TY  - BOOK
AU  - O'Connor,Jacqueline
ED  - Project Muse.
TI  - Documentary trial plays in contemporary American theater
T2  - Theater in the Americas
SN  - 9780809332373
AV  - PS338.H56 O25 2013
U1  - 812/.051409 23
PY  - 2013///]
CY  - Carbondale and Edwardsville
PB  - Southern Illinois University Press
KW  - PERFORMING ARTS / General
KW  - bisacsh
KW  - PERFORMING ARTS / Theater / History & Criticism
KW  - Trials in literature
KW  - Literature and history
KW  - United States
KW  - History
KW  - 20th century
KW  - Theater
KW  - Production and direction
KW  - Historical drama, American
KW  - History and criticism
KW  - Electronic books.
KW  - local
N1  - Includes bibliographical references and index
N2  - "The development of the documentary trial play in late-twentieth-century American theater From the Chicago Conspiracy Trial and the O. J. Simpson trial to the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill congressional hearings, legal and legislative proceedings in the latter part of the twentieth-century kept Americans spellbound. Situated on the shifting border between imagination and the law, trial plays edit, arrange, and reproduce court records, media coverage, and first-person interviews, transforming these elements into a performance. In this first book-length critical study of contemporary American documentary theater, Jacqueline O'Connor examines in depth ten such plays, all written and staged since 1970, and considers the role of the genre in re-creating and revising narratives of significant conflicts in contemporary history.  Documentary theater, she shows, is a particularly appropriate and widely utilized  theatrical form for engaging in debate about tensions between civil rights  and institutional power, the inconsistency of justice, and challenges to gender norms. For each of the plays discussed, including The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, Unquestioned Integrity: The Hill/Thomas Hearings, and The Laramie Project, O'Connor provides historical context and a brief production history before considering the trial the play focuses on. Grouping plays historically and thematically, she demonstrates how dramatic representation advances our understanding of the law's power while revealing the complexities that hinder society's pursuit of justice. "--
UR  - https://muse.jhu.edu/books/9780809332373/
ER  -