Irony and the Modern Theatre

by William Storm

Overview

Irony and theater share intimate kinships, not only regarding dramatic conflict, dialectic, or wittiness, but also scenic structure and the verbal or situational ironies that typically mark theatrical speech and action. Yet irony today, in aesthetic, literary, and philosophical contexts especially, is often regarded with skepticism – as ungraspable, or elusive to the point of confounding. Countering this tendency, Storm advocates a wide-angle view of this master trope, exploring the ironic in major works by playwrights including Chekhov, Pirandello, and Brecht, and in notable relation to well-known representative characters in drama from Ibsen's Halvard Solness to Stoppard's Septimus Hodge and Wasserstein's Heidi Holland. To the degree that irony is existential, its presence in the theater relates directly to the circumstances and the expressiveness of the characters on stage. This study investigates how these key figures enact, embody, represent, and personify the ironic in myriad situations in the modern and contemporary theater.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781107007925
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	05/05/2011
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Modern Theatre
Pages:	266
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

William Storm teaches dramatic literature, theory and theatre history at New Mexico State University. He is the author of After Dionysus: A Theory of the Tragic as well as numerous essays, articles and plays. His scholarly specializations include dramatic theory and dramaturgy, the history and theory of the tragic form and sensibility, art in relation to literature and performance, and connections of science with theatre and narrative studies.

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. Irony personified: Ibsen and The Master Builder; 2. The character of irony in Chekhov; 3. Irony and dialectic: Shaw's Candida; 4. Pirandello's 'father' - and Brecht's 'mother'; 5. Absurdist irony: Ionesco's 'anti-play'; 6. 'Ironist first-class': Stoppard's Arcadia; 7. American ironies: Wasserstein and Kushner; 8. Irony's theatre; Works cited.

Editorial Reviews

"… a discerning commentary … William Storm’s Irony and the Modern Theatre revisits some well-mapped territory, surveying as it does the nature and purpose of irony in selected dramatic texts from Ibsen to Tony Kushner."
Modern Philology

From the Publisher