This book refutes the claim that tragedy is no longer a vital and relevant part of contemporary American theatre. Tragedy in the Contemporary American Theatre examines plays by multiple contemporary playwrights and compares them alongside the works of America’s major twentieth-century tragedians: Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller, and Tennessee Williams. The book argues that tragedy is not only present in contemporary American theatre, but issues from an expectation fundamental to American culture: the pressure on characters to create themselves. Tragedy in the Contemporary American Theatre concludes that tragedy is vital and relevant, though not always in the Aristotelian model, the standard for traditional evaluation.

WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT, BIRNAM WOOD COMES TO DUNSINANE HILL The Risk Theatre Model of Tragedy presents a profoundly original theory of drama that speaks to modern audiences living in an increasingly volatile world driven by artificial intelligence, gene editing, globalization, and mutual assured destruction ideologies. Tragedy, according to risk theatre, puts us face to face with the unexpected implications of our actions by simulating the profound impact of highly improbable events. In this book, classicist Edwin Wong shows how tragedy imitates reality: heroes, by taking inordinate risks, trigger devastating low-probability, high-consequence outcomes. Such a theatre forces audiences to ask themselves a most timely question---what happens when the perfect bet goes wrong? Not only does Wong reinterpret classic tragedies from Aeschylus to O’Neill through the risk theatre lens, he also invites dramatists to create tomorrow’s theatre. As the world becomes increasingly unpredictable, the most compelling dramas will be high-stakes tragedies that dramatize the unintended consequences of today's risk takers who are taking us past the point of no return.

This book explores the emergence of Greek tragedy on the American stage from the nineteenth century to the present. Despite the gap separating the world of classical Greece from our own, Greek tragedy has provided a fertile source for some of the most innovative American theater. Helene P. Foley shows how plays like Oedipus Rex and Medea have resonated deeply with contemporary concerns and controversies—over war, slavery, race, the status of women, religion, identity, and immigration. Although Greek tragedy was often initially embraced for its melodramatic possibilities, by the twentieth century it became a vehicle not only for major developments in the history of American theater and dance but also for exploring critical tensions in American cultural and political life. Drawing on a wide range of sources—archival, video, interviews, and reviews—Reimagining Greek Tragedy on the American Stage provides the most comprehensive treatment of the subject available.

In its long history of performance and reception, Greek drama has been interpreted and adapted in countless ways and forms in response to and as a reflection of the preoccupations and tensions of particular historical moments. This volume continues this tradition by investigating a cross-section of theatrical productions on the contemporary American stage that have reimagined Greek tragedy in order to address the political and social concerns of minority communities. Studying performance and its role in creating and reflecting social, cultural, and historical identity in contemporary America, it draws on cutting-edge research in the field to move discussion away from the interpretation of dramatic texts in isolation from their performance context, and towards an analysis of the dynamic experience of live theatre. The discussion focuses particularly on the ability of engaged performances to pose critical challenges to the long-standing stereotypes that have contributed to the misrepresentation and marginalization of minority cultures. However, in the process it also uncovers the ways in which such performances can inadvertently reinforce the very stereotypes they aim to execute, demonstrating that ancient drama can be a powerful and dangerous tool in the search for social justice.

This volume responds to a renewed focus on tragedy in theatre and literary studies to explore conceptions of tragedy in the dramatic work of seventeen canonical American playwrights. For students of American literature and theatre studies, the assembled essays offer a clear framework for exploring the work of many of the most studied and performed playwrights of the modern era. Following a contextual introduction that offers a survey of conceptions of tragedy, scholars examine the dramatic work of major playwrights in chronological succession, beginning with Eugene O'Neill and ending with Suzan-Lori Parks. A final chapter provides a study of American drama since 1990 and its ongoing engagement with concepts of tragedy. The chapters explore whether there is a distinctively American vision of tragedy developed in the major works of canonical American dramatists and how this may be seen to evolve over the course of the twentieth century through to the present day. Among the playwrights whose work is examined are: Susan Glaspell, Langston Hughes, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, Lorraine Hansberry, Amiri Baraka, August Wilson, Marsha Norman and Tony Kushner. With each chapter being short enough to be assigned for weekly classes in survey courses, the volume will help to facilitate critical engagement with the dramatic work and offer readers the tools to further their independent study of this enduring theme of dramatic literature.

Hypertheatre: Contemporary Radical Adaptation of Greek Tragedy investigates the adaptation of classical drama for the contemporary stage and explores its role as an active, polemical form of theatre which addresses present-day issues. The book’s premise is that by breaking drama into constituent parts, revising, reinterpreting and rewriting to create a new, culturally and politically relevant construct, the process of adaptation creates a 'hyperplay', newly repurposed for the contemporary world. This process is explored through a diverse collection of postmodern adaptations of Antigone, Medea, and The Trojan Women, analysing their adaptive strategies and the evidence of how these remakings reflect the cultures of which they are a part. Central to this study is the idea that each of these adaptations becomes an entirely new play, redefining its central female figures and invoking reconfigurations of femininity which emphasise individual women’s strengths and female solidarity. Written for scholars of Theatre, Adaptation, Performance Studies, and Literature, Hypertheatre places the Greek classics firmly within a contemporary feminist discourse.