This section contains 6,344 words (approx. 22 pages at 300 words per page) |
Dictionary of Literary Biography on (James) Stewart Parker
Stewart Parker loved theatricality. In Dramatis Personae: A Lecture Dedicated to the Memory of John Malone (1986) Parker outlines his ideas about theater and play. Play, he said, when it is freed from the connotations of frivolity and infantilism, is no mere diversion or idle escapism. "Play is how we experiment, imagine, invent, and move forward," he wrote. "Play is above all how we enjoy the earth and celebrate our life upon it." The irrational nature of play affirms indeterminacy and individual freedom. For Parker play is the antithesis of nihilism and despair. He refers to Samuel Beckett's grim world, where human dignity, the illusion of meaning, and the possibility of authenticity and responsibility have all been stripped away, but where play is the one thing left to mark the characters' humanity.
Parker refused, however, to abandon the humanist agenda with its faith in mind and man. Man is...
This section contains 6,344 words (approx. 22 pages at 300 words per page) |