Bücher der Reihe Dramaturgies Textes, Cultures et Representations Texts, Cultures and Performances

Theater has always been the site of visionary hopes for a reformed national future and a space for propagating ideas, both cultural and political, and such a conceptualization of the histrionic art is all the more valuable in the post-9/11 era. The essays in this volume address the concept of «Americanness» and the perceptions of the «alien» ¿ as ethnic, class or gendered minorities ¿ as dealt with in the work of American playwrights from Anna Cora Mowatt, through Rachel Crothers or Susan Glaspell, and on to Sam Shepard, David Mamet, Nilo Cruz or Wallace Shawn. The authors of the essays come from a multi-national university background that includes the United States, the United Arab Emirates and various countries of the European Community. In recognition of the multiple components of drama, the essays for the volume were selected in order to exemplify different aspects and theories of theater studies: the playwright, the play, the audience and the actor are all examined as part of the theatrical experience that serves to formulate American national identity.

Theatre in Britain today is composed of many strands ranging from the postmodern, in-yer-face, musical and dance theatre forms or performance art and media work to the contemporary productions of classical playwrights. In the aftermath of Empire or, as it is often termed, the «post-colonial» world, British theatre in all these forms has also developed through the rich and vibrant contribution of those who, from necessity or choice, have come to Britain as migrants, and of their children of the second and third generations. This book is primarily concerned with giving a voice to some of these Black and South Asian theatre practitioners who tell their own stories while at the same time they, and others, describe the conditions in which they work. The editors have been careful to encourage the expression of different viewpoints. Indeed varying interpretations of such terms as «multicultural», «gender-based» or even «Black» and «British» can be found. The result is an extraordinarily diverse picture of today¿s Black and South Asian British theatre practitioners but also of their companies and their relations with traditional institutions.

The move from playwright to cinema screenwriter and director is a rare accomplishment. No American writer has achieved this transition with the level of success enjoyed over the past two decades by David Mamet. Over this same period Mamet has also authored a body of aggressive critical writing that demonstrates enduring aesthetic and ideological preoccupations, regularly expressed as a set of confident «best practices». However, the relationship between theory and practice becomes particularly (and productively) rowdy at the sites of Mamet¿s transitional «media crossing». Imagination in Transition establishes a flexible set of core characteristics of Mamet¿s dramatic and theatrical dramaturgy, and then compares these with the textual and cinematographic strategies employed by Mamet in his initial, «transitional» feature films. This study, then, offers both an innovative approach to Mamet¿s work and an illuminating framework for cross-media analysis.