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VIETNAM WAR DRAMA 1966-2008: AMERICAN THEATRICAL RESPONSES TO
THE WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH
by
Erin Toth Caron
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(ENGLISH)
May 2010
Copyright 2010 Erin Toth Caron
Object Description
| Title | Vietnam War drama 1966-2008: American theatrical responses to the war and its aftermath |
| Author | Caron, Erin Toth |
| Author email | toth@usc.edu; tcaron@csulb.edu |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | English |
| School | College of Letters, Arts and Sciences |
| Date defended/completed | 2010-03-24 |
| Date submitted | 2010 |
| Restricted until | Unrestricted |
| Date published | 2010-05-07 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Braudy, Leo |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Rowe, John Carlos Nguyen, Viet Thanh Houston, Velina Hasu |
| Abstract | Vietnam War drama in the United States spans four decades of American history, from the first theatrical discussion of the Vietnam War in 1966 with Megan Terry’s Viet Rock to a provocative examination of the war’s legacy in American culture with Steven Dietz’s Last of the Boys (2004). However, critical studies of Vietnam War drama are few, and too often those that do exist examine Vietnam War plays without sufficient consideration of their historical moment. The historicity of the plays tends to be overshadowed in academic studies by structural or thematic interrogations, resulting in the grouping together for analysis of plays that actually respond to very different cultural contexts. Subsequently, comparisons are made among plays with similar content or structure, for example, but with decidedly dissimilar agendas and tactics, resulting in a hierarchy of artistic achievement and the marginalization of plays that have much to contribute both to America’s theatrical history and to a better understanding of the ways American society at large has grappled with the Vietnam War and its aftermath.; This dissertation examines Vietnam War drama in light of each play’s specific historical moment, emphasizing that it is not enough to acknowledge generally the widespread unrest of the Vietnam Era and the effect of that unrest on the creation of drama; rather, careful attention must be paid to the particular sociopolitical issues occurring as the play under examination was written and first performed because those issues influence (and in part are influenced by) the messages and techniques of the playwrights. This dissertation divides the plays by decades: the 1960s, the period of heaviest active combat; the 1970s, the war’s end and immediate aftermath; and the 1980s and after, the resurgence of interest in Vietnam. Each of these periods produced plays that engaged with the Vietnam War in ways determined by their historical moment, plays that reflect, initially, the culture’s concern with the immediate dangers of the war; later, the damage done to the country’s self-image and reputation in the world; and finally, the difficulties experienced by returning veterans and their families. This project engages the arguments of the three key critical works dealing with Vietnam War drama: Nora M. Alter’s Vietnam Protest Theatre: The Television War Onstage, J. W. Fenn’s Levitating the Pentagon: Evolutions in the American Theatre of the Vietnam War Era, and Toby Silverman Zinman’s “Search and Destroy: The Drama of the Vietnam War.” Specific attention is paid to the issue of genre and to the relevance of Vietnam War drama in the post-Vietnam War era. |
| Keyword | Vietnam War; theatre; drama; American literature; genre |
| Geographic subject (country) | USA; Vietnam |
| Coverage date | 1966/2008 |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m3048 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Caron, Erin Toth |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Filename | etd-Caron-3674 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume26/etd-Caron-3674.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | VIETNAM WAR DRAMA 1966-2008: AMERICAN THEATRICAL RESPONSES TO THE WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH by Erin Toth Caron A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (ENGLISH) May 2010 Copyright 2010 Erin Toth Caron |
