Drama

American drama: introductory biography

The following introductory notes provide a biographical overview of the playwrights in this topic.

Following World War I, Americans were looking for a more vital theatre than the blandness that appeared on the commercial stage.
Eugene O'Neill was at the forefront of this new approach, taking an expressionist bent to realism.
He was followed by the likes of Maxwell Anderson, Robert Sherwood, Marc Connolly and Elmer Rice. In the thirties and forties there were Lillian Hellman, Orson Welles, John Houseman, Clifford Odets and Thornton Wilder with his stylised settings and poetic dialogue. But O'Neill was the most prominent of them all.
Following World War II, two more greats emerged: Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams with his huge characters and exploration of dreams and illusions, frustrations and disappointments.
The next major figure to emerge, this time as a result of European Absurdist influences was Edward Albee in 1959. His plays continued to shine on the American stage for many decades, winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for Three Tall Women.
Since Albee first appeared there have been many other outstanding playwrights including Sam Shepard, Lanford Wilson, John Guare, Marsha Norman, Beth Henley, August Wilson and Tony Kushner. The most enduring of these however, has been David Mamet who has been winning awards across a variety of media since 1976.

Born in Chicago November 30, 1947.
The world he explores is that of the working class.
Mamet has worked in numerous jobs, many of which he uses as material for his plays.
He won the Pulitzer Prize for Glengarry Glen Ross, a play set in the world of real estate agents.
Many of his plays have been filmed and he has gone on to make a name for himself as a writer-director of film.

Born in New York October 16, 1888.
He is still considered by many to be America's foremost dramatist.
O'Neill won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1936.
Long Day's Journey Into Night is acknowledged as his masterpiece.
Prior to the age of 24, he had already spent six years living a derelict's life in Buenos Aries, Liverpool and New York City.
Following this period, he spent six months recovering from tuberculosis during which time he re-evaluated his life and began writing.
Between 1920 and 1943 he wrote 20 full length plays.
His family background was filled with trouble: troubled parents and a brother who drank himself to death.
Desire Under The Elms was the first play in which O'Neill was able to evoke his own family conflicts through an invocation of themes of Greek tragedy. It continues to be considered one of the all time great American plays.

Born in Missouri March 26, 1911
Williams was a playwright of layers. Always a romantic gentility on the surface, with all sorts of demons, frustrations, sexual tensions and violence underneath.
He worked in a shoe factory while pursuing his playwrighting.
His first major success was The Glass Menagerie in 1944. This was followed by a succession of some of the best known plays of the 20^th century: A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Camino Real (1953), Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (1955), Suddenly Last Summer (1958), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959) and The Night of The Iguana (1961).
Williams struggled with mental illness at many periods during his life. He had a severe breakdown in 1969. He never again reached his former heights of greatness.