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Documentary trial plays in contemporary American theater / Jacqueline O'Connor

Author
O'Connor, Jacqueline
Published
Carbondale : Southern Illinois University Press, [2013]
Physical Description
1 online resource (xi, 225 pages).
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Series
Language Note
English.
Contents
Introduction : Legal representation -- Judicial identification : The trial of the Catonsville Nine and The Chicago conspiracy trial -- National investigation : Inquest and Are you now or have you ever been -- Ideological confrontation : Execution of justice and Greensboro (a requiem) -- Individual interrogation, communal resolution : unquestioned integrity : The Hill/Thomas hearings, Gross indecency : the three trials of Oscar Wilde, and The Laramie project -- Conclusion : Cultural legislation.
Summary
This book chronicles the development of the documentary trial play in late-twentieth-century American theater. From the Chicago Conspiracy Trial and the O.J. Simpson trial to the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill congressional hearings, legal and legislative proceedings in the latter part of the twentieth-century kept Americans spellbound. Situated on the shifting border between imagination and the law, trial plays edit, arrange, and reproduce court records, media coverage, and first-person interviews, transforming these elements into a performance. In this book-length critical study of contemporary American documentary theater, the author examines ten such plays, all written and staged since 1970, and considers the role of the genre in re-creating and revising narratives of significant conflicts in contemporary history. Documentary theater, she shows, is a particularly appropriate and widely utilized theatrical form for engaging in debate about tensions between civil rights and institutional power, the inconsistency of justice, and challenges to gender norms. For each of the plays discussed, including The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, Unquestioned Integrity : The Hill/Thomas Hearings, and The Laramie Project, the author provides historical context and a brief production history before considering the trial the play focuses on. Grouping plays historically and thematically, she demonstrates how dramatic representation advances our understanding of the law's power while revealing the complexities that hinder society's pursuit of justice. -- Provided by publisher.
Subject(s)
Genre(s)
ISBN
9780809332373 (electronic bk.)
080933237X (electronic bk.)
1299687172 (ebk)
9781299687172 (ebk)
9780809332366
0809332361
Bibliography Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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