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Spanning across playwrights, performers, critics, and theatrical commemorations, this book raises controversy about familiar figures and brings attention to neglected ones. Thomas F. Connolly opens his book with a provocative essay subtitled "Notional Culture." The first sentence: "Postmodernism makes others of us all," introduces Connolly's confrontational approach to the study of culture. The introduction takes readers from Montaigne's "Cannibals" to Madison Avenue "gangsta" wannabes, while explicating the impulses behind formal classification that have driven intellectual pursuits from the Early Modern Period through postmodernism. The chapter on Eugene O'Neill argues that his colossal status as the "greatest American playwright" has been imposed upon him and reduces his stature as a world playwright. Connolly is the major scholar of American drama critics and the essay on John Mason Brown has been called "a fascinating and important piece" by leading theatre historian David Savran. Other chapters on major European performers: Noël Coward, Micheál Mac Liammóir, Alexander Moissi and Viennese theatrical culture, offer analysis of self-creation, the superficiality of national identity, and the ways governments use performers.
Genus Envy is an important book for all theatre, cultural studies, and literature collections.
