Expressionism and Modernism in the American Theatre: Bodies, Voices, Words (Cambridge Studies in American Theatre and Drama) [Hardcover]

Julia A. Walker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 25, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0521847478 | ISBN-13: 978-0521847476 | Edition: First Edition

Although often dismissed as a minor offshoot of the better-known German movement, expressionism on the American stage represents a critical phase in the development of American dramatic modernism. Situating expressionism within the context of early twentieth-century American culture, Walker demonstrates how playwrights who wrote in this mode were responding both to new communications technologies and to the perceived threat they posed to the embodied act of meaning. At a time when mute bodies gesticulated on the silver screen, ghostly voices emanated from tin horns, and inked words stamped out the personality of the hand that composed them, expressionist playwrights began to represent these new cultural experiences by disarticulating the theatrical languages of bodies, voices and words. In doing so, they not only innovated a new dramatic form, but redefined playwriting from a theatrical craft to a literary art form, heralding the birth of American dramatic modernism.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Julie A. Walker has ... done a great service for perplexed scholars like myself in demonstrating a much more plausible heritage for these key American plays ... Walker's book is clearly structured, forcefully argued, and generally very well written. ... this is a compelling, intriguing book to be recommended to anyone with an interest in American theatrical modernism.' New Theatre Quarterly

Book Description

This study addresses the direct influence on American theatre of new technologies at the turn of the twentieth century. Walker argues that a specific form of drama - expressionism - developed in response to these technologies and to popular fears about them.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; First Edition edition (July 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521847478
• ISBN-13: 978-0521847476
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,790,817 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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