TY - GEN T1 - Modern drama and the rhetoric of theater A1 - Worthen, William B., 1955- LA - English PP - Berkeley PB - University of California Press YR - 1992 UL - https://ebooks.jgu.edu.in/Record/ebsco_acadsubs_ocm45727846 AB - In Modern Drama and the Rhetoric of Theater, W.B. Worthen examines how the dynamic interplay between dramatic text and stage production shapes the audience's experience in the modern theater. Dividing the "rhetoric" of theatrical performance into three modes--realistic, poetic, and political--Worthen traces the course of British and American drama from the 1880s through the 1980s, showing how textual conventions and performance practices direct the interpretive performance of the theater audience. The realistic theater translates the objectivity associated with science into a vehicle for treating social class. Worthen examines realism's onstage representation of social "others" for an invisible, privileged offstage audience; he discusses the problem drama of the turn of the century (Robins, Shaw, Galsworthy, Glaspell), the experiments of O'Neill, Rice, and the American Method, and the contemporary realism of Pinter, Shepard and Bond. Where realistic theater relies on the "natural" qualities of the stage scene, poetic theater uses the poet's word, the text, to control performance. The plays of Yeats, Auden, Eliot, and Beckett explore the kinds of authority--over actors and audiences--that poetic theater can achieve. Modern political theater, by contrast, openly places the audience at the center of its rhetorical designs, and the drama of the postwar period (Barnes, Brenton, Churchill, Fornes, Nichols, Osborne, Soyinka) is shown to develop a range of post-Brechtian practices that make the audience the subject of the play. Treating a wide variety of plays and drawing extensively on performance history, Modern Drama and the Rhetoric of Theater outlines the strategies that have produced both the modern drama onstage and the modern audience in the theater OP - 230 CN - PR736 .W64 1992eb SN - 0585280983 SN - 9780585280981 SN - 9780520074682 SN - 0520074688 SN - 9780520963047 SN - 0520963040 SN - 0685526836 SN - 9780685526835 KW - Fürstliches Schauspielhaus : Bad Pyrmont KW - Umschulungswerkstätten für Siedler und Auswanderer : Bitterfeld KW - English drama : 20th century : History and criticism. KW - American drama : 20th century : History and criticism. KW - Theater : Production and direction : History : 20th century. KW - Theater : English-speaking countries : History : 20th century. KW - Théâtre anglais : 20e siècle : Histoire et critique. KW - Théâtre américain : 20e siècle : Histoire et critique. KW - Théâtre : Production et mise en scène : Histoire : 20e siècle. KW - Théâtre : Anglophonie : Histoire : 20e siècle. KW - DRAMA : English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh. KW - Theater KW - American drama KW - English drama KW - Theater : Production and direction KW - English-speaking countries KW - Drama KW - Englisch KW - Publikum KW - Dramentheorie KW - Großbritannien KW - USA KW - Toneelstukken. KW - Retorica. KW - Toneelvoorstellingen. KW - Englisch. KW - 1900-1999 KW - Electronic books. KW - Criticism, interpretation, etc. KW - History ER -