Troubling Traditions: Canonicity, Theatre, and Performance in the US

333 Pages·2022·10.717 MB·English

by  Lindsey Mantoan (editor), Matthew Moore (editor), Angela Farr Schiller (editor)

Troubling Traditions
Troubling Traditions takes up a 21st century, field-specific conversation
between scholars, educators, and artists from varying generational,
geographical, and identity positions that speak to the wide array of
debates around dramatic canons.
Unlike Literature and other fields in the humanities, Theatre and Performance
Studies has not yet fully grappled with the problems of its canon. Troubling
Traditions stages that conversation in relation to the canon in the United States. It
investigates the possibilities for multiplying canons, methodologies for challenging
canon formation, and the role of adaptation and practice in rethinking the field’s
relation to established texts. The conversations put forward by this book on the
canon interrogate the field’s fundamental values, and ask how to expand the
voices, forms, and bodies that constitute this discipline.
This is a vital text for anyone considering the role, construction, and impact
of canons in the US and beyond.
Lindsey Mantoan is an Assistant Professor of Theatre and Communication
Arts at Linfield University.
Matthew Moore is an Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance at
Muhlenberg College.
Angela Farr Schiller is an Associate Professor of Theater at Boston
Conservatory at Berklee.

Troubling Traditions
Canonicity, Theatre, and Performance
in the US
Edited by
Lindsey Mantoan, Matthew Moore,
and Angela Farr Schiller
First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 selection and editorial matter, Lindsey Mantoan, Matthew Moore,
and Angela Farr Schiller; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Lindsey Mantoan, Matthew Moore, and Angela Farr Schiller to
be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for
their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77
and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Names: Mantoan, Lindsey, editor. | Moore, Matthew Robert, editor. |
Schiller, Angela Farr, editor.
Title: Troubling traditions : canonicity, theatre, and performance in the US /
edited by Lindsey Mantoan, Matthew Moore and Angela Farr Schiller.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge 2022. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021030627 (print) | LCCN 2021030628 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367468323 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367468309 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003031413 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: American drama‐‐History and criticism. | Canon
(Literature)‐‐History and criticism. | Theater‐‐United States‐‐History.
Classification: LCC PS334 .T76 2022 (print) | LCC PS334 (ebook) | DDC
812.009‐‐dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021030627
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021030628
ISBN: 978-0-367-46832-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-46830-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-03141-3 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003031413
Typeset in Bembo
by MPS Limited, Dehradun
Contents
List of Figures viii
Acknowledgments x
List of Contributors xi
Introduction: Troubling Traditions 1
LINDSEY MANTOAN, MATTHEW MOORE, AND
ANGELA FARR SCHILLER
PART I
Costs of Canonicity 21
1. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly in Theatre, Dance, and
Performance Studies 23
NADINE GEORGE-GRAVES
2. The Shakespeare Problem: A Conversation 36
SARAH ENLOE, MADELINE SAYET, MEI ANN TEO, AND
DAWN MONIQUE WILLIAMS
3. “Go back to India if you hate my people so much”:
Consequences of Troubling the “Canon” in
American Academia 49
SUKANYA CHAKRABARTI
4. Despite the Flames: A Conversation 63
PATRICIA YBARRA, VIRGINIA GRISE, AND VICTOR I. CAZARES
5. The Black Gaze/A Different Account 79
ERIC M. GLOVER AND ISAIAH MATTHEW WOODEN
vi Contents
6. Amidst the Rubble of the Ivory Tower 93
SARA BRADY
PART II
Remixing Traditions 101
7. Shaking up the Canon with Cornerstone and OSF 103
BILL RAUCH AND SONJA ARSHAM KUFTINEC
8. “Yo, Let’s Steal Their Canons!”: Arab and Arab American
Canonical Multiplicities 121
SAMER AL-SABER AND MICHAEL MALEK NAJJAR
9. Your Heritage is Safe Here: Defining Three Indigenous
Theatrical Canons 134
JAY B. MUSKETT AND JONAH WINN-LENETSKY
10. “Frenemies” of the Canon: Our Two Decades of Studying
and Teaching Disability in Drama and Performance 147
ANN M. FOX AND CARRIE SANDAHL
11. The Uses of Awe 161
RINDE ECKERT AND ELLEN MCLAUGHLIN
PART III
Fluid Approaches 173
12. Toward and Away: The Dramatic Tension of a Queer &
Trans Canon 175
FINN LEFEVRE
13. Dancing With/Out the Canon 188
HANNAH KOSSTRIN
14. What Do We Do with the Musical Theatre Canon? 201
STACY WOLF, WITH MASI ASARE, ROB BERMAN, RANDALL ENG,
ERIC M. GLOVER, DAVID SAVRAN, GEORGIA STITT,
BRANDON WEBSTER, AND SARAH WHITFIELD
15. Canons in Motion: Japanese Performance, Theatre History,
and the Currents of Knowledge 217
JYANA S. BROWNE AND JESSICA NAKAMURA
Contents vii
16. The Kids’ Table: Cross-institutional Treatment of the
Canon and the Un-canonizable Nature of New Work 230
CHARLIE DUBACH-REINHOLD AND MELORY MIRASHRAFI
PART IV
Departures and Re-visions 243
17. Rethinking the Canon through the Digital 245
MIGUEL ESCOBAR VARELA AND DEREK MILLER
18. Antigone is Dead, Long Live Antigones!: Adaptation,
Difference, and Instability at the Heart of the Traditional
Western Canon 257
RACHEL M. E. WOLFE
19. Redirecting Canonicity: PhD Exams and Actor Training 273
EERO LAINE AND PETER ZAZZALI
20. We Aren’t Here to Teach What We Already Know 288
JESSICA BRATER AND MICHELLE LIU CARRIGER
21. How Do We Do the Queer Canon? 298
ZACHARY A. DORSEY, WITH PAUL BONIN-RODRIGUEZ,
MICHELLE DVOSKIN, LINDSEY MANTOAN, ELEANOR OWICKI,
JACLYN I. PRYOR, AND RAMÓN H. RIVERA-SERVERA
Index 311
Figures
4.1 Promotional Poster. Pinching Pennies with Penny Marshall.
New York Theatre Workshop. October 2020. Photo
Design Credit: Victor I. Cazares 73
4.2 Chairman Mao’s four minute Physical Fitness Plan by Zeke
Peña. (Included as part of Virginia Grise’s Your Healing is
Killing Me.) 76
4.3 Chairman Mao’s four minute physical Fitness Plan, enacted
in Tuscon, Arizona during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Photo
credit: Yvonne Ballesteros 77
5.1 Fred Wilson (b. 1954). Metalwork 1793–1880, from Mining
the Museum, 1992–1993 by Fred Wilson. Courtesy of the
Maryland Center for History and Culture 86
5.2 Fred Wilson (b. 1954) ©. Guarded View, 1991. Wood, paint,
steel, and fabric. Dimensions variable. Gift of the Peter Norton
Family Foundation. Inv.: 97.84a-d. Whitney Museum of
American Art, New York, NY, U.S.A. Digital image ©
Whitney Museum of American Art/Licensed by Scala/Art
Resource, NY 87
7.1 The Toy Truck (1992). Angelus Plaza Credit: Lynn Jeffries 109
7.2 Passport for OSF’s “Canon in a Decade” featuring all of
Shakespeare’s plays. The Tudor Guild, Oregon Shakespeare
Festival 111
7.3 Oklahoma! (2018). Will Parker (Jordan Barbour) wonders if
the intentions of Ado Andy (Jonathan Luke Stevens) are of the
marital variety. Photo by Jenny Graham, Oregon Shakespeare
Festival 113
7.4 Title characters Macbeth (Jeffrey King), Cinderella (Laura
Griffith), and Medea (Miriam A. Laube) in Medea/Macbeth/
Cinderella (2012). Oregon Shakespeare Festival Photo:
Jenny Graham 115
7.5 1491’s Between Two Knees (Oregon Shakespeare Festival 2019):
Shyla Lefner (Irma), Ensemble. Photo by Jenny Graham 118
Figures ix
10.1 The actor Mat Fraser in the documentary Code of the
Freaks (2020) 157
10.2 Teenage Dick by Mike Lew at Theatre Wit (2020). Directed
by Brian Balcom. From left to right, performers MacGregor
Arney (RICHARD) and Tamar Rozofsky (BUCK) 158
18.1 In this scene from Antíkoni, the title character (Fantasia
Painter) appears before Kreon (Phillip E. Cash Cash) in a
state of digital transfiguration. The staged reading took place
in the Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley,
which holds more than 9,000 ancestral remains, the largest
collection outside of the Smithsonian. Photo credit: Irene Yi 262
18.2 Writing along the fibers. Content: Sophocles’ Antigone.
From the Papyrus Manuscript Fragments Collection, Kelvin
Smith Library Special Collections, Case Western Reserve
University 265
21.1 Jesús I. Valles (Un)Documents, 2019. Credit: Errich Petersen
Photography 304