Against Theatre

ALAN ACKERMAN is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Toronto, Canada, author of The Portable Theatre: American Literature and the Nineteenth-Century Stage, and editor of the journal Modern Drama. MARTIN PUCHNER is the H. Gordon Garbedian Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, USA, and the author of Stage Fright: Modernism, Anti-Theatricality, and Drama (2002) and Poetry of the Revolution: Marx, Manifestos, and the Avant-Gardes (2006). His edited books and introductions include Six Plays

'This is an invaluable collection of essays for those working in the area of modern and contemporary theatre.' - Professor Anthony Kubiak, University of Wisconsin, USA '...an excellent text for a variety of courses, from those focused on modernism or modern drama to courses on theatre, art, and performance history' - Professor Tamsen Wolf, Princeton University, USA '...an invaluable collection of essays on modernist European and American theatre by the top scholars in our field.' - Shawn-Marie Garrett, Assistant Professor of Theatre, Barnard College, Columbia University, USA '...an excellent text for a variety of courses, from those focused on modernism or modern drama to courses on theatre, art, and performance history' - Professor Tamsen Wolf, Princeton University, USA '...an invaluable collection of essays on modernist European and American theatre by the top scholars in our field.' - Shawn-Marie Garrett, Assistant Professor of Theatre, Barnard College, Columbia University, USA 'In Against Theatre, Ackerman and Puchner gather a distinguished group of scholars, who bring a sharp sense of modernist antitheatricality and its subversion to bear on the many genres, technologies, and literary instigations of modern performance. It's a book full of surprises and makes a welcome addition both to the literature and teaching of modernism and its orphaned stage.' - W.B. Worthen, J.L. Styan Collegiate Professor of Drama, University of Michigan, USA '...an overwhelmingly worthwhile project. The indeterminacy of anti-theatricality as a term, combined with an interdisciplinary focus, leads to a productive and engaging plurality in Against Theatre.' - Amy Simpson, Platform 'The finely sifted understanding of theatricality and its many nuanced opponents that emerges in this collection is a welcome, timely, and smart contribution to the debate.' - Theatre Survey

• List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Note on the Contributors Introduction: Modernism and Anti-Theatricality; A.Ackerman & M.Puchner PART I: FRAMES Avant-Garde Scenography and the Frames of the Theatre; A.Aronson Clown Shows: Antitheatrical Theatricalism in Four Twentieth Century Plays; E.Fuchs Anti-Theatricality in Twentieth-Century Opera; H.Lindenberger 'All the Frame's a Stage': (Anti-)Theatricality and Cinematic Modernism; C.Keil PART II: MATERIALS Anti-Theatricality and the Limits of Naturalism; K.Williams Deploying/Destroying the Primitivist Body in Hurston and Brecht; E.Diamond John Cage's Living Theatre; M.Perloff Mallarmé, Maeterlinck and the Symbolist Via Negativa of Theatre; P.McGuinness PART III: VALUES Narrative Theatricality: Joseph Conrad's Drama of the Page; R.L.Walkowitz The Curse of Legitimacy; D.Savran Performing Obscene Modernism: Theatrical Censorship and the Making of Modern Drama; J.S.Peters Seeming, Seeming: the Illusion of Enough; H.Blau Index