Towards a Redefinition of the Theatrical Avant-Garde in the United States

Abstract

The last decades of the twentieth century have witnessed an upsurge of new works that focus on the development of the theatrical avant-garde in the United States. Among these studies there is wide agreement in locating the in the 1950s the development of a theatrical avant-garde in the United States with groups such as "The Living Theatre", "The Open Theatre" or "The Mabou Mines". Thus, the identification of the beginning of an avant-gardist tradition in the second half of the twentieth century and, therefore, half a century later than the historical avant-garde in Europe seems to be firmly established in literary criticism. This article, however, wishes to reconsider the dates for the beginning of an American avant-garde by analyzing the theatrical contribution of playwright Gertrude Stein, whose playwriting developed in the context of the European avant-garde and became an inspiration for the later experimental generation of theatre practitioners in the 1950s.