Foreign postmodern drama

Author: Cao Lusheng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-08-01
Features: Postmodernist drama is positioned as non-linear, non-literary, non-realistic, non-dialectical, and non-enclosed performance. Professor Jürgen Hoffmann of the Berlin University of the Arts explicitly proposed three characteristics of postmodernist drama: 1) non-linear writing, 2) dramatic deconstruction, and 3) post-grammar performance. He explained that non-linear writing lacks a linear storyline and definitive characters for dialogue, with the text entirely or partially composed of ordinary words and paragraphs that neither possess a certain dramatic quality nor are related to the characters. Events are no longer bound by time and space, lacking a beginning or end and not following any narrative structure.
Dramatic deconstruction tears images away from the continuity of characters, stripping off their masks, or at least exposing them like a newborn baby. Events develop through the interruption, alteration, and fragmentation of linear stories, with carefully crafted dialogue transforming into screaming, stuttering, or rock-like texts. Deconstructive writing methods include the analysis, reorganization, deletion of classic works, as well as the insertion of foreign, non-dramatic texts.
Anti-grammar performance is constructed not by transferring something pre-existing onto the stage but through the interaction between outlines and improvisation. Even if there is a text of character dialogue, it is fragmented and disjointed, focusing only on linguistic value and rhythm. The presentation of images is not intellectual in meaning but merely physical and spatial. The significance of events is kept to a minimum, usually understood only within their own context rather than in the context of non-dramatic reality.
This book selects ten representative playwrights from Europe and America and provides a brief introduction to their postmodernist drama theory and practice. Some are widely recognized as postmodernist directors, while others are considered avant-garde playwrights with certain postmodernist characteristics. Several playwrights share common postmodernist features in their works, but they each have unique styles in certain aspects of writing and performance. Their experiments can be said to extend to every level of drama.