Staging American constraint: from containment to confinement post 1945

Abstract

An analysis of American plays from the mid-late 20th century, this study explores dramas representing and resisting social constraint on stage. It organizes its discussion around two primary forms of constraint understood to characterize the era: containment from roughly 1948-1968, and confinement from 1973 forward. Works by Tennessee Williams, Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, and Hanay Geiogamah are investigated, revealing how each dramatist employs rhetorical and aesthetic practices to engage forms of social constraint, thereby enacting resistance to varied forms of oppression such as the closeting of non-normative sexual identities and racist housing policies during the containment era, and oppressive law enforcement tactics aimed at quelling dissent and promoting mass incarceration during the era of confinement.