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.

Autorentext

The Editors: Barbara Ozieblo is Associate Professor of American Literature at the University of Málaga, where she has organized several conferences on American theatre. She is the International Secretary of the American Theatre and Drama Society, Treasurer of the Spanish Association for American Studies, and co-founder and President of the Susan Glaspell Society. She has published on Susan Glaspell and on other American women dramatists in Spanish and in English. María Dolores Narbona-Carrión is Assistant Professor of American Literature and History at the University of Málaga. Her publications deal with American theater and Nineteenth-century American women writers. She has co-organized and participated in several international conferences on American theater at the University of Málaga.

Inhalt
Contents: Barbara Ozieblo: Introduction. Codifying the National Self. Spectator, Actor and the American Dramatic Text David Savran: Making Middlebrow Theater in America Susan Harris Smith: Reading Drama. Plays in American Periodicals 1890-1918 Wendy Ripley: Anna Cora Mowatt. Player and Playwright María Dolores Narbona-Carrión: The Woman Artist as Portrayed by Rachel Crothers and Heather McDonald Sharon Friedman: Feminist Revisions of Classic Texts on the American Stage Savas Patsalidis: Charles Mee's Intertextual and Intercultural Inscriptions. The Suppliants vs Big Love Miriam López-Rodríguez: Sophie Treadwell, Jung, and the Mandala. Acting a Gendered Identity William S. Haney II: Artistic Expression, Intimacy and Primal Holon in Sam Shepard Claus-Peter Neumann: Theo/teleological Narrative and the Narratee's Rebellion in Tony Kushner's Angels in America Marc Maufort: «Captured Images.» Performing the First Nations' «Other» Noelia Hernando-Real: E Pluribus, Plurum. From a Unifying National Identity to Plural Identities in Susan Glaspell's Inheritors Thierry Dubost: Politics in Paratextual and Textual Elements in Fences Esther Álvarez-López: Food, Cultural Identity, and the Body. New Recipes for Latinas' Emerging Selves Natalie I. Alvarez: Authenticity and the «Divinely Amateur.» The Romantic in Richard Maxwell Jerry Dickey: Mamet's Actors. A Life in the Theatre and Other Writings on the Art of Acting Jon D. Rossini: The Contemporary Ethics of Violence. Cruz, Solis and Homeland Security Bonnie Marranca: The Solace of Chocolate Squares. Thinking about Wallace Shawn.