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Title Tennessee Williams and the theatre of excess : the strange, the crazed, the queer / Annette J. Saddik.
Author Saddik, Annette J., 1966- author.
Publisher Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2015.


Status Loan Type Location Shelf-mark
 In Library  Standard  Library Level 9  English XE8913 SAD  

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Description xi, 180 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
ISBN 9781107076686 hardback
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 164-172) and index.
Summary "The plays of Tennessee Williams' post-1961 period have often been misunderstood and dismissed. In light of Williams' centennial in 2011, which was marked internationally by productions and world premieres of his late plays, Annette J. Saddik's new reading of these works illuminates them in the context of what she terms a "theatre of excess," which seeks liberation through exaggeration, chaos, ambiguity, and laughter. Saddik explains why these plays are now gaining increasing acclaim, and analyzes recent productions that successfully captured elements central to Williams' late aesthetic, particularly a delicate balance of laughter and horror with a self-consciously ironic acting style. Grounding the plays through the work of Bakhtin, Artaud, and Kristeva, as well as through the carnivalesque, the grotesque, and psychoanalytic, feminist, and queer theory, Saddik demonstrates how Williams engaged the freedom of exaggeration and excess in celebration of what he called "the strange, the crazed, the queer.""-- Provided by publisher.
Library Class English XE8913
Subject Williams, Tennessee, 1911-1983 -- Criticism and interpretation.

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