AMERICAN DRAMA


Drama was the last of the literary types to which American writers have made a significant
contribution. It was not until the 1920s, when Eugene O´Neill started to write his plays, that
America produces a playwright of its own, with a distinctive American voice.

However, theater productions and performances were not completely new to American life. Colonial
Americans enjoyed plays, and after the American revolution theatres opened throughout the east
coast. Until the 20th century, American drama imitated English and European theatre. Most plays
were imported (Shakespeare, classical plays). The most frequent and popular genres were heroic
tragedies, melodramas, and farces. 19th century theatres had a large capacity – for 2 to 3 thousand
people. The average performance from 6 p.m. to midnight, with miscellaneous programme: farce,
cabaret, Shakespeare, spectecular show. People went to theatre for entertainment. As the 19th
century went on, the activity became centred more and more in New York – within a few blocks, known
as Broadway.

American drama was based on the „star system“ in which actors and actresses, rather than the actual
plays, were given most acclaim. That is why the American theatre had many fine actors, and no great
playwrights, and why the genuine American drama developed so slowly.


Musicals: this genre developed and was refined in the United States, particularly in the theatres
along Broadway

    in New York City, during the first half of the 20th century. Elements of jazz and blues were
utilized by

    composers during the 30s. Some of famous composers: George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter (Kiss
Me Kate),

    Leonard Bernstein (West Side Story), John Kander (Cabaret), Andrew Lloyd Webber (Jesus Christ
Superstar)


Eugene O´Neill (1888-1953) was the first major American dramatist, the only playwright to win the
Nobel Prize

    for Literature (1936). He wrote more than 30 plays. His earlier dramas concern the working
class and the poor.

    Later works explore subjective realms, such as obsessions and sex. O´Neill experimented with
the dramatic

    structure, stage techniques, symbolic devices and new production methods available through
technology (e.g.

    lightning). He made his characters wear masks to indicate shadings of personality. He split one
character

    between two actors. He introduced choruses as in ancient Greek tragedies to comment on the
play´s action.

    Most famous plays: The Hairy Ape (1922), Desire Under the Elms (1924), Mourning Becomes Electra
(1931)

Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) achieved success as both a novelist and a playwright. His plays are
usually based

    on allegories and myths. Due to his Christian humanistic philosophy, he believed in the power
of love and

    understanding among people. Our Town, an experimental play about small-town American life

Tennessee Williams (1911-83) was a Southerner by birth. His work focused on disturbed emotions and

    unresolved sexualities within families. Williams was known for a poetic Southern diction, weird
Gothic

    settings, and Freudian exploration of sexual desire. He used a great deal of symbolism. (He was
one of the

    first American writers to live openly as a homosexual). Williams wrote more than 20 plays, many
of them

    autobiographical: The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Arthur Miller (1915), his plays are realistic, dealing with the serious moral and social problems
of his time.

    Most of his works are concerned with the responsibility of each individual to other people.
Death of a

    Salesman, The Crucible, A View from the Bridge.

Edward Albee (1928) was influenced by the European „Theater of the Absurd“ movement of the 50s and
60s.

    Absurdist drama reduces language to a game and minimazes its communicative power, emphasizes
the

    difficulty of communication, reduces characters to archetypes, and views the world as
alienating and

    imcomprehensible. Albee´s plays are full of illogical and irrational elements. The Zoo Story
(one-act play),

    The American Dream, Who´s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Sam Shepard (1943), experimental playwight and actor. He is best known for three plays about
dysfunctional

    families in the American Midwest: Buried Child, True West and Fool for Love. He concentrates on
masculine

    violence and the destructive effects of family relations. His plays frequently idealise
outsider figures who live

    by their own rules and die young.

August Wilson (1945), Afro-American playwright, his plays deal with the conflict between blacks who
accept

    mainstream American culture and those who want to embrace their African heritage. Fences, The
Piano

    Lesson


Contemporary playwrights: Marsha Norman, Tony Kushner, David Henry Hwang (Chinese American), David
Mamet, Suzan-Lori Parks (African American), Lilian Hellman, Landford Willson


Sources:

Lauter, Paul (ed.). The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Volume 2. Lexington: D. C. Heath
and Company, 1994