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COURSE CODE: AN 3017 MA 02
Course Designation: Aspects of Gender
Course Title: Postmodernism in Recent
FALL SEMESTER 2012
American Drama and Theatre
Time & Place: Wed, 14. 00 ─ 16. 40, St 109, Mbld.
Instructor:Lenke Németh
nemeth.lenke@arts.unideb.hu
Office Hours: Wed 15. 50 – 16. 50, Fri 11.50 – 12.
50, Rm 118 Mbl
Tel.: 512-900/22069
Course Description
This course is designed to study how recent American drama―covering the period from the
1970s up to the 2010s―has responded to the paradigm shift of postmodernism and to the
dilemmas of representation raised by postmodern discourses. Though drama as a genre is either
entirely absent or at best marginalized in most theoreticians’ commentaries on postmodernism,
drama and theatre are particularly suited to raise questions about all major postmodern concerns
such as the relationship between text, discourses and performance, the pluralized and fragmented
self, the issues of spatiality, representation, and authorship. Through the close reading of a
representative sample of contemporary plays we will explore how postmodernism has shaped and
influenced dramatic writing, and will also consider how the boundaries and potentials of
traditional dramatic expression have been expanded or crucially altered. As a final objective, we
will attempt to establish the distinctive aesthetic and stylistic features that collectively coalesce to
identify the highly contested term of postmodern drama.
The plays selected for the course are illustrative of new thematic concerns arising in this era
(gender and cultural identity, political correctness, among others) as well as of the formal
innovations that have revitalized American drama. The dramatists chosen for study include
Adrienne Kennedy (1931-), Larry Kramer (1935-), Sam Shepard (1943-), David Mamet (1947-),
Ntzoke Shange (1948-), David Henry Hwang (1957-), and Suzan-Lori Parks (1963-).
Instructional Method
The course will be organized in a seminar format where most of the class time will be devoted to
the discussion of the assigned dramatic works and the related critical studies. To facilitate active
participation in discussions you are expected to come prepared to the sessions, and raise one
question pertaining to the play and one related to the critical work assigned.
Requirements
Attendance and participation, response papers, an oral presentation, one in-class and one out-ofclass paper.
In-Class Presentation
It is a max. 10-minute talk—delivered freely in front of the class—on a critical or a theoretical
essay related to the work on the agenda. It should serve as a good starting point to initiate class
discussion. Sign-up for these in-class oral presentations will take place during our first session.
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Writing Assignments
[1] Response paper: Students are required to hand in a one-page response paper (printed) at the
beginning of each class. The papers should summarize either the main points of the assigned
critical reading that accompanies the work/s on the agenda or they should contain a critical
reflection on the secondary work/s read.
[2] Essay: a 7-page analytical paper that studies one of the texts (or several) the seminar covers.
Format: typed in Times New Roman, 12 pt, 2,5 cm margins, double spaced, full and correct
citation, alphabetical bibliography (consult MLA), fastened, student’s name on each page.
 Due no later than midnight, December 10th
 No extensions will be granted on written work, except in cases of documented misadventure
or illness.
 Essays can be submitted in print or electronically to the instructor.
Evaluation Criteria
Response paper: 10%
Presentation: 10%
Participation: 20%
Mid-term paper: 30%
Out-of-class paper: 30%
COURSE SCHEDULE
Sep 12
Registration Week
(1) Sept 19
Orientation
(29) Sept 26
Adrienne Kennedy, A Movie Star Has to Star in Black and White (1976)
Scmidt, Kerstin. “Theorizing Dramatic Form: Aspects of Transformation in Postmodern Drama.”
(33-43)
(3) Oct 3
Luiz Valdez, I Don’t Have to Show You No Stinking Badges! (1986)
Fuchs, Elinor. “Postmodernism and the Scene of Theater.” 144-157.
(4) Oct 10
David Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly (1988)
Saal, Ilka. “Performance and Perception: Gender, Sexuality, and Culture in David Henry
Hwang’s M. Butterfly.” American Studies 42.4 (1998):629-45.
(5) Oct 17
CONSULTATION WEEK
(6) Oct 24
David Mamet, Oleanna (1992)
Porter, Thomas E. “Postmodernism and Violence in Mamet’s Oleanna.” Modern Drama 43.1
(2000):13-31
(7) Oct 31
Edward Albee, Three Tall Women (1993)
Staub, W. August. “Public and Private Thought: The Enthymeme of Death in Albee’s
Three Tall Women.” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 12.7 (1997): 149-58.
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(9) Nov 7
Guest Seminar by Dr. Eric Weitz, Head of School of Drama, Film and Music
Samuel Beckett Centre, Trinity College, Dublin
(10) Nov 14
Midterm Paper
(11)Nov 21
David Henry Hwang, Yellow Face (2007)
Park, Samuel, “Yellow Face.” Theatre Journal 60.2 (2008): 280-83
(12) Nov 28
David Mamet, Speed-The-Plow (1987)
Saddick, J. Anette. “Performing the American Dream: Postmodern Blurrings of Myth and Reality
in the Work of David Mamet and Sam Shepard.” Essays in Theatre/Ẻtudes Thèậtrales 20.2
(2002):103-12.
(13) Dec 5
Sam Shepard, Curse of the Starving Class (1978)
Geis, Deborah. “Geography of a Storyteller: Monologue in Sam Shepard’s Plays” 45-88.
(14) Dec 12
Ntozake Shange, spell #7 (1979)
Splawn, Jane P. “”Change the Joke[r] and slip the Yoke”: Boal’s `Joker’ system in Ntozake
Shange’s for colored girls … and spell #7. Modern Drama 41.3 (1998) 386-398
(15) Dec 19
Closing
SUGGESTED SECONDARY SOURCES1
Bigsby, C. W. E. A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-Century American Drama: Beyond
Broadway. 3 vols. New York: Cambridge UP, 1985. *
---. Modern American Drama, 1945-1990. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994.*
---. Contemporary American Playwrights. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999.*
---, ed. The Cambridge Companion to David Mamet. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004.
Bottoms, Stephen J. The Theatre of Sam Shepard. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998.
Brater, Enoch and Ruby Cohn, eds. Around the Absurd: Essays on Modern and Postmodern
Drama. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1990.
Brater, Enoch, ed. The Theatrical Gamut: Notes for a Post-Beckettian Stage. Ann Arbor: The UP
of Michigan Press, 1995.
Bryant-Jackson, Paul K. and Lois More Overbeck, eds. Intersecting Boundaries: The Theatre of
Adrienne Kennedy. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota, 1992. *
Chénetier, Marc, ed. Critical Angles: European Views of Contemporary American Literature.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1986.
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The sources marked with asterisks are placed on the not to be borrowed shelf in the institute library.
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Cohn, Ruby. Anglo-American Interplay in Recent Drama. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995.
---. “Phrasal Energies: Harold Pinter and David Mamet.” Cohn 58-93.
Fuchs, Elinor. The Death of Character: Perspectives on Theater after Modernism. Bloomington:
Indiana UP, 1996.
Garner, Stanton. B. Jr. Phenomelogy and Performance in Contemporary Drama. Ithaca: Cornell
UP, 1994.
Geis, Deborah R. Postmodern Theatric(k)s: Monologue in Contemporary American Drama. Ann
Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1993. *
Hall, Ann C. “A Kind of Alaska”: Women in the Plays of O’Neill, Pinter and Shepard.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1993.*
Hanlon, John, J. “`Niggers Got a Right to be Dissatisfied’: Postmodernism, Race, and Class in
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” Modern Drama 45:1 (2002) 95-124.
Herman, William. Understanding Contemporary American Drama. Columbia: U of South
Carolina, 1987.
Huerta, Jorge. Chicano Drama: Performance, Society and Myth. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
2000. *
Jenckes, Norma. New Readings in American Drama: Something’s Happening Here. New York:
Peter Lang, 2002.
Joki, Ilkka. Mamet, Bakhtin, and the Dramatic: The Demotic as a Variable of Addressivity. Abo:
Abo Akademi UP, 1993.
Kamm, Jürgen, ed. Twentieth-Century Theatre and Drama in English. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher
Verlag, 1999
Németh, Lenke. “All It Is, It’s a Carnival”: Reading David Mamet’s Female Characters with
Bakthin. Debrecen: Kossuth Egyetemi Kiadó, 2007.
Schmidt, Kerstin. The Theater in Transformation: Postmodernism in American Drama.
Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005.
Knowles, Ric, Joanne Tompkins, and W. B. Worthen. Modern Drama: Defining the Field.
Toronto: U of Toronto, 2003.
Mamet, David. Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama. New York:
Vintage, 2000.
Mann, Bruce, J., ed. Edward Albee: A Casebook. New York: Routledge, 2003.
McDonough, Carla J. Staging Masculinity: Male Identity in Contemporary American Drama.
Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1997.*
---. “Every Fear Hides a Wish: Unstable Masculinity in Mamet’s Drama.” Theatre Journal 44.2
(1992): 195-205.
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Macleod, Christine. “The Politics of Gender, Language and Hierarchy in Mamet’s Oleanna.”
Journal of American Studies 29.2 (1995): 199-213.
Murphy, Brenda, ed. The Cambridge Companion To American Women Playwrights. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 1999.
Ozieblo, Barbara and Maria Dolores Narbona-Carrion, eds. Codifying the National Self:
Spectators , Actors and the American Dramatic Text. Brussels: Peter Lang, 2006.
Pavis, Patrice. Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture. Trans. Loran Kruger. London: Routledge,
1992.
Roudane, Maththew. The Cambridge Companion to Sam Shepard. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
2002.
---. Understanding Edward Albee. Columbia: U of South Carolina, 1987.
Savran, David. In heir Own Words: Contemporary American Playwrights. New York: Theatre
Communication Group, 1988.
---. “Interview with Luiz Valdez.” Worthen 606-613.
Schlueter, June, ed. Modern American Drama: The Female Canon. Rutherford: Fairleigh
Dickinson UP, 1990.*
Schmidt, Kerstin. The Theater of Transformation: Postmodernism in American Drama.
Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005. *
Shange, Ntozake. “-Foreword, unrecovered Losses/Black Traditions-“ Worthen. 863-66.
Showalter, Elaine. “Acts of Violence. David Mamet and the Language of Men.” Rev. of
Glengarrry Glen Ross, by David Mamet. Odeon Haymarket, London. Rev. of Oleanna,
by David Mamet. Orpheum Theatre, New. Orpheum Theatre, New York. Times Literary
Supplement 6 Nov. 1992: 16-17.
Splawn, Jane P. “”Change the Joke[r] and slip the Yoke”: Boal’s `Joker’ system in Ntozake
Shange’s for colored girls … and spell #7. Modern Drama 41.3 (1998) 386-98.
Schvey Henry I., et al New Essays on American Drama. Ed. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1989.
Vorlicky, Robert. Act Like a Man: Challenging Masculinities in American Drama. Ann Arbor:
The U of Michigan P, 1995.*
Wade, Leslie A. Sam Shepard and the American Theatre. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood P, 1997.
Watt, Stephen. Postmodern/Drama. Ann Arbor: The U of Michigan P, 1998.*
Wattenberg, Richard. “From `Horse Opera’ History to Hall of Mirrors: Luis Valdez’s Bandido!
Modern Drama 41.3 (1998) 411-423.
Wisenthal, Jonathan, Sherril Grace, Melinda Boyd, Brian McILroy, and Vera Micznik, eds. A
Vision of the Orient: Texts, Intertexts, and Contexts of Madame Butterfly. Toronto: U of Toronto,
2006.
Worthen, W. B. Modern Drama: Plays/Criticism/Theory. Forth Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1995.*
Texts Recommended for Presentation
Postmodernism and the Theater
Geis, Deborah. “Moving in the Present Tense: Monologue and the Discourses of Postmodernism
in the American Experimental Theater.” 29-44.
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Fuchs, Elinor. “Postmodernism and the Scene of Theater.” 144-157.
Scmidt, Kerstin. “The Postmodern Sense of Self.” 44-52.
Pavis, Patrice. “The Classical Heritage of Modern drama: The Case of Postmodern Theatre.” 4871.
Worthen, W.B. “The Postmodern Era.”
Albee
Geis, Deborah R. “Staging Hypereloquence: Edward Albee and the Monologic Voice.” Jenckes
1-9.
Jenckes, Norma. “Postmodernist Tensions in Albee’s Recent Work.” Mann 107-18.
Kurdi, Mária. “Performing the (Dis)continuity of the Self in Samuel Beckett’s That Time and
Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women.” mÁria Kurdi, Gabriella HArtvig, and Adnrew C.
Rouse, eds. Focus: Papers in English Literary and Cultural Studies. (2000):153-63.
Mann, Bruce J. “Three Tall Women: Return to the Muses.” Mann 6-17.
Németh, Lenke. Introduction. “Theater as a Life-Giving Force.” HJEAS 15.1 (2009): 99-107.
Suwalska-Kolecka, Anna. “Fragmentation and Discontibnuity in Three Tall Women. HJEAS 15.1
(2009): 107-21.
Morse, E. Donald. “’We All Go Away’: The Last Moments of Old Age in The Tragedy of King
Lear and Three Tall Women. Proceedings of HUSSDE Papers, 2004. Piliscsaba:
Pázmány Péter Egyetem, 2006.
Hwang
Remen, Kathryn. “The Theater of Punishment: David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly and Michael
Foucalt’s Discipline and Punish.” Modern Drama 37. 3 (1994): 391-400.
Deeney, John J. “Of Monkeys and Butterflies: Transformation in M.H. Kingston’s Tripmaster
Monkey and D. H. Hwang’s M. Butterfly.” Melus 18.4 (1993): 21-41. JSTOR
Irmscher, Christoph. “’The Absolute Power of a Man’? Staging Masculinity in Giacomo Puccini
and David Henry Hwang.” American Studies Quarterly 42. 4 (1998): 619-29.
Lauretis, de Teresa, “Popular Culture, Public and Private Fantasies: Femininity and Fetishism in
David Croneneberg’s ‘M. Butterfly.’” Signs 24.2 (1999): 303-334.
McInturff, Kate. “That Old Familiar Song: The Theatre of Culture in David Henry Hwang’s M.
Butterfly.” Wisenthal et. All 72-91.
Németh, Lenke. “Dualities and Stylistic Strategies: David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly.” To the
Memory of Sarolta Kretzoi. Ed. Lehel Vadon. Eger: Eszterházy Károly College, 2009.
Saal, Ilka. “Performance and Perception: Gender, Sexuality, and Culture in David Henry
Hwang’s M. Butterfly.” American Studies 42.4 (1998): 629- 45.
Shin, Andrew. “Projected Bodies in David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly and Golden Gate.”
MELUS (The Journal of the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the
United States) 27.1(2002 Spring):177-99. JSTOR
Testa, Bart. “Late Mutations of Cinema’s Butterfly.” Wisenthal et all. 91-123.
Kennedy
Betsko, Kathleen and Rachel Koenig, “Interview with Adrienne Kennedy.” W. B.. Worthen 568574.
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Brown, E. Barnsley. The Clash of Verbal and Visual (Con)Texts: Adrienne Kennedy’s
(Re)Construction of Racial Polarities in An Evening with Dead Essex and A Movie Star
Has to Star in Black and White. Kimball King, ed. Hollywood on Stage: Playwrights
Evaluate the Culture Industry. New York: Garland, 1997.
Case, Sue-Ellen. “From Split Subject to Split Britches.” Worthen 1106-1117.
Meigs, E. Susan. “No Place But the Funnyhouse: The Struggle for Identity in Three Adrienne
Kennedy Plays.” Schlueter 172-84.
Németh, Lenke. “Dialogizált polifónia: jellemábrázolás Adrienne Kennedy Néger a diliházban
és A filmcsilag feketében és fehérben csillog c. drámáiban.” A Szavak szépsége, avagy a
bibliográfus igazsága: Tisztelgés Vadon Lehet 70. születésnapján. Eds. Zoltán Abádi
Nagy, Judit Ágnes Kádár, and András Tarnóc. Eger: Amerikanisztika Tanszék,
Sollors, Werner. “People Who Led to My Plays: Adrienne Kennedy’s Autobiography.” Bryant –
Overbeck 13-21.
Curb, Rosemary. “(Hetero)Sexual Terrors in Adrienne Kennedy’s Early Plays.” Bryant –
Overbeck 142-57.
Mamet
McDonough. “Every Fear Hides a Wish: Unstable Masculinity in Mamet’s Drama.” Theatre
Journal 44.2 (1992): 195-205.
Németh, Lenke. “‘A Theatrician of the Ethical’”: A Critical Response to David Mamet’s Plays in
Hungary.” Lifelong Search for Meaning: A Special Double Issue in Honor of Donald. E. Morse.
HJEAS 18.1-2. (2012): 371-85.
Oleanna
Goggans, Thomas H. “Laying Blame: Gender and Subtext in David Mamet’s Oleanna.” Modern
Drama 40.4 (1997): 433-41.
Murphy, Brenda. “Oleanna: Language and Power.” Bigsby, Companion, 124-38.
Németh, Lenke. “‘A Theatrician of the Ethical’”: A Critical Response to David Mamet’s Plays in
Hungary.” Lifelong Search for Meaning: A Special Double Issue in Honor of Donald. E.
Morse. HJEAS 18.1-2. (2012): 371-85.
Porter, Thomas E. “Postmodernism and Violence in Mamet’s Oleanna.” Modern Drama 43:1
(2000) 13-31.
Ryan, Steven. “Oleanna: David Mamet’s Power Play.” Modern Drama 39.3 (1996): 392-403.
Sauer, David Kennedy. “Oleanna and The Children’s Hour: Misreading Sexuality on the
Post/Modern Realistic Stage.” Modern Drama 43.3. (2000) 421-441.
Showalter, Elaine. “Acts of Violence. David Mamet and the Language of Men.” Rev. of
Glengarrry Glen Ross, by David Mamet. Odeon Haymarket, London. Rev. of Oleanna,
by David Mamet. Orpheum Theatre, New. Orpheum Theatre, New York. Times Literary
Supplement 6 Nov. 1992: 16-17.
The Cryptogram
Schaub, Martin. “Magic Meanings in Mamet’s Cryptogram.” Modern Drama 42.3 (1999): 326337.
Haedicke, V. Janet. “Decoding Cipher Space: David Mamet’s The Cryptogram and America’s
Dramatic Legacy.” Jenckes 87-101.
Speed-the-Plow
McDonough, “Men at Work: American Buffalo and Speed-the-Plow.” Staging 89-94.
Shange
Anderlini, Serena. ““colored girls”: A Reaction to Black Machismo, or Hues or Erotic Tension in
New Feminist Solidarity?” The Journal of American Drama and Theatre. Vol. II (Spring
1990): 33-54.
Cronacher, Karen. “Unmasking the Minstrel Mask’s Black Magic in Ntozake Shange’s spell #7.”
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Theatre Journal 44.2 (1992): 177-193.
Garner, “Pregnancy and Embodiment: Gestation, Spell #.” 215-225.
Geis, “Taking a Solo”: Monologue in Ntozake Shange’s Theater Pieces.” 135-150.
Splawn, Jane P. “”Change the Joke[r] and slip the Yoke”: Boal’s `Joker’ system in Ntozake
Shange’s for colored girls … and spell #7. Modern Drama 41.3 (1998) 386-398.
Timpane, John. “The Poetry of a Moment.’: Politics and the Open Form in the Drama of Ntozake
Shange.” Schlueter 198-207.
Varró, Gabriella. “Signifying Practices in Ntozake Shange’s spell #7” (MS)
Shepard
Adler, Thomas P. “Repetition and Regression in Curse of the Starving Class and Buried Child.”
Ed. Roudane 111-22.
Coco, Bill. “The Dramaturgy of the Dream Play: Monologues by Breuer, Chaikin, Shepard.”
Brater 159-70.
Luedtke, Luther S. “From Fission to Fusion: Sam Shepard’s Nuclear Families.” Schvey
McDonough, Carla. “Dueling Identities. Tooth of Crime and True West.” 42-50.
Morse, Donald E. “Not the Nelsons: The Family Plays of Sam Shepard.” Kamm 733-51.
Valdez
Huerta, “Reclaiming Aztec and Maya Mythology.” 26-40
Miscellaneous Remarks
[1] Deadlines
November 17: Topics for the essays should be approved by the instructor, hence essay outlines
and proposals (with thesis statement and theoretical concerns specified, as well as potential
critical readings to be incorporated), should be handed in. In case you have questions concerning
the choice, tutorial consultation and advice is recommended and available.
December 10: submission of the essay, no later than midnight, Dec 10th.
[2] Plagiarism
Plagiarism of any kind will result in a failing grade for the seminar.
[3] Absences
It is essential to attend ALL the classes. If you must miss a class because of illness or emergency,
please let me know, and arrange to complete any work missed.
[4] Submitting response papers
Response papers are due in class on the assigned days. There is no late paper policy. The presentation and
essay deadlines are NOT negotiable.
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