1st Edition

Documentary Vanguards in Modern Theatre

By Timothy Youker Copyright 2018
228 Pages
by Routledge

228 Pages
by Routledge

228 Pages
by Routledge

Practitioners and critics alike often attribute great authenticity to documentary theatre, casting it as a salutary alternative not only to corporate news outlets and official histories but also to the supposed "self-indulgence" and "elitism" of avant-garde theatre. Documentary Vanguards in Modern Theatre , by contrast, argues for treating documentarians as vanguardists who (for good or ill)... Read more

 Introduction





Part One: Sordid Actuality (1835-1922)





1 Georg Büchner and the Breakdown of the History Play





2 Embarrassing Relatives: Naturalism, True Crime, and Bohemian Memory





3 Karl Kraus’s Cannibal Satire and Pedagogies of Reception





Part Two: Vanguards of Revolution and Reform (1917-1984)





4 The Documentary and Communist Vanguards





5 Midcentury Documentaries: For and Against Liberalism





6 Activist Endings and Optative Documentaries





Part Three: Documentary Theatre after Postmodernism (1977- )





7 The Wooster Group and Anna Deavere Smith: Parallax, Play, and Collage Ethics





8 Handspring Puppet Company: Reconciling with the Avant-Garde





9 Too Much Information





Conclusion: "This Is Not a Story about Failure"

Biography

Timothy Youker holds a PhD in Theatre from Columbia University. He has taught Theatre and Drama at Columbia and at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and was most recently appointed as an Assistant Professor of English and Drama at the University of Toronto, Mississauga.