Vietnam War drama 1966-2008: American theatrical responses to the war and its aftermath

Vietnam War drama in the United States spans four decades of American history, from the first theatrical discussion of the Vietnam War in 1966 with Megan Terry's Viet Rock to a provocative examination of the war's legacy in American culture with Steven Dietz's Last of the Boys (2004). However, critical studies of Vietnam War drama are few, and too often those that do exist examine Vietnam War plays without sufficient consideration of their historical moment. The historicity of the plays tends to be overshadowed in academic studies by structural or thematic interrogations, resulting in the grouping together for analysis of plays that actually respond to very different cultural contexts. Subsequently, comparisons are made among plays with similar content or structure, for example, but with decidedly dissimilar agendas and tactics, resulting in a hierarchy of artistic achievement and the marginalization of plays that have much to contribute both to America's theatrical history and to a better understanding of the ways American society at large has grappled with the Vietnam War and its aftermath.;This dissertation examines Vietnam War drama in light of each play's specific historical moment, emphasizing that it is not enough to acknowledge generally the widespread unrest of the Vietnam Era and the effect of that unrest on the creation of drama; rather, careful attention must be paid to the particular sociopolitical issues occurring as the play under examination was written and first performed because those issues influence (and in part are influenced by) the messages and techniques of the playwrights. This dissertation divides the plays by decades: the 1960s, the period of heaviest active combat; the 1970s, the war's end and immediate aftermath; and the 1980s and after, the resurgence of interest in Vietnam. Each of these periods produced plays that engaged with the Vietnam War in ways determined by their historical moment, plays that reflect, initially, the culture's concern with the immediate dangers of the war; later, the damage done to the country's self-image and reputation in the world; and finally, the difficulties experienced by returning veterans and their families. This project engages the arguments of the three key critical works dealing with Vietnam War drama: Nora M. Alter's Vietnam Protest Theatre: The Television War Onstage, J. W. Fenn's Levitating the Pentagon: Evolutions in the American Theatre of the Vietnam War Era, and Toby Silverman Zinman's "Search and Destroy: The Drama of the Vietnam War." Specific attention is paid to the issue of genre and to the relevance of Vietnam War drama in the post-Vietnam War era.