Book dossier

The other American drama

by Robinson, Marc

The Other American Drama proposes an alternative to the received history of American drama, the Eugene O'Neill-Arthur Miller-August Wilson line of development so familiar to readers of standard drama surveys. Marc Robinson begins his book with a study of Gertrude Stein, whose prolific career as a playwright has been unjustly overshadowed by that of O'Neill. Subsequent essays rethink familiar figures such as Tennessee Williams and Sam Shepard, and make the case for such hitherto undervalued writers as Maria Irene Fornes, Adrienne Kennedy, and Richard Foreman. An afterword suggests new directions in the work of several younger playwrights. Robinson shows how these writers direct attention away from plots, experiment with form, redefine emotion and psychology, and search for the essences of theatrical notions usually taken for granted, such as presence, speech, and movement. This book is the first to discuss Stein, Fornes, Kennedy, and Foreman in this way - as essential members of modern American theater rather than as curious fringe figures. Taken together, these essays trace the evolution of a truly innovative American drama.