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Staging Race and Gender in the Era of Contemporary Crises: Dramas of African American Women Playwrights

Staging Race and Gender in the Era of Contemporary Crises: Dramas of African American Women... AbstractStarting from the premise that contemporary crisis is a pervasive continuation of the modern “series of interrelated crises” (Fernández-Caparrós and Brígido-Corachán vii), this article examines the manner in which the US theater has responded to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Simultaneously considering crises as “agents of change and transformation” (xvii) and bearing in mind the #MeToo, and Black Lives Matter movements, the article questions the likelihood of contemporary American theater overcoming its own crisis of representation. Relating modern and current crises, the essay first outlines twentieth century dramatic literature and theatersi against the backdrop of the World Wars, the 1918 health crisis, economic depression, and post-war (racialized) society, focusing on plays by American women of color. The study then centers on dramatic and theatrical developments brought about by the annus horribilis of 2020, surveying new genres, authors and performances, and discerning no significant improvement in systemic discrimination on Broadway stages. The essay also offers complementary reading of Trouble in Mind (1955), a meta-drama mirroring systemic racial and gender discrimination in American theaters, and By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (2011) which unravels similar issues, albeit in the film industry. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png American British and Canadian Studies Journal de Gruyter

Staging Race and Gender in the Era of Contemporary Crises: Dramas of African American Women Playwrights

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Publisher
de Gruyter
Copyright
© 2022 Ifeta Čirić-Fazlija, published by Sciendo
ISSN
1841-964X
eISSN
1841-964X
DOI
10.2478/abcsj-2022-0017
Publisher site
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Abstract

AbstractStarting from the premise that contemporary crisis is a pervasive continuation of the modern “series of interrelated crises” (Fernández-Caparrós and Brígido-Corachán vii), this article examines the manner in which the US theater has responded to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Simultaneously considering crises as “agents of change and transformation” (xvii) and bearing in mind the #MeToo, and Black Lives Matter movements, the article questions the likelihood of contemporary American theater overcoming its own crisis of representation. Relating modern and current crises, the essay first outlines twentieth century dramatic literature and theatersi against the backdrop of the World Wars, the 1918 health crisis, economic depression, and post-war (racialized) society, focusing on plays by American women of color. The study then centers on dramatic and theatrical developments brought about by the annus horribilis of 2020, surveying new genres, authors and performances, and discerning no significant improvement in systemic discrimination on Broadway stages. The essay also offers complementary reading of Trouble in Mind (1955), a meta-drama mirroring systemic racial and gender discrimination in American theaters, and By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (2011) which unravels similar issues, albeit in the film industry.

Journal

American British and Canadian Studies Journal – de Gruyter

Published: Dec 1, 2022

Keywords: modern crises; COVID-19 pandemic; US theater; African American theater; feminist drama; intersectionality; Alice Childress; Trouble in Mind; Lynn Nottage; By the Way; Meet Vera Stark

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