Longman anthology of modern and contemporary drama, the

This collection of 31 American and international plays offers a truly global perspective of the drama and theater that has been produced during the past 150 years. In addition to essential plays from the West's modern canon, this anthology offers a richly varied selection of plays from regions underrepresented in other texts, such as Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The book's pedagogical features all work together to provide students with the historical and cultural background they need to read plays into context. Accessible, interesting, and inclusive, the broad range of plays in this anthology will inspire, intrigue, and provoke readers to understand more deeply the literary and production history of modern and contemporary drama.

PROLOGUE: The Immediate Precursors of the Modern Theater. The Precursors of the Modern Theater. Romanticism. The Melodrama. Showcase: Hernani: The Romantic Melodrama That Changed Western Theater. The Well-Made Play. Showcase: Eugene Scribe's Well-Made Play: The Glass of Water. The Problem Play. Showcase: The Original Problem Play: La Dame aux Camillias (Camille). The Other First Modern Play? Play: WOYZECK (Georg Buchner: 1836, Carl R. Mueller, trans.). I. EARLY MODERN DRAMA: 1870-1918. Realism. Influences on Realism. Showcase: Influences on Realism: The Rise of the Director and Germany's Meiningen Players. Naturalism. The First Generation of Realists: Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, and Stanislavsksy. Showcase: The Provincetown Playhouse and Susan Glaspell: The Birthplace (and the Mother) of the Modern American Theater. Alternatives to Realism and Naturalism. Relativism. Expressionism. Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House. Showcase: The Tarantella and Other Healing Dances. Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard . Showcase: The Stanislavsky System and the Moscow Art Theater. John Millington Synge, Riders to the Sea. Showcase: The Irish Renaissance. August Strindberg, The Ghost Sonata. Showcase: Independent and Intimate Theaters. Bernard Shaw, Heartbreak House. Showcase: Notes for a Production of Heartbreak House (Harold Clurman). II. LATE MODERN DRAMA AND ITS DECLINE: 1920-63: The Aftermath of World War I. Showcase: The Prototype of the Relativist Drama: Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author. Other Isms. Surrealism. Futurism. Constructivism. Popular Culture. The Epic Theatre. Showcase: The Epic Theatre: The Berliner Ensemble of Bertolt Brecht: 1949-99 . THE SECOND GENERATION OF REALISTS. African-American Theater. Showcase: A Raisin in the Sun: Portrait of America in Transistion. England and Europe. Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. Pioneers in Puerto Rican Theater: The Rollin' Theater of Puerto Rico and Rene Marques s The OxCart. The Theatre of the Absurd. Showcase: Forerunners of the Absurd: Alred Jarry's Ubu Roi and Jean-Paul Sartre'No Exit. Sophie Treadwell, Machinal . Showcase: Theater in the Industrial Age. Federico Garc a Lorca, Blood Wedding . Showcase: Designing Scenery for Blood Wedding (Haibo Yu). Bertolt Brecht, The Good Woman of Setzuan . Showcase: The Conventions of Chinese Theater. Eugene O'Neill, A Moon For The Misbegotten . Showcase: A Great American Play: Arthur Miller and Death of a Salesman. Showcase: Designing A Play: Death of a Salesman (Jo Mielziner). Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof . Showcase: American Acting Matures: The Group Theatre and the Actors Studio. Harold, Piner The Birthday Party . Showcase: Britain's Theater Revolution of 1956. Samuel Beckett, Krapp's Last Tape . Showcase: A Modern Masterpiece: Waiting for Godot. Edward Albee, The American Dream (Edward Albee: 1961). III. THE CONTEMPORARY AND POST MODERN THEATER, 1964-THE PRESENT. A New Theater for a New World. Influences on Contemporary Thought. Postmodernism and the Theater. Artaud and the Theater of Cruelty. Showcase: The Theater of Cruelt