Staging the soul: Eugene O'Neill and American expressionism
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2002
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Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü
Abstract
This study examines Eugene O'Neill as an expressionist playwright and reads his theatre (1920-1926) as an expressionistic transition. The study analyzes the elements of European expressionist tradition O'Neill chose to make use of and those he decided to leave out. The importance of this research lies in its argument that O'Neill's experiments in expressionistic drama make many of his plays significant not merely as curiosities in the evolution of American theatre art but as an infusion of new dramatic methods into exhausted forms such as melodrama and surface realism. And it is this infusion, this blend that has served to redefine the way we perceive modern dramatic literature and the culture that produced it. The study has been divided into two parts. The division corresponds to the theory and practice of the expressionist movement (in Europe and America), New Stagecraft (in America) and O'Neillian drama. Part One deals with European theories of the expressionist movement in general (Chapter 1) and its features in the field of drama (Friedrich Nietzsche, Gordon Craig, Adolph Appia, Frank Wedekind, Georg Kaiser, August Strindberg), and its conjunction with theories of American New Stagecraft Movement in the early twentieth century (Kenneth Macgowan, Robert E.Jones) (Chapter 2) which serve to clarify how Eugene O'Neill adopted new techniques of setting, staging and characterization in his own work (Chapter 3).Part Two of this study is devoted to an analysis of expressionistic dramatization O'Neill used in a selection of plays belonging to years 1920- 1926. Part Two, Chapter One titled "Ghosts" emphasizes expressionistic drama's major visual images- ghosts and phantoms- as they are seen in The Emperor Jones (1920) and examines O'Neill's interest in the unconscious workings of man, which is reflected in the play through a rich usage of dream-like images, gestures and apparitions. The chapter "Machines" under which The Hairy Ape (1922) is observed discusses the process of mechanization of the individual in the modern era in relation to the play's thematic concern. The chapter emphasizes the imagery of the 'machine' as it is seen in the play and its correspondence to expressionistic dramaturgy. Chapter Three of Part Two, "Masks" offers an analysis of The Great God Brown (1926) and All God's Chillun Got Wings (1924) and looks at how the function of the mask coincides with the basic principles of expressionistic drama. Chapter Four of Part Two titled "Desire" explores how the setting of Desire Under the Elms(\924) serves as a symbolic function which is a primary goal of expressionism. The chapter focuses on the play as a synthesis of different theatrical traditions such as realism, use of symbolic presentation and expressionism. A complete work devoted only to O'Neill's expressionist drama is lacking in the area of O'Nellian studies. This study, therefore, is original in its focus on the roots of O'Neill's innovative dramaturgy which is the act of borrowing, exploiting, eliminating and synthesizing that which was originally European expressionism but eventually formed into an O'Neillian expressionism. O'Neill's expressionist plays included in this study serve asIll illustrations of how O'Neill has blended the European with American drama and has formed the distinctive theatre of America.
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Amerikan Kültürü ve Edebiyatı