The death of character : perspectives on theater after modernism
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The death of character : perspectives on theater after modernism
（Drama and performance studies）
Indiana University Press, c1996
- : cl
- : pa
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Note
Bibliographical references: p. 199-217
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
What makes this book exceptional is Fuchs' acute rehearsal of the stranger unnerving events of the last generation that have in the cross-reflections of theory determined our thinking about theater. She seems to have seen and absorbed them all. - Herbert Blau, Center for Twentieth Century Studies, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. A work of bold theoretical ambition and exceptional critical intelligence. - Una Chaudhuri, New York University...Fuchs makes an exceptionally lucid and eloquent case for the value and contradictions in postmodern theater. - Alice Rayner, Stanford University. Surveying the extraordinary scene of the postmodern American theater, Fuchs boldly frames key issues of subjectivity and performance with the keenest of critical eyes for the compelling image and the telling gesture. - Joseph Roach, Tulane University. In this engrossing study, Elinor Fuchs explores the multiple worlds of theater after modernism. She begins with the story of the decline of character, once the central link between the artist and the spectator. In theatrical modernism Fuchs sees a series of strategies to compensate for this decline.
Postmodern theater no longer greets the demotion of character with anxiety, despair, or satisfaction as in Pirandello, Beckett, or Brecht but puts in its stead a multiple subject, a protean spectator, and a dispersed field of attention. These changes are reflected in the dramaturgy, staging, gender representations, and audience expectations of contemporary theater. While "The Death of Character" engages contemporary cultural and aesthetic theory, Elinor Fuchs always speaks as an active theater critic. Nine of her Village Voice and American Theatre essays conclude the volume. They give an immediate, vivid account of contemporary theater and theatrical culture written from the front of rapid cultural change.
Table of Contents
Introduction Part I: Modern Retrospect 1. Character: Its Rise and Fall 2. The Mysterium and the Re-Allegorization of Modern Drama 3. Reading Against the Grain Part II: Theater After Modernism 4. Signalling Through the Signs: Thinking Theater After Derrida 5. Play as Landscape: Another Version of Pastoral 6. Staging the Obscene Body 7. Theater as Shopping 8. Postmodernism and the OSceneO of Theater Reviews and Articles 1979ETH1993: Accounts of an Emerging Aesthetic 1979 Des McAnuffOs Leave it to Beaver is Dead Richard SchechnerOs The Balcony 1982 Andrei SerbanOs The Marriage of Figaro 1983 The Death of Character 1985 Peter SellarsOs The Count of Monte Cristo 1986 Robert WilsonOs Alcestis 1988 Elizabeth LeCompte and The Wooster GroupOs Frank DellOs The Temptation of Saint Antony 1989 Misunderstanding Postmodernism: Joanne AkalaitisOs Cymbeline 1993 The AIDS Quilt and The Performance of Mourning
by "Nielsen BookData"
