03303nam 22004693 450 991072370090332120230619084623.00-472-90370-5(CKB)26809526000041(MiAaPQ)EBC30546703(Au-PeEL)EBL30546703(NjHacI)9926809526000041(EXLCZ)992680952600004120230619d2023 uy 0engurcnu||||||||txtrdacontentcrdamediacrrdacarrierViewers in Distress Race, Gender, Religion, and Avant-Garde Performance at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century1st ed.Ann Arbor :University of Michigan Press,2023.©2023.1 online resource (223 pages)9780472076321 Intro -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Introduction: "Can We All Along?" Get -- Chapter 1: The Radical Formalism of Suzan-Lori Parks and Sarah Kane -- Chapter 2: A Spectator Prepares: Forced Entertainment's Theater of Critical Feeling -- Chapter 3: The Behzti Riot as a Contemporary Avant-Garde -- Chapter 4: Feeling Bad about Being White: Young Jean Lee's Theater and the Progressive Avant-Garde -- Coda: The Liberal Individual's Postmodern Return -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.Conventional notions of avant-garde art suggest innovative artists rebelling against artistic convention and social propriety, shocking unwilling audiences into new ways of seeing and living. Viewers in Distress tells a different story. Beginning in the tumultuous 1990s, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and in the wake of the Los Angeles riots, rebellious spectators in American and British theaters broke with theater decorum and voiced their radical interpretations of shows that were not meant to be radical. In doing so, audiences tried to understand the complex racial, gender, and religious politics of their times, while insisting that liberal societies fulfill their promise of dignity for all. Stefka Mihaylova argues that such non-conforming viewing amounts to an avant-garde of its own: a bold reimagining of how we live together and tell stories of our lives together, aimed to achieve liberalism's promise. In telling this story, she analyzes the production and reception politics of works by Susan-Lori Parks, Sarah Kane, Forced Entertainment, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, and Young Jean Lee, as well as non-theatrical controversies such as the conflict over Halloween costumes at Yale in 2015. At the core of spectators' discontent, this book suggests, is an effort to figure out how to get along with people different from ourselves in the diverse U.S. and British societies in which we live.TheaterPolitical aspectsHistory21st centuryExperimental theaterHistoryGender identity in the theaterTheaterPolitical aspectsHistoryExperimental theaterHistory.Gender identity in the theater.792.0905Mihaylova Stefka1366305MiAaPQMiAaPQMiAaPQBOOK9910723700903321Viewers in Distress3388762UNINA