Description
Book SynopsisTerrence McNally’s 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 McNally’s 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 McNally’s understanding of grace, not as a gift bestowed by an all-powerful deity upon a desperate soul, but as the unwarranted—and, thus, all the more unusual—“act of devotion” (McNally’s phrase) that one person performs for another. By seeking to foment community, most importantly at the height of the AIDS pandemic, McNally’s theater itself proves to be a channel of grace. McNally’s greatest success is shown to be the creation of a theater of empathy and compassion in contradistinction to Artaud’s “theater of cruelty” and Albee’s Americanization of the theater of the absurd.
Table of ContentsPreface
Introduction: Something about Grace: McNally’s Religious Humanism
Chapter One: Someone is Out There: Existential Angst in And Things That Go Bump in the Night
Chapter Two: “I Can’t Believe This Whole Night”: Redemption by Farce in The Ritz
Chapter Three: Long Night’s 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”: McNally’s 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 Are Divine”: Religious Mystery and Homosexual Identity in Corpus Christi
Chapter Eight: McNally on the Cross: Dead Man Walking, Crucifixion, and A Man of No Importance
Chapter Nine: Discovering the Authentic Self: Dedication and the Salvific Function of Theater
Chapter Ten: Sing for Your Supper, Sing for Your Salvation: Golden Age, Master Class, and The Lisbon Traviata
Conclusion: The Music of Forgiveness: The Visit and Mothers and Sons
Appendix: A Calendar of the Works of Terrence McNally
Works Cited
Index
About the Author
