The Theater of Terrence McNally: Something about Grace [Hardcover]

Terrence McNallys canon of plays, books for musicals and opera libretti possesses such a breadth of subject matter and diversity of dramatic modes that critics have had difficulty assessing his accomplishment. This book is the first critical study to identify the four major stages of McNallys development in terms of his understanding of how theater helps the modern person trapped in a seemingly profane existence to find a gateway to the transcendent. Drawing upon such diverse religious thinkers as Martin Buber, Mircea Eliade, Ilia Delio and Carter Heyward, Frontain analyzes the evolution of McNallys understanding of grace, not as a gift bestowed by an all-powerful deity upon a desperate soul, but as the unwarrantedand, thus, all the more unusualact of devotion (McNallys phrase) that one person performs for another. By seeking to foment community, most importantly at the height of the AIDS pandemic, McNallys theater itself proves to be a channel of grace. McNallys greatest success is shown to be the creation of a theater of empathy and compassion in contradistinction to Artauds theater of cruelty and Albees Americanization of the theater of the absurd.Raymond-Jean Frontain is professor of English and former director of the Humanities Institute at the University of Central Arkansas.

Preface

Introduction: Something about Grace: McNallys Religious Humanism

Chapter One: Someone is Out There: Existential Angst in And Things That Go Bump in the Night

Chapter Two: I Cant Believe This Whole Night: Redemption by Farce in The Ritz

Chapter Three: Long Nights Journey into Day: Frankie and Johnny as Sexual Eucharist

Chapter Four: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Swimmer: Lips Together, Teeth Apart

Chapter Five: Allow, Accept, Be: McNallys Engagement with Hindu Spirituality in A Perfect Ganesh

Chapter Six: Communal Survival and the Dance of Death in Love! Valour! Compassion!

Chapter Seven: All Men lC"