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Technology in American Drama, 1920-1950 Soul and Society in the Age of the Machine
Dennis G. Jerz
Book Code: GM2172
ISBN: 0-313-32172-8
ISBN-13: 978-0-313-32172-6
184 pages
Greenwood Press
Publication: 3/30/2003
List Price: $79.95 (UK Sterling Price: £44.95)
Availability: In Stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects:
Series Title: Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies
Series Number: 96
Awards:
  • Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2003
Reviews:
  • Filling a glaring gap in the study of the development of American expressionism and subsequent trends in playwriting, this volume stands alone in making a serious effort to examine the technological issues America was facing after WW I and the few playwrights (working within expressionistic drama) who were writing about these issues....Directors contemplating presenting one of these plays and teachers of dramatic literature will find the book most helpful. Terrific bibliography. Greenwood Press deserves a great deal of praise for its commitment to this series, and this volume is a worthy addition. Essential. All academic and public libraries with extensive theater collections.
    —Choice     November 2003
Description: Technology in American Drama, 1920-1950, explores the relationship between humans and machines during an age when technology became increasingly domesticated and accepted as an index to the American dream. The marriage between dramatic art and dramatic technology stems from both the physical realities of staging and the intimate connection of technology with human labor inside and outside the household. Technology shapes and defines the values of the soul, individually and collectively, in addition to producing the external environment in which people live. This book studies how playwrights of the era reflected the changing role of technology in American society. Drawing on the experiments of European Expressionism, American dramatists of the 1920s found new techniques for developing character and theme, along with innovative staging devices, such as the threatening machines in Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine, Sophie Treadwell's Machinal, and Eugene O'Neill's Dynamo. By the time Thornton Wilder, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller established the canon of American drama, technology was no longer an impersonal force to be resisted, but a conventional and integral component of domestic life. In examining these dramatists and their works, this book provides an insightful analysis of a largely neglected topic.
Table of Contents:
  • Introduction
  • The Americanization of Expressionism: The Hairy Ape (1922) and The Adding Machine (1923)
  • Sensualizing and Sanctifying Technology: Machinal (1928), The Subway (1929), and Dynamo (1929)
  • Theater of the Thirties: Machines to Socialize the Soul: Waiting for Lefty (1935), Altars of Steel (1937), and O! Pyramids (1933)
  • Balancing the Nuclear and the Greater Human Family: The Skin of Our Teeth (1942) and All My Sons (1947)
  • Emotionally and Thematically Integrated Technology: A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) and Death of a Salesman (1949)
  • Conclusion
  • Works Consulted
LC Card Number: 2002016625
LCC Class: PS338
Dewey Class: 812
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