Mama Dada: Gertrude Stein's Avant-Garde Theatre

Mama Dadais the first book to examine Gertrude Stein's drama within the history of the theatric and cinematic avant-gardes. It explores her development of a unique playwriting esthetic based in avant-garde drama, cinema, and queer identity. This is the first study to examine in detail Stein's major plays--Four Saints in Three Acts(1927),They Must. Be Wedded. To Their Wife.(1931),Listen to Me(1936),Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights(1938),Yes Is for a Very Young Man(1944-46), and The Mother of Us All(1945-46)--and to distinguish between her major and minor dramatic works. It is also the first book to consider Stein's impact as a major influence on the American avant-garde, in particular her influence on The Living Theater, Richard Foreman, and Robert Wilson. Through close examination of her career and work (as text and in performance), Sarah Bay-Cheng aims to demystify Stein's drama and to connect her achievements to a larger historical and theoreticaltradition in European and American theater.