Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2006, Theatre and Film

As a play that both spoke to its time and can potentially gain new significance as a reflection of contemporary American society, The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade is the subject of this study. Renowned for its striking imagery, evocative and provocative themes, and popularized through Peter Brook's innovative production techniques, Peter Weiss's monumental play attained particular relevance in light of America's political climate during the mid- to late 1960s. Using New Historicism as a theoretical lens, this study explores the play's representation in and critical reception to its premiere in London of 1964 and New York of 1965, respectively.

Committee: Bradford Clark (Advisor) Subjects: Theater

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2016, Interdisciplinary Arts (Fine Arts)

In this study, I explore the manner in which contemporary artistic reimaginings of the Sanskrit epic the Mahabharata with a characteristically Western bent intervene in the dominant discourse on the epic. Through an analysis of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's The Palace of Illusions (2008), Shashi Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel (1989), and Peter Brook's theatrical production The Mahabharata (1989 television mini-series), I argue that these reimaginings represent a tendency to challenge the cultural authority of the Sanskrit epic in certain important ways. The study is premised on the recognition that the three works of art in question respond, some more consciously than others, to three established assumptions regarding the Mahabharata respectively: (1) the Sanskrit epic as a product of divine authorship; (2) the Sanskrit epic as history; and (3) the Sanskrit epic as the story of a particular race. In their engagement with the epic, these works foreground the concepts of the author, history, and race respectively in such a manner that the apparent stability and unity of those concepts disappear and that those concepts become sites of theoretical reflection. In this sense, the three works could ultimately be seen as theoretical statements or discourses on those concepts. Given that the concepts in question are inextricably linked to the Sanskrit epic and the dominant discourse on the epic, the success and importance of each of the contemporary works as an approach that challenges the cultural authority of the Mahabharata depends upon the extent to which it complicates the concept that it engages with and foregrounds that concept as a site of theoretical reflection.

Committee: Vladimir Marchenkov (Committee Chair); William Condee (Committee Member); Brian Collins (Committee Member); Ghirmai Negash (Committee Member) Subjects: Asian Literature; Asian Studies; Comparative Literature; Fine Arts; Literature; South Asian Studies

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2013, Theatre and Film

For decades, theatre history textbooks and other influential studies on theatre history have positioned Ubu Roi, Alfred Jarry's 1896 avant-garde “classic,” as the beginning or originator of the historical avant-garde and precursor to the playwrights considered as part of Martin Esslin's “Theatre of the Absurd.” Much of this reputation is built on inaccurate accounts of the premiere production, put down by those involved or in attendance, who had particular aims in reporting the event in the ways they did. Those accounts would end up being put to use as the base on which various scholars would establish the premiere of Ubu Roi as the ignition of the historical avant-garde. This dissertation is a poststructuralist historiographical study in which I analyze the various statements made, first by participants and witnesses to the premiere production, and then by scholars and critics who take those accounts as factual, that place Ubu Roi on a path to legitimization and inclusion in the Western canon. In my research, I examine initial accounts of the premiere production, early post mortem accounts of Jarry's life, the proliferation of the character Ubu in early twentieth century French society, French and English critical and biographical studies of Jarry and Ubu Roi, anthologies and edited collections of Ubu Roi, and reviews and other related materials of several key French revivals and over fifteen English-language revivals of the play. I mark the emergence of three specific strategies that grew out of tactics Jarry employed at the premiere. I demonstrate how the conflation of Jarry with his character Ubu, made possible by his extraordinary performance of self at the premiere, the notion of the production's innate ability to produce scandal, and the idea of Jarry's implementation of a “revolutionary” dramaturgy, are all used to make Ubu Roi the example par excellence of avant-garde drama. I unite these three strategies under the title “U-Effect” to describe the subjec (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jonathan Chambers Ph.D. (Advisor); Kara Joyner Ph.D. (Committee Member); Lesa Lockford Ph.D. (Committee Member); Scott Magelssen Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Theater; Theater History; Theater Studies