| This dissertation traces the recent emergence of the Arab American Theatre movement, focusing on plays by women dramatists. It presents an overview of contemporary theatre and performances by Arab American women, and explores their focus on political theatre and identity politics, through an examination of works by fifteen contemporary women playwrights and performers. The emergence of this relatively large group of women theatre writers of Arab descent is a significant cultural phenomenon because their productions not only help to create and solidify an Arab American identity for themselves, they also offer this constructed identity to their audiences.;The political expression of this young theatre movement takes on different articulations, according to the different genres the dramatists use. The introduction presents Rania Khalil's silent performance piece Flag Piece and Suheir Hammad's collage performance ReOrientalism . Chapter one examines three autobiographical solo performances. Leila Buck's ISite and Nora Armani's On The Couch are theatrical presentations of the self through writing the story of lineage. Soha Al Jurf's Pressing Beyond In Between documents her visits to the land of origin in the Arab world, connecting her search for identity to the killing of her Palestinian aunt. Chapter two explores the expansion from the individual search to the community. Heather Raffo's 9 Parts of Desire is based on interviews conducted over a period of ten years with Iraqi women inside Iraq and in exile, while Nibras Group's Sajjal presents verbatim responses to the question "What is Arab?" based on fifty interviews with Arab Americans and other Americans. Chapter three discusses how plays by Arab American women dramatists deal with the negotiation of identity by second-generation Arabs in America, looking at two plays by Betty Shamieh, Chocolate in Heat and Black Eyed, and Laura Shamas' Pistachio Stories. Chapter four examines the comedy of Arab Americans, looking at the work of Maysoon Zayid and discussing the short plays presented at the Arab American Comedy Festival. The conclusion looks at the dominance of women's voice in this emerging theatre movement, and explores the aesthetic of this Arab American theatre. |
