Holocaust Drama
The Theater of Atrocity

Placing Holocaust drama in its historical and cultural contexts, this book provides thorough analyses of over thirty seminal Holocaust plays.

Gene A. Plunka (Author)

9780521494250, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 2 April 2009

454 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.8 cm, 0.86 kg

'… this book is a must-read for any reader interested in 'Holocaust drama' in that it begins to categorise the genre in an encyclopaedic manner that is both respectful and thought-provoking. Although this topic might seem to resist further inquiry, it also requires it and this book will hopefully act as an impetus for future researchers, readers and audiences to consider gaps as yet unbridged and voices as yet unheard.' Emily Derbyshire, www.playstosee.com

The Holocaust - the systematic attempted destruction of European Jewry and other 'threats' to the Third Reich from 1933 to 1945 - has been portrayed in fiction, film, memoirs, and poetry. Gene Plunka's study will add to this chronicle with an examination of the theatre of the Holocaust. Including thorough critical analyses of more than thirty plays, this book explores the seminal twentieth-century Holocaust dramas from the United States, Europe, and Israel. Biographical information about the playwrights, production histories of the plays, and pertinent historical information are provided, placing the plays in their historical and cultural contexts.

1. Introduction
2. Staging the banality of evil
3. Culture and the Holocaust
4. The Holocaust as literature of the body
5. Transcending the Holocaust
6. Marxism and the Holocaust
7. Aryan responsibility during the Holocaust, I
8. Aryan responsibility during the Holocaust, II
9. Heroism and moral responsibility in the ghettoes
10. Dignity in the concentration camps
11. Holocaust survivors in the United States and Israel
12. The survivor syndrome and the effects of the Holocaust on survivor families
13. Holocaust survivor memory
14. The Holocaust and collective memory
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Judaism [HRJ], History [HB], Theatre studies [AN]