1、American DramaDrama,literature intended for performance,written by Americans in the English language.American drama begins in the American colonies in the 17th century and continues to the present.1.British influence:Most American plays of the 18th and 19th centuries strongly reflected British influ
2、ence.American drama had begun to diverge from British drama by the time of Andrew Jacksons presidency,from 1828 to 1836.British plays,which typically reflected the attitudes and manners of the upper classes,were by then in conflict with more egalitarian American values.British influence continued an
3、d most American plays copied British models until the early 20th century.For this reason some critics claim that American drama was not born until the end of World War I(1914-1918).2.Realism dominated American drama:By the end of the 19th century American drama was moving steadily toward realism,ill
4、uminating the rough or seamy side of life and creating more believable characters.Realism remained the dominant trend of the 20th century in both comedies and tragedies.American drama achieved international recognition with the psychological realism of plays by Eugene ONeill and their searing invest
5、igation of characters inner lives.As the century advanced,the number of topics considered suitable for drama broadened to encompass race,gender,sexuality,and death.The Modern Era:The 20th Century and Beyond Realism continued to be a primary form of dramatic expression in the 20th century,even as exp
6、erimentation in both the content and the production of plays became increasingly important.Such renowned American playwrights as Eugene ONeill,Tennessee Williams,and Arthur Miller reached profound new levels of psychological realism,commenting through individual characters and their situations on th
7、e state of American society in general.As the century progressed,the most powerful drama spoke to broad social issues,such as civil rights and the AIDS crisis,and the individuals position in relation to those issues.Individual perspectives in mainstream theater became far more diverse and more close
8、ly reflected the increasingly complex demographics of American society.From World War I to World War II:1914-1939 With World War I,European developments in modern drama arrived on the American stage in force.A host of American playwrights were intent on experimenting with dramatic style and form whi
9、le also writing serious sociopolitical commentary.From this time forward Britains influence,although never absent,became much less important to American drama.One of the first groups to promote new American drama was the Provincetown Players,founded in 1915 in Provincetown,Massachusetts.The play Tri
10、fles(1916)by Susan Glaspell,a subtle study in sexism,was among its first productions.The company was headed by Glaspells husband,George Cram Cook,but its star was Eugene ONeill,the most experimental of American playwrights in the 1920s.ONeills The Hairy Ape(1922)was one of the first plays to introdu
11、ce expressionism in America.Expressionism was a movement in the visual,literary,and performing arts that developed in Germany in the early 20th century,in part in reaction against realism.Expressionism emphasized subjective feelings and emotions rather than a detailed or objective depiction of reali
12、ty.The Hairy Ape depicts a rejected ship laborer(stoker)who feels he belongs nowhere until he confronts an ape in a zoo.He sets the caged animal free only to be destroyed by it.American expressionism was distinguished from its German forebears by a searching focus on the inner life of the central ch
13、aracter,whose detailed depiction is in stark contrast to all other characters.The most famous example of American expressionism is The Adding Machine(1923)by Elmer Rice,a play that focuses on the emotional journey of the leading character,Mr.Zero,after he is replaced at his job by an adding machine.
14、Rice was the first playwright to demonstrate silent films influence on theater in On Trial(1914),which borrowed the flashback technique.Some of the most novel expressionist experiments employed collage-like scenic effects and cacophonous musical and sound techniques to explore social issues.Postwar
15、Drama:1945-1960 During World War II(1939-1945)little drama of note appeared that was neither escapist fare nor wartime propaganda.With the end of hostilities,however,two playwrights emerged who would dominate dramatic activity for the next 15 years or so:Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams.Miller c
16、ombined realistic characters and a social agenda while also writing modern tragedy,most notably in Death of a Salesman(1949),a tale of the life and death of the ordinary working man Willy Loman.Millers The Crucible(1953),a story about the 17th-century Salem witch trials,was a parable for a hunt for
17、Communists in the 1950s led by Senator Joseph R.McCarthy.Tennessee Williams,one of Americas most lyrical dramatists,contributed many plays about social misfits and outsiders.In A Streetcar Named Desire(1947),a neurotic,impoverished Southern woman fights to maintain her illusions of gentility when fo
18、rced to confront the truth about her life by her sisters working-class husband.Williamss Cat on a Hot Tin Roof(1955),which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama,similarly focused on pretense and its destructiveness and destruction in an unhappy family.Glass MenagerieEugene ONeill(1888-1953)unquestionably
19、 Americas greatest playwright.won the Pulitzer Prize four times the only dramatist ever to win a Nobel Prize(1936).widely acclaimed founder of the American drama.His life and writing career ONeill was born in New York on October 16,1888 into a theatrical family.He grew up in New London,Connecticut,a
20、nd spent his early years with his parents on theatrical road tours.He received university education for one year and later traveled all over the world.He avidly read up on dramatic literature,and cultivated an interest in play writing.In 1914,he attended Professor George Pierce Bakers drama workshop
21、 at Harvard,where his career as a dramatist began.Since then,ONeill had been wholly dedicated to the mission as a dramatist.His major plays ONeill wrote and published about forty-nine plays altogether of various lengths.1.He wrote some one-act melodramatic plays at first,including Bound East for Car
22、diff(1916),which describes the dying sailor Yank and his dream about the security and peace which could never exist.first full-length play,Beyond the Horizon,made a great hit and won him the first Pulitzer Prize.explores what happens when two men love the same woman and the compromises each will mak
23、e to have her.it signaled a change in American drama.Critics and audiences responded favorably to ONeills dark,tragic vision,which contrasted sharply with the unrealistic,melodramatic plays of the day.The play drew heavily on ONeills own experiences,including his tuberculosis and his sea voyages.Dur
24、ing one of these sea trips,he met a Norwegian sailor who criticized his choice of going to sea as opposed to staying on his familys farm.Taking this idea as a starting point,ONeill crafted a tale of missed opportunities and failed dreams,involving two brothers.Robert,a poetic but sickly dreamer,want
25、s to go to sea to strengthen his health and see the world.His brother,Andrew,is a born farmer who wants nothing more than to work on his familys farm.Because they love the same woman,both brothers choose to go against their natures.Robert stays on the farm,and Andrew goes to sea.Theme:the choice bet
26、ween life and death,the interaction of subjective and objective factors This theme is dramatized more explicitly in The Straw(1921)and Anna Christie(1921).Anna Christie is more of a success because it deploys the developing complexity of ONeills personal vision,showing us that life is a closed circl
27、e of possibilities from which it is impossible to escape.Between 1920 and 1924 came his prominent achievements in symbolic expressionism:The Emperor Jones(1920)The Hairy Ape(1922),All Gods Children Got Wings(1924)Desire Under the Elms(1924)These plays are daring forays into race relations,class conf
28、licts,sexual bondage,social critiques,and American tragedies on the Greek model.What is more,the expressionistic techniques are used in these plays to highlight the theatrical effect of the rupture between the two sides of an individual human being,the private and the public.Built on the success of
29、these expressionistic experimentations,ONeill reached out to extend his mastery of the stage and worked up to the summit of his career.The Hairy Ape Characters seek meaning and purpose in their lives through love or religion or revenge.The result is disappointment or despair.Uses Expressionism The H
30、airy Ape concerns the problem of modern mans position.Yanks sense of belonging nowhere is a typical of the mood of isolation and alienation in the early twentieth century in the US and the whole world as well.He concerned himself with some non-realistic forms to contain his tragic vision in a number
31、 of his plays,such as The Great God Brown(l926),which fuses symbolism,poetry,and the affirmation of a pagan idealism to show how materialistic civilization denies the life-giving impulses and destroys the genuine artist,and Lazarus Laughed(1927),which makes full use of the Bible,Greek choruses,Eliza
32、bethan tirades,expressionist masks,populous crowd scenes,and orchestrate laughter.With the winning of the third Pulitzer Prize for Strange Interlude(l928),ONeill consolidated his experience of two decades of playwriting and paved the way to the honor of the Nobel Prize in 1936.Late in his life,he pr
33、oduced the best and greatest plays of the modern American theater.The Iceman Cometh(l946)proves to be a masterpiece in the way it is a complex,ironic,deeply moving exploration of human existence,written out of a profound insight into human nature and constructed with tremendous skill and logic.Long
34、Days Journey Into Night(1956)can be read autobiographically.The action covers a fateful,heart-rending day from around 8:30 a.m.to midnight,in August 1912 at the seaside Connecticut home of the Tyrones-the autobiographical representations of ONeill himself,his older brother,and their parents at their
35、 home,Monte Cristo Cottage.The theme of the play is addiction and the dysfunction of the family.All three males are alcoholic and Mary is addicted to morphine.They all constantly conceal,blame,resent,regret,accuse and deny in an escalating cycle of conflict with occasional desperate and half sincere
36、 attempts at affection,encouragement and consolation.James Tyrone The husband of Mary and the father of Jamie and Edmund,he was once a famous actor who toured the U.S.with his wife.Because his Irish father abandoned him at age 10,forcing him to work immediately to support himself,he has a strong wor
37、k ethic and an appreciation for money that leads to strong financial prudence-bordering on stinginess.Mary Tyrone-The wife of Tyrone and mother of Jamie and Edmund,she struggles from a morphine addiction that has lasted over two decades.While she has broken the addiction several times,she always res
38、umes her morphine use after spending more time with her family.She is on morphine in each scene of the play,and her use increases steadily as the day wears on.Although she loves Tyrone,she oftentimes regrets marrying him because of the dreams she had to sacrifice of becoming a nun or a concert piani
39、st.Jamie Tyrone -The elder Tyrone son,he is in his early thirties.Because he squanders money on booze and women,he has to rely on his parents for support.He dropped out of several colleges and has very little ambition,much to the dismay of his parents.Edmund Tyrone-The younger Tyrone son,he is ten y
40、ears younger than Jamie.An intellectual and romantic dreamer,he learns during the play that he is afflicted with consumption(tuberculosis),which means that he will have to spend up to a year in a sanatorium.Like his brother and father,he is partially alcoholic,and he has a tendency to squander money
41、,although he works harder than Jamie.Mary always holds out hope that he will become a success one day.However,like most great works of literature,the play reaches beyond its immediate subject,dedicated not only to the life of the American family,but also to the life of Man,to Life itself.As a produc
42、t of hard-won art,Long Days Journey Into Night has gained its status as a world classic and simultaneously marks the climax of ONeills literary career and the coming of age of American drama.Themes ONeill is always remembered for his tragic view of life and most of his plays deal with the basic issu
43、es of human existence and predicament:life and death,illusion and disillusion,alienation and communication,dream and reality,self and society,desire and frustration,etc.His characters in the plays are described as seeking meaning and purpose in their lives in different ways,some through love,some th
44、rough religion,others through revenge,but all meet disappointment and despair.As a playwright,ONeill himself was constantly wrestling with these issues and struggling with the perplexity about the truth of life.He was searching for an answer both psychologically and artistically,and his dramatic tho
45、ught followed a tragic pattern running through all his plays,from a celebration and exaltation of pipe dreams,the romantic dream so to speak,to the doubt about the reality of the dream or the inevitability of the defeat.So,his final dramas became transcendental,in the way that the dramatization of m
46、ans effort in finding the secret of life results in a reconciliation with the tragic impossibility.A pipe dream is a fantastic hope or plan that is generally regarded as being nearly impossible to achieve.ONeills experimentations in dramatic art ONeills inventiveness seemingly knew no limits.He was
47、constantly experimenting with new styles and forms for his plays.(1)He introduced the realistic or even the naturalistic aspect of life into the American theater.He borrowed freely from the best traditions of European dramas,be it Greek tragedies,or the realism of Ibsen,or the expressionism of Strin
48、gberg,and fused them into the organic of his own.In those expressionistic plays,abstract and symbolic stage sets are used to set off against the emotional inner selves and subjective states of mind;lighting and music are employed to convey the changes of mood.(2)He borrowed freely from modern litera
49、ry techniques such as the stream-of-consciousness device with the help of which he managed to reveal the emotional and psychological complexities of modern man.He made use of setting and stage property to help in his dramatic representation(3)As to his language,ONeill frequently wrote the lines in d
50、ialect,or spelled words in ways which indicate a particular accent or manner of speech.This,sometimes,makes his plays difficult to read,but when they are spoken aloud,the sense becomes clear and the meaning is amplified by the accent.ONeills ceaseless experimentation enriched American drama and infl
