Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T05:32:47.206Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Disputing the Canon of American Dramatic ‘Literature’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

Abstract

In this article, Ronald Tavel argues that the commercial American theatre, endorsed by the American educational system and theatrical establishment, has never nurtured a vision of the scripted play as art – and has consequently produced no single example of it. The nation's genuine playwrights who saw their tasks as makers of art have, he claims, been neglected throughout American history, and left to wither in the wings. In the 1960s, Ronald Tavel founded and named the still-extant Theatre of The Ridiculous, and has written forty produced plays, a number of which have been translated into a dozen languages and staged in four continents. He has written and directed thirteen films for Andy Warhol: ten of these have recently been restored for international distribution by the New York Museum of Modern Art, and all are to be collected for publication later this year by Sun and Moon Press, Los Angeles. Ronald Tavel lives in Taipei, but is currently teaching a course on Warhol and the filmmaker-architect Jack Smith at the Art Centre College of Design in California. The American Institute in Taiwan selected the article which follows as the keynote address at the Seventeenth Annual Convention of the American Studies Association of the Republic of China.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Fornes, Maria Irene, Plays (New York: PAJ Publications, 1986). [Contains: Mud, The Danube, The Conduct of Life, and Sarita.]Google Scholar
Gottried, Martin, Opening Nights: Theatre Criticism of the Sixties (New York: Putnam, 1969).Google Scholar
Gottried, Martin, A Theatre Divided: the Postwar American Stage (Boston: Little, Brown, 1969).Google Scholar
Marranca, Bonnie, ed., Theatre of the Ridiculous (New York: PAJ Publications, 1979). [Contains: The Life of Lady Godiva (Tavel), Stage Blood (Ludlam), The Magic Show of Dr Ma-Gico (Bernard).]Google Scholar
Marranca, Bonnie, ed., Word Plays: New American Drama (New York: PAJ Publications, 1980). [Includes: Fefu and Her Friends (Fornes), The Vienna Notes (Nelson), Boy on the Straight-Back Chair (Tavel).]Google Scholar
Marranca, Bonnie, ed., Word Plays 2 (New York: PAJ Publications, 1982). [Includes: Chucky's Hunch (Owens).]Google Scholar
Mednick, Murray, Raden, Bill, Slean, Cheryl, eds., Best of the West (Los Angeles: Padua Hills Press, 1991). [Includes: Oscar and Berilm (Fornes), Shatter ‘n’ Wade (Mednick).]Google Scholar
Orzel, Nick and Smith, Michael, eds. Eight Plays from Off-Off-Broadway (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966). [Includes: Wilson, Terry, Oppenheimer, Shepard, Fornes, etc.]Google Scholar
Poland, Albert, and Bruce, Mailman, eds. The Off-Off-Broadway Book: the Plays, People, Theatre (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1972). [Includes: The Rimers of Eldritch (Wilson), The Great American Desert (Oppenheimer), Futz (Owens), Gloria and Esperanza (Bovasso), The Hawk (Mednick), The Unseen Hand (Shepard), Invocations of a Haunted Mind (Koutoukas), Gorilla Queen (Tavel), Country Music (Michael Smith).]Google Scholar
Schroeder, Robert, ed., The New Underground Theatre (New York: Bantam Books, 1968.) [Includes: Med-nick, Tavel, Owens, Shepard, van Italie, Fornes.]Google Scholar
Smith, Michael, ed., The Best of Off-Off-Broadway (New York: Dutton, 1969). [Includes: Tavel, Shepard, Heide.]Google Scholar