Mid-Twentieth Century, Euro-American Innovations

Abstract

This chapter explores Artaud’s theatre of cruelty, drawing the audience toward the actor “signaling through the flames,” and Brecht’s epic theatre of alienation effects (some developed with Piscator) to distance the audience at key points, toward thinking critically and changing society. It considers existentialist and absurdist playwrights, expressing a postwar flattening of metaphysics. It investigates American realism, with Stanislavski’s system taken in different directions, and Odets’s agitprop and domestic plays. It contemplates the poetic, selective realism of Williams and Miller, realized through Mielziner’s scene designs. It also looks at McCarthyism pressuring theatre artists. It concludes with other American developments, including musicals, black revues, Living Newspapers, and extensions of theatricality through the new media of radio and film, especially with Welles.