Neil Labute: A Casebook

ISBN-13: 9780415655705 / Angielski / Miękka / 2014 / 178 str.

Gerald C. Wood

Opis

Neil LaBute: A Casebook is the first book to examine one of the most successful and controversial contemporary American playwrights and filmmakers. While he is most famous, and in some cases infamous, for his early films In the Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors, Labute is equally accomplished as a playwright. His work extends from the critique of false religiosity in Bash to examinations of opportunism, irresponsible art, failed parenting, and racism in later plays like Mercy Seat, The Shape of Things, The Distance From Here, Fat Pig, Autobahn, and the very recent This Is How It Goes and Some Girls. Like David Mamet, an acknowledged influence on him, and Conor McPhereson, with whom he shares some stylistic and thematic concerns, LaBute tends to polarize audiences. The angry voices, violent situations, and irresponsible behavior in his works, especially those focusing on male characters, have alienated some viewers. But the writer's religious affiliation and refusal to condone the actions of his characters suggest he is neither exploitive nor pornographic. This casebook explores the primary issues of the writer's style, themes, and dramatic achievements. Contributors describe, for example, the influences (both classical and contemporary) on his work, his distinctive vision in theater and film, the role of religious belief in his work, and his satire. In addition to the critical introduction by Wood and the original essays by leading dramatic and literary scholars, the volume also includes a bibliography and a chronology of the playwright's life and works.

Spis treści

Introduction; Part 1 Biographical/Contextual Essays; Chapter 1 A Touch of Bad: Why Is the Director Neil LaBute So Interested in Jerks?, John Lahr; Chapter 2 A Modern Euripides, Mary English; Chapter 3 Jeremy Collier Answered: Shifting Poetic Justice from the Playwright to the Audience in the Works of Neil LaBute, Jay Oney; Part 2 Perspectives on Religion and Morality; Chapter 4 Experiencing Others: Martin Buber and Neil LaBute’s In the Company of Men, Kip Redick, Mark Borchert; Chapter 5 Morality and Metaphor in the Works of Neil LaBute, Tom Wilhelmus; Chapter 6 Latter-day Capitalism: Religious and Corporate Violence in the Films and Plays of Neil LaBute, Gerald C. Wood; Part 3 The LaBute Style; Chapter 7 Neil LaBute, Postmodernist in the Pulpit: The Search for Truth and decency in a Sinful World, Dean Mendell; Chapter 8 Place, Popular Culture, and Possibilism in Selected Works of Playwright Neil LaBute, Thomas L. Bell; Chapter 9 No Simple Misogyny: The Shape of Gender in the Works of Neil LaBute, Becky Becker; Chapter 10 Interrogating the Real in Neil LaBute’s Films, J. P. Telotte;

O autorze

Gerald C. Wood is Professor of English and Chair of the English Department at Carson-Newman College. He is author of Conor McPherson:Imaging Mischief (2003) and Horton Foote and the Theater of Intimacy (1999). He is editor of Horton Foote: A Casebook (1998) and Selected One-Act Plays of Horton Foote (1989).