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Palgrave Macmillan

Tragicomedy and Contemporary Culture

Play and Performance from Beckett to Shepard

  • Book
  • © 1991

Overview

Authors:
  1. John Orr

    1. University of Edinburgh, UK

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Part of the book series: Edinburgh Studies in Culture and Society (ESCS)

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-vi
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  2. Modernism and Tragicomedy

    • John Orr
    Pages 1-9

  3. Play and Performative Culture

    • John Orr
    Pages 10-32

  4. The Resistance of Commodities

    • John Orr
    Pages 33-46

  5. Samuel Beckett: Imprisoned Persona and Irish Amnesia

    • John Orr
    Pages 47-71

  6. Anglo-Tragic: Pinter and the English Tradition

    • John Orr
    Pages 72-87

  7. Pinter: The Game of the Shared Experience

    • John Orr
    Pages 88-108

  8. Shepard I: The Rise of Myth/The Fall of Community

    • John Orr
    Pages 109-129

  9. Shepard II: The Shock of the Normal

    • John Orr
    Pages 130-144

  10. Shepard III: Re-Enacting the Myth of Origin

    • John Orr
    Pages 145-157

  11. Back Matter

    Pages 158-170
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Keywords

About this book

This study examines the historical relationship between tragicomedy in the modernist theatre and the performative culture of Western consumer societies. While discussing a wide range of playwrights, it focusses specifically on the work of Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter and Sam Shepard. Their plays, it is argued, illuminate the forms of pleasure, fear, performance and corruption which dominate our daily lives. Tragicomedy is seen as unique becuae of the existential playfulness and confusion of its protagonists, and because of its muted vision of apocalypse in the nuclear age.

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Edinburgh, UK

    John Orr

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