Performing the American Dream? American Drama since the 1960s (WS 2017/18)

"It is an examination of the American Scene, an attack on the substitution of artificial for real values in our society,” announces Edward Albee in the preface to his play American Dream. While Albee provokes his audiences with a bolt satire on white nuclear family-life in the U.S., others playwrights of the 20th century have come to introduce a multitude of perspectives to American theater that further such a critical examination. Aiming to shed light on the complexities of “the American condition,” numerous dramas have appeared on American theater stages since the 1960s that evolve from and reflect the social struggles and diverse movements that have shaped the U.S. during the second half of the 20th century. Ironically, as Matthew Roudané and others have illustrated, it is these plays’ very rebellion against any number of things American that identifies them as such. This course provides a first impression on some of these major playwrights and playwriting trends from the absurd theater of the 1960s to the present. A principle goal of this class is to practice and advance the skills acquired in the introductory course to literary studies. In order to do so, we will analyze plays by Edward Albee, Suzan Lori-Parks, Larry Kramer, David Henry Hwang, Susan Nussbaum, and Wendy Wasserstein.