New Deal Theater : The Vernacular Tradition in American Political Theater

New Deal Theater Recovers A Much Ignored Model Of Political Theater For Cultural Criticism. While Considered To Be Less Radical In Its Aesthetics And Politics Than Its Celebrated Weimar And Soviet Cousins, It Nonetheless Proved To Be Highly Effective In Asserting Cultural Critique. In This Regard It Offers A Vital Alternative To The Dominant Modernist Paradigm Developed In Europe. Rather Than Radicalizing Content And Form, New Deal Theater Insisted That The Political Had To Be Made Commensurable With The Language Of A Mass Audience Steeped In Consumer Culture. The Resulting Vernacular Praxis Emphasized Empathy Over Alienation, Verisimilitude Over Abstraction. By Examining The Cultural Vectors That Shaped This Theater, Saal Shows Why It Was More Successful On The American Stage Than Its European Counterpart And Develops A Theory Of Vernacular Political Theater Which Can Help Us Think Of The Political In Art In Other Than Modernist Terms.--jacket. Brecht On Broadway: Reconsidering Political Theater -- Disjunctive Aesthetics: A Genealogy Of Political Theater -- Strike Songs: Working- And Middle-class Revolutionaries -- Plays Of Cash And Cabbages: From Proletarian Melodrama To Revolutionary Realism -- Why Sing Skies Above?: Labor Musicals And Living Newspapers -- Toward Postmodernism: The Political Theater Of The 1960s. Ilka Saal. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [183]-221) And Index. New Deal Theater recovers a much ignored model of political theater for cultural criticism. While considered to be less radical in its aesthetics and politics than its celebrated Weimar and Soviet cousins, it nonetheless proved to be highly effective in asserting cultural critique. In this regard it offers a vital alternative to the dominant modernist paradigm developed in Europe. Rather than radicalizing content and form, New Deal theater insisted that the political had to be made commensurable with the language of a mass audience steeped in consumer culture. The resulting vernacular praxis emphasized empathy over alienation, verisimilitude over abstraction. By examining the cultural vectors that shaped this theater, Saal shows why it was more successful on the American stage than its European counterpart and develops a theory of vernacular political theater which can help us think of the political in art in other than modernist terms--Résumé de l'éditeur Cover 1 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Prologue 12 One: Brecht on Broadway: Reconsidering Political Theater 20 Two: Disjunctive Aesthetics: A Genealogy of Political Theater 36 Three: Strike Songs: Working- and Middle-Class Revolutionaries 64 Four: Plays of Cash and Cabbages: From Proletarian Melodrama to Revolutionary Realism 88 Five: Why Sing of Skies Above?: Labor Musicals and Living Newspapers 122 Six: Toward Postmodernism: The Political Theater of the 1960s 162 Notes 194 Index 234 A 234 B 234 C 235 D 236 E 236 F 237 G 237 H 238 I 238 J 238 K 238 L 238 M 239 N 240 O 240 P 240 R 241 S 241 T 242 U 243 V 243 W 243 Y 243 Z 243 This book analyzes the political theater of the 1930s, establishing its aesthetics as an important alternative to the dominant European modernist paradigm of the time.