Modern Drama

OpheliaMachine: Gender, Ethics and Representation in Heiner Muller's "Hamletmachine"

by Magda Romanska

Published in "The Cultural Politics of Heiner Muller," Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008.

FROM THE EDITOR:

"Magda Romanska in her chapter, provides a brilliant literary and political analysis... more FROM THE EDITOR:

"Magda Romanska in her chapter, provides a brilliant literary and political analysis of Muller's use of the character of Ophelia in his signature play. She traces German's culture use of Ophelia (and Hamlet) from the late 18th Century to the present -- in drama, poetry, the fine arts and psychology -- and explores how the various images, articulations, and manifestations of Ophelia and Hamlet fed into to the coming-into-being German nationalism of the 19th Century and, at the same time, contributed to the specifics of gender identity within German culture. In doing so, Romanska traces the cross-fertilization (if you will) between the shaping of gender and the shaping of nation in Germany. Showing how Muller made use of all this cultural baggage, Romanska provides a non-polemica look at Muller's own conflicted relationship -- in "Hamletmachine" and elsewhere -- to the radical feminism of the late 20th Century. In so doing, she provides not only an erudite look at Muller's digging up of the dead in "Hamletmachine," but points forward to this volume's third section which explores Muller in relationship to the unfolding political culture of the 21st Century."

Destructive Consequences of Pseudo-Education Powers in David Mamet's Oleanna

by Khalid Aludayli

The Dimensions of the Moment: Modernist Shorts

by John Muse

Modern Drama 53.1 (Spring 2010).

The Some of the Parts: Prosthesis and Function in Bertolt Brecht, Oskar Schlemmer, and Kurt Jooss

by Kate Elswit

Modern Drama, 51.3 (2008), Theatre and Medicine, 389-410

Translation, Typography, and the Avant-Garde's Impossible Text

by Sarah Bay-Cheng

Famous Unknowns: The Dramas of Djuna Barnes and Gertrude Stein

by Sarah Bay-Cheng

The Bacchae by Euripides and Temptation by Vaclav Havel (1992)

by Laurence Raw

Originally published in THEATRE JOURNAL 44, no. 1 (March 1992): 105-6

A review of two Turkish theatre revivals of classic plays, one ancient and one modern. A review of two Turkish theatre revivals of classic plays, one ancient and one modern.

Radically Subtle: Noel Coward's subversively well-made play

by Hannah Oliver

This paper was presented at the Robyn Rafferty-Mathias Student Conference, March 2010

There is Noel Coward with the talent to amuse and Noel Coward’s covert modernism, but they are also one and the same.... more There is Noel Coward with the talent to amuse and Noel Coward’s covert modernism, but they are also one and the same. Many scholars have taken the time to read Coward’s “serious” work and consider how he interacted with his time, but few have looked seriously at his most successful plays, the comedies, and appreciated them as literature actively engaging his society. Using historical context and the theory of Aggressive Reading, I will argue that scholars have resisted or simply not absorbed the covert modernist work of Coward’s plays. Aggressive Reading is useful to understanding Coward because he overwhelms his audience with wit and glamorous details the way a detective novel overwhelms readers with setting details. The audience is forced to engage through laughter, not shut down defensively. Coward’s audiences can laugh or laugh and have their minds expanded, but that isn't the weakness of the text; rather, it is their strength and what brings him into the company of the moderns.

To address Coward as an influential figure we need to question what makes a modern playwright. The modernist projects one tends to think of more closely resemble the grime and shattering realities of Samuel Beckett and James Joyce rather than Private Lives wit and over the top elegance.  To examine just how Coward engaged each of these topics in his humorous and biting way, I will discuss the social issues in Coward’s lifetime, the World Wars, Lord Chamberlain’s censorship, socialism, sexuality, the Jazz Age, existentialism and psychology, the Angry Young Men, and the Bright Young Things. Modernism and the avant-garde now are assumed to go hand in hand in theatre, but the interwar period of early modernism still held the stiff upper lip of a dignified Britain. The difference between the successful plays of Coward and plays that came later is Coward’s use of the British dignity and wit to discuss issues of disillusionment, male and female relationships and sexuality, and censorship dominate the works. There is a delight in a well written line that has caused many to dismiss the plays, but it is this very structure that pushes audiences to address what made playgoers most uncomfortable.