This dissertation analyzes theater performances that use narratives of U.S. military veterans in the post 9/11 era in order to cross the military-civilian divide. Engaging theories of performance, embodiment, and affect, this project investigates the depiction of military bodies onstage, the public perception of military identities, and the lived experience of participating veterans. This survey extends across a variety of theatrical genres, moving from authentic representations to fictionalized narratives that encourage imaginative engagement structured by sincerity. Throughout this dissertation, I argue that these performances only succeed in crossing the military-civilian divide when they utilize dramaturgical conventions that dismantle the figure of the soldier and disrupt popular assumptions about military bodies and narratives. The performances in question include three documentary theater pieces (ReEntry produced by American Records Theatre Company, Basetrack Live produced by En Garde Arts, and Women at War produced by Rivendell Theater Company), performances by The Telling Project (a national nonprofit in which veterans perform their own stories collectively for a community audience), and Quiara Alegría Hudes’ The Elliot Trilogy (Elliot, a Soldier’s Fugue, Water by the Spoonful, and The Happiest Song Plays Last). I use performance and textual analysis, interviews with theater-makers, and participant observation research to detail the narrative and aesthetic ways by which these productions make military lives and bodies legible to their civilian audiences.

Last modified

• 01/28/2019

Creator

• Margaret Lebron

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/N2Z09M

Subject

• Performance Studies

Keyword

• Performing arts
• Theatre

Date created

• 2017-01-01

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright