What is Performance?

Let's start with the contemporary.

Read  Suzan Lori Parks' play:  The America Play

And read selections of Parks’ performance theory, in the "Essays" section of the book pages 3-18. OCRA.

Also read: Shonni Enelow, "The Great Recession: American Movie Acting Today" in Film Comment, Sept/Oct. 2016 issue. 

Reader's Response Questions -- choose from among the questions below and craft a paragraph or two or three in response:




What are some ways that time works in Parks's The America Play?  Why is it important to the point of the play that time works in the way you say?

What are some possible reasons that Parks starts us of with examples of chiasma in the play?

How does "history" work in this play?

Is there a fake and real history here? How are they related (or not)?

Does it matter who plays the characters (casting by race, gender, age etc)? Why?

Use something from one of Parks's essay to discuss something of your choice in The America Play?

How do you think it would be different seeing and hearing the play than reading it?

Do you agree with Shonni Enelow's assessment of contemporary acting and its relationship to trauma? Try and put her main point in your own words and then agree or disagree (always saying why).

Other recommended reading on the contemporary and the link between theatre and the political real: "The Theatre of Trump" by Mike Daisy,  American Theatre, August 16, 2016 (or access on OCRA) and  "All the World's a Campaign" by Michelle Volansy, American Theatre, August 22, 2016