Status Updates From Modern Drama: A Very Short ...

What seems like a race toward the 21st century, the decades from the postwar period into our postmodern and postliterate age are crammed with playwrights trying to assert their bold new thoughts while searching for slivers of the spotlight between the long shadows of Brecht, Artaud and other modernists. That many of these names are vaguely familiar, except in my case Stoppard, argues that theatre is now postidentity.

The long shadow across modern theatre cast by Brecht was created not only by the electrically illuminated theaters in Western Europe and the United States, but by such luminaries as Ibsen, Shaw, Chekhov and gender-balancing Glaspell. The mirror held up to nature is no longer the focal point, but rather the figurative hands that hold the mirror towards the audience, asking them to question what is being shown to them.