{"product_id":"modern-drama-and-the-rhetoric-of-theater-9780520286870","title":"Modern Drama and the Rhetoric of Theater","description":"\u003cdiv\u003eThe history of drama is typically viewed as a series of inert \"styles.\" Tracing British and American stage drama from the 1880s onward, W. B. Worthen instead sees drama as the interplay of text, stage production, and audience.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow are audiences manipulated? What makes drama meaningful? Worthen identifies three rhetorical strategies that distinguish an O'Neill play from a Yeats, or these two from a Brecht. Where \u003ci\u003erealistic\u003c\/i\u003e theater relies on the \"natural\" qualities of the stage scene, \u003ci\u003epoetic\u003c\/i\u003e theater uses the poet's word, the text, to control performance. Modern \u003ci\u003epolitical\u003c\/i\u003e theater, by contrast, openly places the audience at the center of its rhetorical designs, and the drama of the postwar period is shown to develop a range of post-Brechtian practices that make the audience the subject of the play.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWorthen's book deserves the attention of any literary critic or serious theatergoer interested in the relationship between modern drama and the spectator.\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"W. B. Worthen","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42959923740790,"sku":"9780520286870","price":39.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0671\/1374\/6550\/files\/CoreSourceHub_d4578ae9-ca1c-4296-9837-29681dad1922.jpg?v=1767784453","url":"https:\/\/ingramacademic.com\/products\/modern-drama-and-the-rhetoric-of-theater-9780520286870","provider":"Ingram Academic \u0026 Professional","version":"1.0","type":"link"}