Time And Space:A Study Of Lanford Wilson’s The Hot L Baltimore

Lanford Wilson’s The Hot L Baltimore has aroused widespread concern and praise among audiences and critics since it was published,making Wilson quickly well-known as one of the remarkable American dramatists and the Circle Repertory Theatre attention of the public.By means of Henri Lefebvre’s spatial theories,this thesis tries to probe into the representative work of Lanford Wilson from the perspective of the dialectic relation between time and space,mainly concentrating on the urban changes of The Hot L Baltimore in the past,at the present and in the future.First of all,the once-bustling hotel recalled by residents will be analyzed from the point of space and place,space and memory.With the process of urbanization,the theme of reminiscence always shifts in and out of Wilson’s works,thus revealing current predicaments of urbanites.Secondly,the architecture ideology and disciplinary power have an influence on urban space in different times,which can properly explain why this hotel will be demolished.In spite of the background set in the Baltimore in the 1970s,the similar incident can happen in any city due to the fact that marginalized groups and urban renewals exist in every city.In addition,the self-redemption of marginalized people can be found from the differential space in the play and poetic realism of Wilson.Faced with the deserted urban landscape,people in the hotel spare no effort to break the control of the architecture ideology,resist the disciplinary power,and pursue the life meaning.In the end,considering the uniqueness of drama,space-time features on the stage can be divided linto three aspects—space-time in the theater,inner dramatic space-time and outer dramatic space-time,which greatly enriches the characters and spatial forms of this drama,due to the mixture of vitality and reality,movement and quiescence.With above analysis of the play,the thesis finally concludes that interpreting The Hot L Baltimore from the perspective of Lefebvre’s spatial theories is not only feasible but also necessary because of the essence and inherent requirements of this play.The author of the thesis argues that Wilson’s expectation for the marginalized people in urban space is to spare no effort to break the control of the architecture ideology,resist the disciplinary power,and finally realize the self-redemption through the liberation of the body.