Cambridge University Press Expressionism and Modernism in the American Theatre: Bodies, Voices, Words: 21 (Cambridge Studies in American Theatre and Drama, Series Number 21)

Although often dismissed as a minor offshoot of the better-known German movement, expressionism on the American stage represents a critical phase in the development of American dramatic modernism. Situating expressionism within the context of early twentieth-century American culture, Walker demonstrates how playwrights who wrote in this mode were responding both to new communications technologies and to the perceived threat they posed to the embodied act of meaning. At a time when mute bodies gesticulated on the silver screen, ghostly voices emanated from tin horns, and inked words stamped out the personality of the hand that composed them, expressionist playwrights began to represent these new cultural experiences by disarticulating the theatrical languages of bodies, voices and words. In doing so, they not only innovated a new dramatic form, but redefined playwriting from a theatrical craft to a literary art form, heralding the birth of American dramatic modernism. Review '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 Book Description 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, Urbana-Champaign.