Publisher's Synopsis
This book is a critical exploration of the public issues and private tensions dialectic that seems central to American drama and theatre since 1945. The 17 essays use as a critical point of departure the delicate moral balance between the civic function of the theatre and its relationship to the spirit of the individual. These essays, nine of which appear here for the first time, consider such playwrights as Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, Lillian Hellman, Sam Shepard, David Mamet, David Rabe, Lanford Wilson, Wallace Shawn, Megan Terry, Denise Hamilton, Maria Irene Fornes, Arthur Kopit, Emily Mann, Israel Horovitz, Charles Fuller and others. Some of the contributors, moreover, address questions of performance theory, audience reception, semiotics and theatre and feminist ideology.
