THE INTOXICATED STAGE: MODERNIST THEATRES OF ADDICTION

Abstract

This dissertation assesses the narrative, rhetorical, and aesthetic ways in which addiction appears in modernist theatre. It similarly harnesses post-modernist theatrical intervention tactics to both critique and expand the audience’s perception of addiction as it appears on stage. The Intoxicated Stage: Modernist Theatres of Addiction offers several theoretical lenses through which to read addiction in the context of theatre and performance. Foremost among these is an understanding of addiction as a performative, though this dissertation draws heavily from sociological reports of addiction, Critical Race Theory in the context of US laws toward drug use, and Queer Theory’s contributions to narrative aesthetics. Addiction is foremost a sociopolitical concern and audience perspectives toward addiction are likely to change across different social, political, and aesthetic landscapes. Modernist versus postmodernist theatrical motifs present a key indicator of these shifts in perspective. Chapter One focuses on Lorca’s 1934 play Yerma to indicate how modernist theatre witnessed the invention of the addict as a newfound character trope, using Simon Stone’s 2017 adaptation to demonstrate the impact of twenty-first century gender politics and the perception of addiction as a form of consumer deviance. By detaching Long Day’s Journey into Night from Eugene O’Neill’s own biography, Chapter Two points to a crucial but conflicting dichotomy between addiction as a moral issue and addiction as a criminal concern as per my respective arguments about Harold Clurman and Robert O’Hara’s stagings of O’Neill’s play in 1965 and 2022. Chapter Three strives to unpack the naturalization of addiction with a focus on aesthetics in Bertolt Brecht’s 1918 play Baal and considering how this character evolves into a society that is paradoxically more “addictified” yet open to new ways of approaching substance use disorders. Chapter Four pinpoints a historical paradox related to addiction at the cusp of postmodernism, noting that The Living Theatre’s 1959 production The Connection was as ironically rooted in commercialization as it was to artistic radicalism.