Dismemberment in Drama / Dismemberment of Drama is an essay collection which considers the dramatic possibility contained in the images and narratives of dismemberment frequently recurring on the western stage. The Classical Tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides, the Romanticism of Kleist, the surrealism of Artaud, and the contemporary drama of Suzan-Lori Parks and Marina Carr are just some of the fractured and fragmented bodies analyzed in this collection. Both individually and in concert the contributors ask what a dismembered body means. Such an inquiry allows them to confront dismemberment as a theoretical category which understands such twentieth-century innovations as the Theatre of Cruelty, the Epic Theatre, the Open Theater, and documentary theatre as part of a long dramatic tradition. Dismemberment in drama examines the tenuous bond between representation and the object being represented by highlighting the dismemberment of drama as a form that occurs during drama’s repeated theorizations of its own enactment. There is a conflict between disintegration and unity inherent in mimesis, theatrical phenomenology, and performance.

"This study has essentially two focuses, two stories to tell. One story traces the secularization, theatricalization, and uncanny returns of suppressed religious culture in early modern drama. The other story concerns the tendency of the theater to expose contingencies and gaps in politico-judicial practices of spectacular violence." "The investigation covers a broad range of plays dating from the fifteenth century to the closing of the theatres in 1642; however, three chapters are devoted to extensive analysis of single plays: R.B.'s Apius and Virginia, Shakespeare's 2 Henry VI, and Marlowe's Doctor Faustus."--Jacket.

The medieval and early modern English imaginary encompasses a broad range of negative and positive dismemberments, from the castration anxieties of Turk plays to the elite practices of distributive burial. This study argues that representations and instances of bodily fragmentation illustrated and performed acts of exclusion and inclusion, detaching not only limbs from bodies but individuals from identity groups. Within this context it examines questions of legitimate and illegitimate violence, showing that such distinctions largely rested upon particular acts’ assumed symbolic meanings. Specific chapters address ways dismemberments manifested gender, human versus animal nature, religious and ethnic identity, and social rank. The book concludes by examining the afterlives of body parts, including relics and specimens exhibited for entertainment and education, contextualized by discussion of the resurrection body and its promise of bodily reintegration. Grounded in dramatic works, the study also incorporates a variety of genres from midwifery manuals to broadside ballads.

This study considers a broad range of plays dating from the fifteenth century to the closing of the theaters in 1642; however, seperate chapters are devoted to extensive analysis ofApius and Virginia,2 Henry VI, andDoctor Faustus.

The essays in Talking Drama ask what the relation is between drama and its critics. In so far as we conceive of drama and theatre as arising from and providing some sense of social ritual and comment, drama is itself a critical genre, showing up the foibles and problems of human existence as well as the general hubris and errors of society. Plays both constitute criticism--of society, of ideas, of other plays--and deploy such self-critical gambits as plays within plays, characters who watch other characters, characters feigning roles and personalities, and even the overt inclusion of characters who are critics. Plays, thus, comment both on themselves and on the art of theatre generally. At the same time, drama implies other kinds of critics in the guise of the audience, reviewers, and those who might participate in its ideas. Just as plays produce the seeds of their own critique, so they also spur critique of their aesthetics, the artistry of their performance, and the ideas and conflicts they illustrate. Critics who review play performances are as much an intrinsic part of theatrical events as the audience and the plays themselves.

An essential volume for theater artists and students alike, this anthology includes the full texts of sixteen important examples of avant-garde drama from the most daring and influential artistic movements of the first half of the twentieth century, including Symbolism, Futurism, Expressionism, Dada, and Surrealism. Each play is accompanied by a bio-critical introduction by the editor, and a critical essay, frequently written by the playwright, which elaborates on the play’s dramatic and aesthetic concerns. A new introduction by Robert Knopf and Julia Listengarten contextualizes the plays in light of recent critical developments in avant-garde studies. By examining the groundbreaking theatrical experiments of Jarry, Maeterlinck, Strindberg, Artaud, and others, the book foregrounds the avant-garde’s enduring influence on the development of modern theater.