Tennessee Williams' characters set the stage for their own dramas. Blanche DuBois (A Streetcar Named Desire), arrived at her sister's apartment with an entire trunk of costumes and props. Amanda Wingfield (The Glass Menagerie) directed her son on how to eat and tries to make her daughter act like a Southern Belle. This book argues for the persistence of one metatheatrical strategy running throughout Williams' entire oeuvre: each play stages the process through which it came into being--and this process consists of a variation on repetition combined with transformation. Each chapter takes a…mehr
Tennessee Williams' characters set the stage for their own dramas. Blanche DuBois (A Streetcar Named Desire), arrived at her sister's apartment with an entire trunk of costumes and props. Amanda Wingfield (The Glass Menagerie) directed her son on how to eat and tries to make her daughter act like a Southern Belle. This book argues for the persistence of one metatheatrical strategy running throughout Williams' entire oeuvre: each play stages the process through which it came into being--and this process consists of a variation on repetition combined with transformation. Each chapter takes a detailed reading of one play and its variation on repetition and transformation. Specific topics include reproduction in Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), mediation in Something Cloudy, Something Clear (1981), and how the playwright frequently recycled previous works of art, including his own.
Laura Michiels is an English lecturer at Erasmus Brussels University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Belgium. Articles and reviews by her have appeared in Arcadia: International Journal of Literary Culture, Amerikastudien, Journal of Contemporary Drama in English and Theatre Journal. Her research currently focuses on contemporary American political theatre.
Inhaltsangabe
Table of Contents Abstract Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction 1. Mythic Metatheater: Battle of Angels/Orpheus Descending Mimesis Grotesque (and) Generic Transformations 2. Multiplying Metatheater: Sweet Bird of Youth (Pro)creation Mechanical Reproduction 3. Esoteric Metatheater: Out Cry/The Two-Character Play Esoteric Endeavors Transmuting Performance 4. Marauding Metatheater: Clothes for a Summer Hotel Authors, Businessmen, Celebrities Primitivists, Exoticists, Imperialists 5. Negotiating Metatheater: Something Cloudy, Something Clear Quoting Poetry, Translating Music (and Vice Versa) Mediating Memory Conclusion Chapter Notes Works Cited Index