Routledge Drama Anthology and Sourcebook:From Modernism to Contemporary Performance

The Routledge Drama Anthology and Sourcebook is a groundbreaking compilation of the key movements in the history of modern theatre, from the late Nineteenth Century to contemporary performance practice.

Each of the book’s five sections comprises a selection of plays and performance texts that define their period, reproduced in full and accompanied by key theoretical writings of performers and critics that inform and contextualise their reading. Substantial introductions from experts in the field also provide these sections with an overview of the works and their significance.
The works span :




Naturalism and Symbolism


The Historical Avant-Garde


Early Political Theatre


The Performance of Ideology


Contemporary Performance

This textbook provides an unprecedented collection of comprehensive resource materials which will facilitate in-depth critical analysis. It enables a dialogue between Chekhov, Strindberg, Lorca, Marinetti and Artaud, Brecht, Churchill, Fornes, Ravenhill and Gómez-Pena, amongst many other key practitioners.

Maggie B. Gale is Chair of Drama at the University of Manchester (UK). She is the co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to the Actress;author of West End Women: Women on the London Stage 1918-1962, and J.B.Priestley from the series Routledge Modern and Contemporary Dramatists.
John F. Deeney is Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University (UK), Editor of Writing Live and author of the book Mark Ravenhill from the series Routledge Modern and Contemporary Dramatists.

Acknowledgements Introduction Part 1: Naturalism and Symbolism: Early Modernist Practice Introductory Essay - Dan Rebellato 1. Thérèse Raquin (Emile Zola) 2. Miss Julie (August Strindberg) 3. Three Sisters (Anton Chekhov) 4. When We Dead Awaken (Henrik Ibsen) 5. Interior (Maurice Maeterlinck) 6. Naturalism in the Theatre (Emile Zola) 7. Preface to Miss Julie (August Strindberg) 8. A New Art of the Stage (Arthur Symons) 9. The Modern Drama (Maurice Maeterlinck) 10. Tragedy in Everyday Life (Maurice Maeterlinck) 11. On the Complete Pointlessness of Accurate Staging (Pierre Quillard) Part 2: The Historical Avant-Garde: Performance and Innovation Introductory Essay - Maggie B. Gale 12. King Ubu (Alfred Jarry) 13. The Breasts of Tiresias (Guillaume Apollinaire) 14. The Spurt of Blood (Antonin Artaud) 15. Murder the Women’s Hope (Oskar Kokoshka) 16. Batchelor Apartment (Umberto Boccioni) 17. Genius and Culture (Umberto Boccioni) 18. Feet (Filippo Tommaso Marinetti) 19. Genius in a Jiffy or a Dadology (Raoul Hausmann) 20. The Public (Federico García Lorca) 21. The Meaning of the Music Hall (Filippo Tommaso Marinetti) 22. No More Masterpieces and Theatre and The Plague [edited] (Antonin Artaud) 23. The First Surrealist Manifesto and The Second Surrealist Manifesto (André Breton) 24. Futurist Scenography (Enrico Prampolini) 25. Theater, Circus, Variety (Laszlo Moholy Nagy) Part 3: Early Political Theatres Introductory Essay - Maggie B. Gale and John F. Deeney 26. How the Vote Was Won (Cicely Hamilton and Christopher St. John) 27. Hoppla, We're Alive! (Ernst Toller) 28. Love on the Dole (Ronald Gow and Walter Greenwood) 29. E=MC2 (Hallie Flanagan) 30. Johnny Noble (Ewan McColl) 31. Suffrage Theatre: Community Activism and Political Commitment (Susan Carlson) 32. The Work of Art in the Age of Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media (Walter Benjamin) 33. A Street Scene (Bertolt Brecht) 34. Theatre for Pleasure (Bertolt Brecht) 35. Rehabilitating Realism (Sheila Stowell) 36. The Author as Producer (Terry Eagleton) Part 4: Ideology and Performance/The Performance of Ideology Introductory Essay - John F. Deeney 37. Blues for Mr Charlie (James Baldwin) 38. The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil (John McGrath) 39. Enter the Night (Marie Irene Fornés) 40. Far Away (Caryl Churchill) 41. Scenes from Family Life (Mark Ravenhill) 42. Theory of Cultural Production (Alan Sinfield) 43. The Theory and Practice of Political Theatre (John McGrath) 44. Forty Nine Asides for a Tragic Theatre (Howard Barker) 45. Introduction: Re-acting (to) Empire (Helen Gilbert and Joanne Tompkins) 46. Me, My iBook and Writing in America (Mark Ravenhill) Part 5: Contemporary Performance/The Contemporaneity of Practice Introductory Essay - Maggie B. Gale and John F. Deeney 47. Stage Directions for Stories From The Nerve Bible [excerpts] (Laurie Anderson) 48. Polygraph (Robert Lepage and Marie Bressard) 49. ‘Confess to everything, a note on Speak Bitterness, and Speak Bitterness (Tim Etchells/Forced Entertainment) 50. The Story of M (SuAndi) 51. Supernintendo Ranchero (Guillermo Gómez Peňa) 52. Myth Today (Roland Barthes) 53. The Divine Interference of Images and The Strategy of the Real (Jean Baudrillard) 54. Aspects: Text-space-time-body-media (Hans Thies Lehmann) 55. Dramaturgy and Montage (Eugenio Barba) 56. Laurie Anderson In Interview (edited by Nicholas Zarbrugg) 57. Away from The Surveillance cameras of the Art World: Strategies for Collaboration and Community Activism (Guillermo Gomez Pena) Index