The contemporary American monologue : performance and politics / Eddie Paterson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Paterson, Eddie, author.

Series:

Methuen drama engage.

Methuen Drama engage.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Oratory--United States--History--21st century.

Oratory.

American drama--21st century--History and criticism.

American drama.

Monologues.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (233 pages)

Distribution:

London, England : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020

Place of Publication:

London, England : Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2020.

Summary:

"Talk-show confessions, online rants, stand-up routines, inspirational speeches, banal reflections and calls to arms: we live in an age of solo voices demanding to be heard. In The Contemporary American Monologue Eddie Paterson looks at the pioneering work of US artists Spalding Gray, Laurie Anderson, Anna Deavere Smith and Karen Finley, and the development of solo performance in the US as a method of cultural and political critique. Ironic confession, post-punk poetry, investigations of race and violence, and subversive polemic, this book reveals the link between the rise of radical monologue in the late 20th century and history of speechmaking, politics, civil rights, individual freedom and the American Dream in the United States. It shows how US artists are speaking back to the cultural, political and economic forces that shape the world. Eddie Patterson traces the importance of the monologue in Shakespeare, Brecht, Beckett, Chekov, Pinter, O'Neill and Williams, before offering a comprehensive analysis of several of the most influential and innovative American practitioners of monologue performance. The volume also contains an interview with artist Karen Finley, on the trajectory of her recent works. The Contemporary American Monologue constitutes the first book-length account of US monologists that links the tradition of oratory and speechmaking in the colony to the appearance of solo performance as a distinctly American phenomenon"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Monologue in Western Drama

Monologue in American Performance

Confessional monologue and the legacy of Spalding Gray

Post-punk monologue and the Performances of Laurie Anderson

Rights monologue and the Work of Anna Deavere Smith

Radical monologue and the Performance of Karen Finley

Future Monologue.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 197-208) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781472585035

1472585038

9781472585042

1472585046

OCLC:

1201426881