Old Stories, New Readings

Book excerpt: Whether imaginary or based on real events, stories are at the core of any culture. Regardless of their length, their rhetoric strategies, or their style, humans tell stories to each other to express their innermost fears and needs, to establish a point within an argument, or to engage their listeners in a fabricated composition. Stories can also serve other purposes, such as being used for entertainment, for education or for the preservation of certain cultural traits. Storytelling is at the heart of human interaction, and, as such, can foster a dialogic narrative between the person creating the story and their audience. In literature, this dialogue has been traditionally associated with narrative in general, and with the novel in particular. However, other genres also make use of storytelling, including drama. This volume explores the ways in which American theatre from all eras deals with this: how stories are told onstage, what kinds of stories are recorded in dramatic texts, and how previously neglected realities have gained attention through the American playwright’s telling, or retelling, of an event or action. The stories unfolded in American drama follow recent narratology theories, particularly in the sense that there is a greater preference for those so-called small stories over big stories. Despite the increase in the production of this type of texts and the growing interest in them in the field of narratology, small stories are literary episodes that have been granted less critical attention, particularly in the analysis of drama. As such, this volume fills a void in the study of the stories presented on the American stage.