The American theatre on the London stage
Tennessee Williams at the Royal Court Theatre
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14046372Keywords:
English theatre, North American theatre, Subsidised theatre, George Devine, Modern British dramaAbstract
This article aims at disseminating knowledge to experts and researchers interested in American theatre of the presence of plays from the United States at the internationally recognised Royal Court Theatre in London, one of the birthplaces of modern British drama, especially for revealing new authors. It focuses on plays by Tennessee Williams (1911-1983), one of the playwrights among the distinct group of American playwrights whose work was taken to the stage of the legendary theatre. The historiographic character of this text will be intertwined with brief analyses of the relation between content and form of Tennessee’s plays which possibly attracted the attention of the artistic directors of the Royal Court and made possible a relevant exchange between the American and the modern British theatre in the post-war period.
References
CLUM, John. M. The sacrificial stud and the fugitive female in Suddenly Last Summer, Orpheus Descending, and Sweet Bird of Youth. In: ROUDANÉ, Matthew C. (Ed.) The Cambridge companion to Tennessee Williams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. p. 128-146.
DONNELLY, Mark. Sixties Britain: culture, society, and politics. Harlow: Pearson, 2005.
ELSOM, John. Post-war British theatre. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976.
FINDLATER, Richard (Ed.). At the Royal Court: 25 Years of the English Stage Company. Derbyshire: Amber Lane Press, 1981.
HOBSBAWM, Eric. Age of extremes: the short twentieth century 1914-1992. London: Abacus, 1995.
ILARI, Mayumi Denise Senoi. Teatro político e contestação no mundo globalizado: o Bread & Puppet Theater na sociedade de consumo. São Paulo: Annablume/Fapesp, 2010.
LITTLE, Ruth; MCLAUGHLIN, Emily. The Royal Court Theatre inside out. London: Oberon Books, 2012.
NICHOLSON, Steve. Foreign drama and the Lord Chamberlain in the 1950s. In: SHELLARD, Dominic (Ed.). British Theatre in the 1950s. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000. p. 41-52.
REBELLATO, Dan. 1956 and All That: the making of modern British drama. London: Routledge, 1999.
ROBERTS, Philip. The Royal Court Theatre and the modern stage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
SHELLARD, Dominic. 1950-54: Was it a cultural wasteland? In: SHELLARD, Dominic (Ed.). British theatre in the 1950s. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000. p. 28-40 .
SZONDI, Peter. Theory of the modern drama. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987.
VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM. Bread and Puppet Theatre. Available at: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1166831/bread-and-puppet-theatre-poster-unknown/. Access: 03 out. 2023.
WEINBERG, David. American influence on the alternative theatre movement in Britain 1956-1980. 323 p. 2015. Thesis – Kingston University London. School of Performance and Screen Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. London, 2015.
WILLIAMS, Tennessee. Orpheus descending. London: Secker & Warburg, 1958.
WILLIAMS, Tennessee. Period of adjustment. London: Secker & Warburg, 1961.
