Earth Matters on Stage: Ecology and Environment in American Theater

311 Pages·2020·3.136 MB·English

by  Theresa J. May

EARTH MATTERS ON STAGE
Earth Matters on Stage: Ecology and Environment in American Theater tells the story
of how American theater has shaped popular understandings of the environment
throughout the twentieth century as it argues for theater’s potential power in the
age of climate change. Using cultural and environmental history, seven chapters
interrogate key moments in American theater and American environmentalism
over the course of the twentieth century in the United States. It focuses, in
particular, on how drama has represented environmental injustice and how
inequality has become part of the American environmental landscape.
A s the first book-length ecocritical study of American theater, Earth Matters
examines both familiar dramas and lesser-known grassroots plays in an effort to
show that theater can be a powerful force for social change from frontier drama
of the late nineteenth century to the eco-theater movement. This book argues
that theater has always and already been part of the history of environmental
ideas and action in the United States.
Earth Matters also maps the rise of an ecocritical thought and eco-theater
practice – what the author calls ecodramaturgy – showing how theater has informed
environmental perceptions and policies. Through key plays and productions, it
identifies strategies for artists who want their work to contribute to cultural
transformation in the face of climate change.
Theresa J. May is the author of Salmon Is Everything: Community-based Theatre
in the Klamath Watershed , the co-editor of R eadings in Performance and Ecology , the
co-author of G reening Up Our Houses , and the co-founder and artistic director
of the EMOS Ecodrama Playwrights Festival. She is an associate professor of
theater at the University of Oregon.

EARTH MATTERS
ON STAGE
Ecology and Environment
in American Theater
Theresa J. May
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 Theresa J. May
The right of Theresa J. May to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-367-46464-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-46462-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-02888-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
An earlier version of part of Chapter 4 was previously published in the New England Theatre Journal
14:63–76 and is republished here with permission.
An earlier version of part of Chapter 7 was previously published in the Journal of American Drama
29:2 (Spring 2017): 1–18 and is republished here with permission.
Cover Photo: Burning Vision by Marie Clements, produced by Rumble Productions in association
with Urban Ink Productions. Photo by Tim Matheson; Marcus Hondro pictured.
Index by Mary Harper, Access Points Indexing, OR.
With gratitude to my grandparents,
Joseph Parsons and Rose Marie Fogarty Parsons

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Preface: from ecotheater to ecodramaturgy xi
I ntroduction: where has theater been while
the world’s been falling apart? 1
1 Stories that kill 18
A ugustin Daly’s Horizon and William F. Cody’s Wild West:
The Drama of Civilization
2 The Sabine wilderness and Progressive conservation 57
D avid Belasco’s The Girl of the Golden West and William
Vaughn Moody’s The Great Divide
3 Dynamos, dust, and discontent 87
E ugene O’Neal’s Dynamo and the Federal Theatre
Project’s Living Newspapers Triple-A Plowed Under
and Power
4 We know we belong to the land 120
R ogers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! and Arthur
Miller’s Death of a Salesman
viii Contents
5 (Re)claiming home and homelands 159
L orraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, Luis Valdez’s Bernabé,
and Sam Shepard’s Buried Child
6 Stories in the land/legacies in the body 200
Robert Schenkkan’s The Kentucky Cycle, Cherríe Moraga’s
Heroes and Saints, and Anne Galjour’s Alligator Tales
7 Kinship, community, and climate change 238
Marie Clements’s Burning Vision and Chantal
Bilodeau’s Sila
E pilogue: theater as a site of civic generosity 276
I ndex 283
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book was written on the traditional homelands of the Duwamish people of
Puget Sound, the Wiyot people of Humboldt Bay, and the Kalapuya people of
the Willamette Valley – lands that inspired and nourished me, each with histories
that unsettled and motivated me. I register my respect and gratitude, first and
foremost, there.
A wise editor-friend once told me that “a book, like a child, takes a village.”
Certainly, if ecological perspectives teach us anything, it is that we do nothing
alone. Every achievement arises from the sustaining power of relationships –
with friends, family, colleagues, community, and environment. A litany of grati-
tude cannot possibly give voice to the love, support, and keen critical insights
that I have received on this journey from dozens of colleagues, graduate and
undergraduate students, friends, and family members – my heart is overfull.
T his book grew in the good soil of three institutions and the diverse intellec-
tual communities they house. Many colleagues gifted me with their willingness
to talk about the ideas in this book and the challenges of writing it. At a time
when the words ecology and theater were not often found in the same paragraph,
Barry Witham and my Ph.D. committee at the University of Washington School
of Drama encouraged me to embark on this venture; comrades Tina Redd and
Ken Cerniglia provided insights through peer readings. At Humboldt State Uni-
versity, faculty and students alike engaged in fruitful conversations at the inter-
section of environmental and social justice pedagogy. Big thanks to Christina
Accomondo, Jean O’Hara, John Meyer, Marlon Sherman, and many other col-
leagues in the Environmental and Community Master’s Program, in which I had
the privilege to teach. The University of Oregon’s Indigenous Studies Research
Colloquium and Center for the Study of Women in Society provided rich intel-
lectual communities. The research of gifted colleagues – including Stacy Alaimo,
Kirby Brown, Stephanie LeMenager, Karie Marie Norgaard, Laura Pulido, Jennifer