The disintegrated ‘dream’: Immigrant plays and modern American drama in the 21st-century

Salmasi, Katayoun

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/116024 Copy

Description

Title

The disintegrated ‘dream’: Immigrant plays and modern American drama in the 21st-century

Author(s)

Salmasi, Katayoun

Issue Date

2022-07-11

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Robinson, Valleri

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Robinson, Valleri

Committee Member(s)

• Zahedi, Farindokht
• Mitchell, Thomas Owen
• Stevens, Andrea

Department of Study

Theatre

Discipline

Theatre

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Theatre
• Drama
• American Modern Drama
• Immigration
• Immigrant Drama
• American Immigrant Drama
• Modernism
• Modern Drama
• Modern American Drama
• Exile
• Yussef El Guindi
• Novid Parsi
• Martyna Majok, Naomi Iizuka

Abstract

This dissertation examines the relationship between 21st-century American immigrant drama and modern American drama in style, characterization, theme, content, and format. I argue that American immigrant drama has adopted the style of modern American drama as a generality in content and form due to social and political concerns, in the last decades. The 21st-century American immigrant drama focuses on immigrants’ views about the American Dream and how that intersects with the accessibility of liberty, civil rights, and economic stability in the United States. American immigrant drama, primarily written by first-generation or second-generation immigrants, explores an immigrant’s experiences navigating his or her new life in the United States. I did not choose the understudy plays randomly; they bring together four playwrights from the East, Europe, the Middle East, and the Arab world. Each of these playwrights has a unique experience about immigration to the United States, with various reasons for immigration. However, their perspectives on American society and the issues confronting an immigrant in this society are comparable. They represent the four nations that have been the source of the most significant number of immigrants in American history. These selected plays and many other 21st-century immigrant plays deal with immigration, culture, family, deportation, justice, exile, and law problems. Immigrant plays are essentially a drama of ideas rather than action; they express specific statements they want to spread in American society. Immigrant playwrights examine the host community and address problematic issues in society. They use drama to demonstrate relations that prevail in the United States, which sometimes embeds discrimination and pressure on refugees, immigrants, and asylum seekers. 20th-century drama represents actions, reactions, and dialogues that reflect Post-World War II American themes: the dissolution of the American family, exile, the American Dream’s failure, and the downturn of economy in the United States. 21st-century immigrant plays are also Post-September 11 in character and reflect significant experiences of alienation in exile and the American Dream’s failure. They present the loss of faith in hopes and dreams for immigrants and asylum seekers, who crave freedom and desire success. American immigrant drama and modern American drama examine human experience where the past contrasts with the new reality of the American Dream. These genres have had constant viewpoints on society, personality, and relationships. In the United States, the country of Dreams, these topics have been a critical theatre discussion for several decades. American immigrant drama deals with the paradoxes of immigrant families’ relationships, doubts, worries, and eventual collapse. Immigrant families and individuals in 21st-century plays attempt to manage the essentials of harsh new society’s reality by retreating into a distant past of dead dreams.

Graduation Semester

2022-08

Type of Resource

Thesis

Copyright and License Information

copyright 2022 Katayoun Salmasi

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