Help on Expressionism in Theatre.

[son_of_a_gunn_25]

Posted: 2/27/07 at 12:18am

I am not about to ask to have anyone do my homework for me, but I am struggling on a paper where I need to show the inherent expressionism in Elmer Rice's play "Dreamgirl"

Part of my argument involves arguing that there was a distinct American Expressionism seperate from European Expressionism and factors of American culture such as jazz greatly affected American Expressionism (not a complete focus on anger and harshness) though most expressionist playwrights rejected jazz as barbaric. My argument is that the influence of jazz was so great that even the highbrow theatre playwrights could not truly ignore or reject it. I don't want to write my whole paper out here, but if anyone who knows a lot about Expressionism in American Theatre or in particular Elmer Rice would be willing to let me throw my complete idea for the paper against them to see if they can find any holes in my logic, I'd appreciate it. I feel like there are holes in my argument, but I'm just not seeing them.

Updated On: 2/27/07 at 12:18 AM

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 2/27/07 at 12:20am

What?

[son_of_a_gunn_25]

Posted: 2/27/07 at 12:25am

Either I'm completely off base with my research, or being off my ADD meds makes me incapable of coherent thought.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 2/27/07 at 12:40am

Did you see SKYSCRAPER at the LUNT
That was Expressionism
to the max

[Gothampc]

Posted: 2/27/07 at 12:52am

Is your teacher going to question why you went off into another medium by using jazz music when there are so many examples of expressionism in theater (Rice's "The Adding Machine", Eugene O'Neill's "The Hairy Ape" "Great God Brown" "Emperor Jones")?

[son_of_a_gunn_25]

Posted: 2/27/07 at 1:58am

Yes, but he encourages us to come up with new ideas about what influenced playwrights as long as we can back up our ideas with facts. He is more interested in teaching us how to process information clearly than rote memorization. I have to write it as part of a group project on Dreamgirl. (The professor approved the play so he must believe there is some way to make it fit. I plan on using references from other expressionistic plays, but I have yet to find another expressionistic play that is a comedy. I know they are highly uncommon.) I found evidence while researching that public sentiment which was influenced by jazz pushed Rice to write a more lighthearted play to reach his audience because his previous two attempts were complete flops.

Updated On: 2/27/07 at 01:58 AM

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 2/27/07 at 5:20am

I think you may be right insofar as the rise of jazz as a musical form and the uniqueness of American exprssionism.

Send me the paper, and let's see what you have. I'll PM my email to you.