Table of Contents

List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; Introduction; Part I: 1. Bodies: actors and artistic agency on the nineteenth century stage; 2. Voices: oratory, expression and the text/performance split; 3. Words: copyright and the creation of the performance 'text'; Part II: Introduction; 4. The 'unconscious autobiography' of Eugene O'Neill; 5. Elmer Rice and the cinematic imagination; 6. 'I love a parade!' John Howard Lawson's minstrel burlesque of the American dream; 7. Sophie Treadwell's 'pretty hands'; Epilogue. 'Modern Times'; Works cited.

Promotional Information

A study of the influence of new technologies on early twentieth-century American drama.

About the Author

Julia Walker is Assistant Professor of English and the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Reviews

'Julie A. Walker has … done a great service for perplexed scholars like myself in demonstrating a much more plausible heritage for these key American plays … Walker's book is clearly structured, forcefully argued, and generally very well written. … this is a compelling, intriguing book to be recommended to anyone with an interest in American theatrical modernism.' New Theatre Quarterly