Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The 1960s saw the dismantling of the heterosexual family drama as the home of American theatre and its replacement with a drama of radical questioning and idealism. The 1970s flooded those dream estates with pessimism, ushering in what could be called a “drama of malaise.” In the 1980s, the energy that built up a new and positive theatre came largely from formerly silenced groups – feminist, gay and lesbian, African American, Latina/o, and Asian American playwrights – and a renewed political drama arose in response to the conservative environment of 1980–92. Many of these playwrights, in addition to Albee, Guare, Shepard, Mamet, and August Wilson, are considered in separate chapters. The goal here is to identify some key voices of the period and to define the era's possible links among drama, theatre, and the rest of culture.The notion of a negative drama may sound absurd, but such periods have a purpose: rest, reflection, and recovery. Plays such as Michael Weller's Moonchildren (1972), Mark Medoff's When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder? (1973), Robert Patrick's Kennedy's Children (1975), David Rabe's Streamers (1976), and Lanford Wilson's Fifth of July (1978) reflected a level of exhaustion and anger with the failures of the 1960s. The 1970s offered cause for disillusionment and despair. The disarray of the Democratic Party following the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert ... log in or subscribe to read full text