A Play Analysis A Casebook on Modern Western Drama
"Play Analysis: A Casebook on Modern Western Drama is a combined play-analysis textbook and course companion that contains twelve essays on major dramas from the modern European and American theaters: among them, Ghosts, The Ghost Sonata, The Doctor’s Dil
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A Play Analysis A Casebook on Modern Western Drama
R. J. Cardullo
A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: 978-94-6300-278-3 (paperback) ISBN: 978-94-6300-279-0 (hardback) ISBN: 978-94-6300-280-6 (e-book)
Published by: Sense Publishers, P.O. Box 21858, 3001 AW Rotterdam, The Netherlands https://www.sensepublishers.com/
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved © 2015 Sense Publishers No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introductionvii A Step-By-Step Approach to Play Analysis
xv
Part 1: Plot and Action, or Form and Structure Chapter 1: The Form that ‘Can Longer Paint’: Ibsen’s Ghosts and Osvald
3
Chapter 2: Life in the Foreground: Dramatic Method in Pinter’s The Homecoming15 Part 2: Character and Role Chapter 3: On the Road to Tragedy: George Milton’s Agon in Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men25 Chapter 4: Death of a Salesman, Life of a Jew: Ethnicity, Business, and the Character of Willy Loman
35
Part 3: Style and Genre Chapter 5: The Doctored Dilemma: Shaw, The Doctor’s Dilemma, and Modern Tragedy
51
Chapter 6: O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape in Relation to Greek Tragedy, Italian Futurism, and Divine Comedy
67
Part 4: Language, Symbol, and Allusion Chapter 7: The Business of Art and the Art of Business: W. S. Gilbert’s Engaged, Revisited
81
Chapter 8: The Blue Rose of St. Louis: Laura, Romanticism and Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie93 Part 5: Theme, Thesis, Thought, or Idea Chapter 9: August Strindberg, The Ghost Sonata, and the Making of Modern Drama
113
Chapter 10: The Front Page, Farce, and American Comedy: A Reconsideration
131
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Part 6: Re-Evaluation and Influence Chapter 11: A World in Transition: A Study of Brecht’s A Man’s a Man141 Chapter 12: ‘Nice Town, Y’know What I Mean?’: Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, Deconstructed
155
Bibliographical Resources
173
Glossary of Dramatic Terms
175
Study Guides
187
Topics for Writing and Discussion
195
Index199
vi
INTRODUCTION
From the essays included in this book, one will quickly discover that my preoccupations as a critic are not theoretical. I am, rather, a “close reader” committed to a detailed yet objective examination of the structure, style, imagery, characterization, and language of a play. As someone who once regularly worked in the theater as a dramaturg, moreover, I am concerned chiefly with dramatic analysis that can be of benefit not only to playreaders and theatergoers, but also to directors, designers, and even actors—that is, with analysis of character, action, dialogue, and setting that can be translated into concepts for theatrical production, or that can
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