Documentary Vanguards in Modern Theatre

Timothy Youker holds a PhD in Theatre from Columbia University. He has taught Theatre and Drama at Columbia and at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and was most recently appointed as an Assistant Professor of English and Drama at the University of Toronto, Mississauga.

Introduction

Part One: Sordid Actuality (1835-1922)

1 Georg Büchner and the Breakdown of the History Play

2 Embarrassing Relatives: Naturalism, True Crime, and Bohemian Memory

3 Karl Kraus’s Cannibal Satire and Pedagogies of Reception

Part Two: Vanguards of Revolution and Reform (1917-1984)

4 The Documentary and Communist Vanguards

5 Midcentury Documentaries: For and Against Liberalism

6 Activist Endings and Optative Documentaries

Part Three: Documentary Theatre after Postmodernism (1977- )

7 The Wooster Group and Anna Deavere Smith: Parallax, Play, and Collage Ethics

8 Handspring Puppet Company: Reconciling with the Avant-Garde

9 Too Much Information

Conclusion: "This Is Not a Story about Failure"