1871, and the successful Bolshevik insurrection of October 1917) {u2013} more or less foregrounded or in the background of works by Zola, Strindberg, Ibsen, Hauptmann, Synge, Shaw, and Tolstoy, focused especially on issues of class struggle and class war, as well as the prospects and possibilities of challenging the hegemony of the ruling orders. Especially in regard to later theatre, for instance the ±hypernaturalism» of The Brig (Living Theatre) of Kenneth Brown, and of plays by Arnold Wesker and David Storey {u2013} Philip Beitchman frequently invokes themes culled from recent French theory, particularly Derrida{u2019}s deconstruction and Baudrillard{u2019}s ideas about simulation. The Theatre of Naturalism will open up new perspectives for anyone interested in theory or theatre, whether scholars or the wider theatre-loving or performing public.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction : ushering in the spectacle; title: The mirror stage : Thérèse Raquin (Zola); title: The return of the repressed : Ghosts (Ibsen); title: The nature of the beast : The power of darkness (Tolstoy); title: The dialectic of the master and the slave : Miss Julie (Strindberg); title: The war between the classes : The weavers (Hauptmann); title: In the country of the blind : The lower depths (Gorky); title: A living like any other : Mrs. Warren's profession (Shaw); title: A naturalist symbolism : Riders to the sea (Synge); title: Living history : Chicken soup with barley (Wesker); title: Living theatre : The brig (Brown); title: "Like a neutron bomb of the mind" : a digression on Bernard Stiegler; title: On the side of the object : The contractor, The changing room (Storey).