The Functions of Storytelling in Modern American Drama: Mapping human consciousness

• Thesis title in Czech: Funkce vyprávění v moderním americkém dramatu: mapování lidského vědomí
• Thesis title in English: The Functions of Storytelling in Modern American Drama: Mapping human consciousness
• Key words: vyprávění|moderní americké drama|Sam Shepard|David Mamet|Suzan-Lori Parks
• English key words: narrative|modern American drama|Sam Shepard|David Mamet|Suzan-Lori Parks
• Academic year of topic announcement: 2019/2020
• Thesis type: diploma thesis
• Thesis language: angličtina
• Department: Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (21-UALK)
• Supervisor: doc. Clare Wallace, M.A., Ph.D.
• Author: hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept.
• Date of registration: 28.01.2020
• Date of assignment: 29.01.2020
• Administrator's approval: not processed yet
• Confirmed by Study dept. on: 29.01.2020
• Date and time of defence: 10.09.2020 09:00
• Date of electronic submission: 17.08.2020
• Date of proceeded defence: 10.09.2020
• Submitted/finalized: committed by student and finalized
• Opponents: prof. Mgr. Ondřej Pilný, Ph.D.

Guidelines

The aim of this MA thesis is to explore the functions of storytelling in Modern American drama after 1970. The analysis will follow a selection of plays written by three of the most representative playwrights of the end of the twentieth century, namely David Mamet, Sam Shepard, and Suzan-Lori Parks. Methodologically, the study will combine a chronological approach with a thematic one, in order to establish how the major themes have evolved under the influence of the critics, as well as under socio-political influence. More exactly, Modern American drama shows a general preoccupation with the alteration of the psychological and moral dimension, the dynamic between truth and illusion, dream and reality that evolve from realistic portrayals of the society (David Mamet) to experimental formulas (Suzan-Lori Parks). The thesis will open with an introduction mapping the most important functions of storytelling in the first subsection and how they are incorporated into drama in the following subsections. Motivated by the ideas of cultural critics and theoreticians such as J. Hillis Miller and Marie Maclean, the main arguments will reveal how and why narrative works as one of the most important practices human beings use to anchor their experiences in reality, and to create a coherent account of their lives. Especially in the modern world where the experiences and the perception of reality tend to become fragmented or confused and the status of consciousness gets more and more deteriorated, storytelling might confer a method of recalibrating human consciousness, personal as well as collective identity and of recuperating human communication which has been decentralized. Many of these preoccupations are manifest in (post)modern plays, since performance is a bridge between the narrative and the imitated act (storytelling also implies an act of performance). Therefore, the narrative acts upon the dynamic of the play itself, as well as upon the individuals involved (characters and audience). Concerning its effects on the text, storytelling disrupts the action, but creates a different kind of performed act – and therefore, it opens another aesthetic discourse inside the main one. Because it disrupts the mimetic process, it postpones the action producing suspense and opening a network of new motivations and possibilities that are not always visible in the acting or in the dialogue. In terms of observing its effects on the level of the individuals, storytelling is important in the process of rediscovering the human consciousness (for the teller, as well as for the audience). It enriches the actions with order, with balance between the rational and the affective memory, with revealing meaningful memories and familial or social identity. All these ideas will be extended within the territory of the Modern American plays, as they reflect the moral and social problems related to the loss of meaning and of the sense of reality. Through that, the thesis will prove why narrative represents a very important process in Modern drama.

References

Primary sources:
Kilgore, Emilie S. ed. Landmarks of Contemporary Women’s Drama. London: Methuen Drama, 1992.
Mamet, David. Plays One: The Duck Variations, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, Squirrels, American Buffalo, The War Engine, Mr. Happiness. London: Methuen Drana, 1994.
Miller, Arthur. Miller Plays 1: All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, A Memory of Two Mondays, A View from the Bridge. London: A&C Black, 2009.
Parks, Suzan-Lori. The America Play and Other Works: Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom, The America Play. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1995.
Wallace, Naomi. In the Heart of America and Other Plays [One Flea Spare, In the Heart of America, The War Boys, Slaughter City, The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek]. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2001.

Secondary sources:
Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Adler, Thomas P. Modern American Drama: 1945-2000. Cambridge UP, 2000.
Bigsby, C.W.E. Modern American Drama. Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Cohn, Ruby. New American Dramatists: 1960-1990. London: Macmillan, 1991.
Gottschall, Jonathan: The Storytelling Animal. New York: Mariner Books, 2012.
Kearney, Richard. On Stories. London and New York: Routledge, 2002.
Middeke, Martin, Peter Paul Schnierer, Christopher Innes and Matthew C. Roudané, eds. The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary American Playwrights. London: Bloomsbury, 2014.
Millis, J. Hillis. Reading Narrative. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998.
Roudané, Matthew. American Drama Since 1960: A Critical History, New York: Twayne, 1996.
Saddik, Anette J., Contemporary American Drama, Edinburgh Critical Guides to Literature, 2007.