Namangan davlat universiteti ingliz filologiyasi fakulteti amaliy ingliz tili kafedrasi

LESSON 17 
AMERICAN DRAMA OF THE XX CENTURY; GENRE OF FICTION AND DETECTIVE 
Plan: 
1.
 
A
merican drama imitated English and European theater until well into the 20th century.
 
2.
 
Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953)
 
3.
 
Clifford Odets (1906-1963)
 
A
merican drama imitated English and European theater until well into the 20th century. Often, 
plays from England or translated from European languages dominated theater seasons. An 
inadequate copyright law that failed to protect and promote American dramatists worked against 
genuinely original drama. So did the "star system," in which actors and actresses, rather than the 
actual plays, were given most acclaim. Americans flocked to see European actors who toured 
theaters in the United States. In addition, imported drama, like imported wine, enjoyed higher status 
than indigenous productions.
During the 19th century, melodramas with exemplary democratic figures and clear contrasts 
between good and evil had been popular. Plays about social problems such as slavery also drew 
large audiences; sometimes these plays were adaptations of novels like 
Uncle Tom's Cabin
. Not 
until the 20th century would serious plays attempt aesthetic innovation. Popular culture showed 
vital developments, however, especially in vaudeville (popular variety theater involving skits, 
clowning, music, and the like). Minstrel shows, based on African-American music and folkways -- 
performed by white characters using "blackface" makeup -- also developed original forms and 
expressions.
Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953)
Eugene O'Neill is the great figure of American theater. His numerous 
plays combine enormous technical originality with freshness of vision and emotional depth. 
O'Neill's earliest dramas concern the working class and poor; later works explore subjective realms, 
such as obsessions and sex, and underscore his reading in Freud and his anguished attempt to come 
to terms with his dead mother, father, and brother. His play 
Desire Under the Elms
(1924) recreates 
the passions hidden within one family; 
The Great God Brown
(1926) uncovers the unconsciousness 
of a wealthy businessman; and 
Strange Interlude
(1928), a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, traces the 
tangled loves of one woman. These powerful plays reveal different personalities reverting to 
primitive emotions or confusion under intense stress.
O'Neill continued to explore the Freudian pressures of love and dominance within families in a 
trilogy of plays collectively entitled 
Mourning Becomes Electra
(1931), based on the classical 
Oedipus
trilogy by Sophocles. His later plays include the acknowledged masterpieces 
The Iceman 
Cometh
(1946), a stark work on the theme of death, and 
Long Day's Journey Into Night
(1956) - - a 
powerful, extended autobiography in dramatic form focusing on his own family and their physical 
and psychological deterioration, as witnessed in the course of one night. This work was part of a 
cycle of plays O'Neill was working on at the time of his death.
O'Neill redefined the theater by abandoning traditional divisions into acts and scenes (
Strange 
Interlude
has nine acts, and 
Mourning Becomes Electra
takes nine hours to perform); using masks 
such as those found in Asian and ancient Greek theater; introducing Shakespearean monologues 
and Greek choruses; and producing special effects through lighting and sound. He is generally 
acknowledged to have been America's foremost dramatist. In 1936 he received the Nobel Prize for 
Literature -- the first American playwright to be so honored.