1
Brenda Murphy
The Cambridge Companion to American Women Playwrights
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999
This volume addresses the work of women playwrights throughout the history of the American theatre, from the early pioneers to contemporary feminists. Each chapter introduces the reader to the work of one or more playwrights and to a way of thinking about plays. Together they cover significant writers such as Rachel Crothers, Susan Glaspell, Lillian Hellman, Sophie Treadwell, Lorraine Hansberry, Alice Childress, Megan Terry, Ntozake Shange, Adrienne Kennedy, Wendy Wasserstein, Marsha Norman, Beth Henley and Maria Irene Fornes. Playwrights are discussed in the context of topics such as early comedy and melodrama, feminism and realism, the Harlem Renaissance, the feminist resurgence of the 1970s and feminist dramatic theory. A detailed chronology and illustrations enhance the volume, which also includes bibliographical essays on recent criticism and on African-American women playwrights before 1930. (da sito Cambridge University Press)
Vedi indiceList of illustrations
List of contributors
Preface
Chronology Stephanie Roach
Part I. Pioneers:
1. Comedies by early American women Amelia Howe Kritzer
2. Women writing melodrama Sarah J. Blackstone
3. Realism and feminism in the Progressive era Patricia R. Schroeder
Part II. Inheritors:
4. Susan Glaspell and Modernism Veronica Makowsky
5. The Expressionist movement: Sophie Treadwell Jerry Dickey
6. Feminism and the marketplace: the career of Rachel Crothers Brenda Murphy
7. The Harlem Renaissance and the New Negro movement Judith L. Stephens
8. Lillian Hellman: feminism, formalism, and politics Thomas P. Adler
9. From Harlem to Broadway: African-American women playwrights at mid-century Margaret Wilkerson
Part III. New Feminists:
10. Feminist theory and contemporary drama Janet Brown
11. Feminist theater of the 'Seventies' in the United States Helene Keyssar
12. Contemporary Playwrights/traditional forms Laurin Porter
13. Wendy Wasserstein: a feminist voice from the Seventies to the present Jan Balakian
Part IV. Further Reading:
14. Contemporary American women playwrights: a brief survey of key scholarship Christy Gavin
15. African-American women playwrights before 1930 Christine R. Gray
Works cited
Index.
2
Matthew C. Roudané
The Cambridge Companion to Tennessee Williams
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997
This is a collection of thirteen original essays from a team of leading scholars in the field. In this wide-ranging volume, the contributors cover a healthy sampling of Williams's works, from the early apprenticeship years in the 1930s through to his last play before his death in 1983, Something Cloudy, Something Clear. In addition to essays on such major plays as The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, among others, the contributors also consider selected minor plays, short stories, poems, and biographical concerns. The Companion also features a chapter on selected key productions as well as a bibliographic essay surveying the major critical statements on Williams. (Da sito Cambridge University Press)
Vedi indiceList of illustrations and acknowledgements
Notes on contributors
Chronology
Introduction Matthew C. Roudané
1. Early Williams: the making of a playwright Allean Hale
2. Entering The Glass Menagerie C. W. E. Bigsby
3. A streetcar running fifty years Felicia Hardison Londré
4. Camino Real: Williams's allegory about the fifties Jan Balakian
5. Writing in 'A Place of Stone': Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Albert J. Devlin
6. Before the fall - and after: Summer and Smoke and The Night of the Iguana Thomas P. Adler
7. The sacrificial stud and the fugitive female in Suddenly Last Summer, Orpheus Descending, and Sweet Bird of Youth John M. Clum
8. Romantic textures in Tennessee Williams's plays and short stories Nancy M. Tischler
9. Seeking direction Brenda Murphy
10. Hollywood in crisis: Tennessee Williams and the evolution of the adult film R. Barton Palmer
11. Tennessee Williams: the last two decades Ruby Cohn
12. Words on Williams: a bibliographical essay Jacqueline O'Connor
13. The Strangest Kind of Romance: Tennessee Williams and his Broadway critics Jacqueline O'Connor