Drama, Theatre, and Identity in the American Ne Republic [Hardcover]

A 2005 study into American identity as revealed in the plays of post-revolutionary America.Drama, Theatre, and Identity in the American New Republic explores how the drama and theatre of the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-centuries in the United States mirrored the problems of establishing national and individual identity in post-revolutionary society. By examining plays both inside and outside the early American 'canon', this book confronts matters of political, ethnic, and cultural identity by moving from play text to theatrical context, and from historical event to audience demography.Drama, Theatre, and Identity in the American New Republic explores how the drama and theatre of the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-centuries in the United States mirrored the problems of establishing national and individual identity in post-revolutionary society. By examining plays both inside and outside the early American 'canon', this book confronts matters of political, ethnic, and cultural identity by moving from play text to theatrical context, and from historical event to audience demography.Jeffrey Richards examines a variety of phenomena connected to the stage, including closet Revolutionary political plays, British drama on American boards, American-authored stage plays, and poetry and fiction by early Republican writers. American theatre is viewed by Richards as a transatlantic hybrid in which British theatrical traditions provide material and templates by which Americans express themselves and their relationship to others. Through intensive analysis of plays, this book confronts matters of political, ethnic, and cultural identity by moving from play text to theatrical context and from historical event to audience demography.Introduction; 1. American identities and the transatlantic stage; Part I. Staging Revolution at the Margins of Celebration: 2. Revolution and unnatural identity in Crevecoeur's 'Landscapes'; 3. British author, American text: The Poor SollÓe