Hama Lakhdar University of Eloued

Faculty of Arts and foreign Languages

Department of English

Teacher: Mega Afaf

Subject: Contemporary American Literature/ Master 01

Course Title: Drama

AN OVERVIEW ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN DRAMA

The early beginnings of the American drama go back to the early native
American tribes that performed events, in addition to the plays written by
European-born authors (Spaniards, Frenchmen,Englishmen).

Drama in America had a slow start. In the early years of the colonies'
settlement drama was not accepted. It was seen as immoral and outright.
Besides, most of the drama were brought over from Europe including classic
such as Shakespeare.

The birth of the professional theatre in America may have begun when
Lewis Hallan arrived with his theatrical company in Williams Burg in 1752.
Lewisand his brother William were the first to organize a complete company of
actors in Europe and bring them to the colonies. They bought a repertoire of
plays that were popular in London at the time, including Hamlet, Othelo,
RichardIV. The first American mounted play goes with Thomas Godfrey’s play
“The Prince of Parthia” in 1767.

The American Revolution had shed with its light on the theatrical scenery
infusing it with plays for heroism, satire and political debates. Nevertheless,
there were no professional dramatists until William Dunlap whose work as
playwright, translator, manager and theatre historian has earned him the title
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‘Father of American Drama’. With him, the amateur Royal Tyler (1757-1826)
who produced a piece of play worth to be noted “The Contrast” in 1787. Though
he was influenced by European theatres, the American character was present in
his play.

By the late eighteenth century and nineteenth century, ethnic theatres

existed. They were established by the first settlers like the French and the
Italians. Their existence brought new plays and theatres increased within the
Jacksonian era (1820’s-1830’s). Thus, during the antibellum years, with new
immigrants pouring into America, theatres appeared for each group: Italian
American, Swedish American, Irish American, Ukranian American, Norwegian
American which each group of them appealed to their own sensibilities and
culture. As an example, the staging of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s
Cabin brought into light issues of race and ethnicity ( Sbteir, 2005).

It is to note that within the same era, the first native American theatre
which features Americans first appeared with John Augustus Stone’s Metamora
(1829). Ultimately, after the Civil war, and with the rising immigration of the
new plays portrayed the new realities on immigrants’ life, thus, emphasis on
realism was noted. However, the influence of the European drama still shows up
in these plays up to the late nineteenth century (ibid).

Among these ethnic theatres, the Yiddish theatre comes to be the most
prominent from ethnic theatres in late nineteenth century. Jewish immigrants
brought the most experienced theatrical tradition from Europe and creating at
the same time a highly theatrical style. The poet and lyricist Russian-born
Abraham Goldfaden (1840-1908) was known as the father of the Yiddish theatre
who introduced Yiddish drama into the realm of literature (ibid).

By the 19th century, though most dramas were imitations of European

melodrama, they were native in content, appealing to popular nationalism by

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dramatizing current events and portraying American heroism. By the end of the
19th century, drama tends to be more realistic and less romantic.

In the modern times, like Europe, America was undergoing huge changes
inside without being isolated from world changes as well. Particularly, the
first half of the 20th century, as it was the age of innovation and technological
advancement, it was also the age of conflicts in ideologies between
communism and capitalism, in addition to the nuclear bombing of Japan, the
two world wars and their consequences on the individual and the society. At
the meantime, outside America, we can talk of the spread of fascism in
Europe and the Reds in Italy.

In this context, the artist is in a position to look for other means of

expression capable of translating this new reality characterized by its
ambiguity, fragmentation, incoherence and fluctuation. The early to mid 20 th
century marks the true beginning of American drama as a legitimate literary
form. In fact, two factors contributed in the development of the American
theatre. They are the urbanization and the territorial expansion.

By the twentieth century, two types of theatres existed, i.e, the

commercial and the avant-garde theatre as American theatre responded to
new American industry. Thus, theatrical industry became a profitable
enterprise ( Krasner: 2005; Gainor and Dickey: 2005). Two distinctive
figures represented these two types of theatre. Susan Glaspell connects to the
experimental theatre tradition and Sophie Treadwell to the commercial stage.
Their engagement in modernism, feminism and politics informed their
dramatology (Gainor and Dickey, 2005).

During the 1910s and 1920s, voices for a native Amercian drama were
heard. Thus, American experimentalism is said to display in the 1910s. There
was modern lyricism featured by rhythm, image and anxiety. American

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experimentalist plays did not feature magical creatures. Playwrights
experimented with form, different narrative techniques and vernacular
language. It is suggested that Eleanor Gate’s The Poor Little Rich Girl (1913)
as the earliest American experimentalist drama simply because it is written
by American. Alice Gerstenberg’s one-act Overtones (1913) is considered a
good example of American experimentalism (Beard, 2005).

In literature or theatre, expressionism is defined as the external manifestation

of an internal condition. Expressionism features American drama in the
1920s also (ibid). At the modern era, seminal literary figures come to shape
the American drama like Eugene O’Neil.

Eugene O’Neil (1888-1953): Scholars describe him as a key literary figure

who introduced modernism into American drama with his enormous plays
which combine between originality and emotional depth. His career as a
playwright started in 1916 with his play “Bound East for Cardiff”. He
produced around fourty theatrical pieces, including “Beyond Horizon”
(1920), “The Iceman Cometh” (1946). He was honoured with the Pulitzer
Prize in 1921, and the Noble Prize in Literature in 1939, and thus, he became
the distinguished playwright of his time. He brought newness to the
American theatre, realism and dream in a way that fascinates his audience. In
his plays, he tried to abstract the nature of emotions, to discern the true
reality without deceiving appearances. He also probed the American dream,
race relations, class conflicts, human aspirations, alienation and
psychoanalysis. His aim was to create a modern American drama that would
rival the great works of European modernists.

In the spring of 1922, the play The Hairy Ape by Eugene O’Neil features
expressionist drama. Following the success of this play, the American theatre
enjoyed the trend of expressionism. In fact this play was considered as
exemplar of American expressionism ( Beard, 2005). It is also displayed in
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his play The Emperor Jones (1920). O’Neil rises to prominence in America
and also reached an international stature. Meanwhile, other dramatists have
also reached recognition: George S. Kaufman, Maxwell Anderson, Philip
Barry, George Kelly, Sidney Howard, Elmer Rice (Londré, 2005). In line
with them, women dramatists include: Zoe Akins, Rachel Crothers, Susan
Glaspell and Sophie Treadwell (Ibid).

Drama of the Harlem Renaissance (1917-1935) also contributed in the

development of American drama. Playwrights worked hard to provide a
portrayal of black life to black and white audience. In this context, four
genres of plays are introduced: pageant, folk, social issue and historical
( Bean, 2005).

The African American theatre comes into prominence by 1940, with

influential playwrights Frederick O’Neal and Abraham Hill.

By the mid to late 20th century, American drama began to gain international
recognition on a large scale. The two most influential playwrights of this
period were Arthur Miller ( 1915- 2005) and Tennessee Williams ( 1911-
1983). Both of them used their plays to delve deeply into the American
psyche and developed complex characters. They emerged at the forefront of
post world war II literature. They were concerned with psychological and
moral dilemmas of individuals in society.

Arthur Miller graduated from the university of Michigan and majored in

English. He was active in politics. He was also president of PEN
International on behalf of fellow writers subject to oppressive governments.
He was awarded the Noble Prize for his play Death of a Salesman in 1949.
He wrote about family trauma in Timebends(1987); depression in Price
( 1968); The great depression also in The American Clock (1980); and about
the killing of the Jews in his play Broken Glass (1994) ( Biggs, 2005).

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 This period saw also the rise of African American theatre including Lorraine
Hanberry, Amiri Baraka and August Wilson.

As the century progressed, American drama continued to diversify

coming up with a complex body of works. Furthermore, notable
contemporary American playwrights include: Edward Albee, August Wilso,
Tony Kushner, David Henry Hwang, John Guare and Wendy WassersTien.

Postmodern Theatrical Techniques

A postmodern theatrical production might make use of some or all of the

following techniques:

1. The accepted norms of seeing and representing the world are challenged
and disregarded, while experimental theatrical perceptions and
representations are created.
2. A pastiche of different textualities and media forms are used, including
the simultaneous use of multiple art or media forms, and there is the
'theft' of a heterogeneous group of artistic forms.
3. The narrative needs not be complete but can be broken, paradoxical and
imagistic. There is a movement away from linearity to multiplicity (to
inter-related webs of stories), where acts and scenes give way to a series
of peripatetic dramatic moments.
4. Characters are fragmented, forming a collection of contrasting and
parallel shards stemming from a central idea, theme or traditional
character.
5. Each new performance of a theatrical pieces is a new Gestalt, a unique
spectacle, with no intent on methodically repeating a play.
6. The audience is integral to the shared meaning-making of the performance
process and its members are included in the dialogue of the play.

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 7. There is a rejection of the notions of "High" and "Low" art. The
production exists only in the viewer's mind as what the viewer interprets -
nothing more and nothing less.
8. The rehearsal process in a theatrical production is driven more by shared
meaning-making and improvisation, rather than the scripted text.
9. The play steps back from reality to create its own self-conscious
atmosphere. This is sometimes referred to as metatheatre.

While these techniques are often found in postmodern productions they are
never part of a centralized movement or style. Rather, they are tools for
authentic introspection, questioning and representation of human experience.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern_theatre (2023).

References

- Bean. A. Playwrights and Plays of the Harlem Renaissance, in, Crasner. D

(ed). (2005).A Companion to Twentieth Century American Drama.
Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
- Beard.D. M. T. Amercian Experimentalism, American expressionism and
Early O’Neil, in, Crasner. D (ed). (2005).A Companion to Twentieth
Century American Drama. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
- Biggs. M. The American Jewishness of Arthur Miller, in, Crasner. D (ed).
(2005).A Companion to Twentieth Century American Drama. Blackwell
Publishing Ltd.
- David Krasner (ed). (2005). A Companion to Twentieth Century
American Drama. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
- Gainor.J. E. and Dickey. J. Susan Glaspell and Sophie Treadwell: Staging
Feminism and Modernism, 1915-1941, in, Crasner. D (ed). (2005).A
Companion to Twentieth Century American Drama. Blackwell Publishing
Ltd.

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- Londré. F.H. Maceted Mirror: Drama as Reflection of Uneasy Modernists
in the 1920s, in, Crasner. D (ed). (2005).A Companion to Twentieth
Century American Drama. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
- Pierre Lagayette (2011). Histoire de la littérature Américaine. Hachette
Livre. Paris. France.
- S.A.Arab.(2011). ‘Bridging the Gap. LANGUAGE CULTURE AND
LITERATURE’. Office des Publications Universitaires.
- Sbteir (2005). Ethnic Theatre in America, in, Crasner. D (ed). (2005).A
Companion to Twentieth Century American Drama. Blackwell Publishing
Ltd.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/theatre_of_the_United_States. Visisted: 23-01-
2017
- eNotes.com. Visited: 23-01-2017.
- Stysmarter.us/explorations/English-literature/American-drama/ (2023).
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern_theatre ( 2023).