A Metadramatic Interpretation Of Suzan-Lori Parks’s Three Plays

Being a both productive and prominent African American female playwright in the theatrical field in the 21st century, Suzan-Lori Parks has been granted many important awards both from governmental institutions and from theatrical circles. They include two Obie Awards, one Pulitzer Prize honor, Whiting Writers’Award and so on. Her extraordinarily experimental playwriting style well-exhibits her unique perspective on history, race, the living conditions of human being, and even on dramatic creation itself. Therefore, because of her remarkable achievement in the theatrical field, she has been arrayed with literary giants such as Tennessee Williams, David Mamet, Edward Albee, and even Mark Twain and Walt Whitman. She enjoys wide popularity from scholars.This thesis attempts to interpret Parks’s three major plays Venus, The America Play and Topdog/Underdog within the framework of metadramatic theory, in order to point out the metadramatic flavor of these plays. The thesis deems these plays as "drama about drama" and exposes the metadramatic features of distinguishing illusive world and real mundane world, namely illusion and reality. At the same time, the thesis emphasizes that Parks uses the metadramatic elements to express her opinion about the fictionality of dramatic art, so that she can question the verisimilitude of traditional American dramatic narrative about African Americans. Focusing on the metadramatic elements in Parks’s plays, the thesis has done some researches on Parks and her works. Firstly, the thesis has a review of the conditions of contemporary African American drama as well as American drama, and discusses the evolvement and definition of metadramatic theory. It points out that a metadramatic play is a combination of dramatic script and drama theory, embodying double logical levels, which is helpful for revealing the fictionality of dramatic narrative. Secondly, the thesis proceeds to read Parks’s three plays in detail, focusing on three metadramatic elements:playwright-character, role-playing within role and self-reference. It claims that Parks’s characters seem to resemble real playwrights and actors greatly, and meanwhile the narrative dramatic language is also indirectly or directly related to dramatic art itself. Then the Brechtian "Alienation Effect" that is brought about by the metadramatic elements upon audiences is discussed:the playwright-characters and role-playing characters fit in with Brechtian "Street Scene Narrator", who are telling stories rather than playacting; the non-Aristotelian plot, under the influence of Parks’s "Rep.& Rev." technique, disrupt audience’s illusions occasionally; and also, Parks’s experimental stage languages bring unexpected effects and refresh audience’s theatrical experience in a sense. Based on all that, the thesis concludes that:Parks’s plays take drama itself into consideration and expose the fictionality of dramatic narrative, so as to question the verisimilitude of African image presented in traditional American drama. Her plays have reshaped African American history through establishing new dramatic narrative.