Defining a new American identity. Transformation from within: Lillian Hellman and August Wilson

The dramas of Lillian Hellman and August Wilson examine the abuse of power and the consequent repression of freedom within the larger American canvas of history, economics and society. A revolutionary point of view, evidenced in Hellman's anti-fascism and resistance towards the House Un-American Activities Committee and Wilson's involvement in the Black Power movement informs their plays. Moralists provoked by perceived human inequities exemplified in historical events or narrated memories, both authors use the theatre to express an evolving view of American identity, based in their revolutionary interpretation of the American Constitution and the Bill of Rights, to a responsive public. Change in the treatment of racial and gender difference validates or challenges the state of American citizenship. Theirs is a shared aesthetics of liberation.Chapter One ("Political Activism and Moral Imperatives in the Theoretical Context") presents the theatre as a consensual space wherein a critical dialogue about the breach between America's promise and practice can occur. The aesthetic theories of Jurgen Habermas, David Ingram, bell hooks, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. provide a postmodern analytical approach to the major political influences on the authors and consequent expression in their dramas.Utilizing Toni Morrison's notion that white socioeconomic oppression of the black man is a means of establishing identity, Chapter Two ("The Racial Interface: The Construction of Blackness and Whiteness") analyzes the black presence in Hellman and its counterpart white presence in Wilson to expose interracial boundaries and illuminate the architecture of the new American citizen through the examination of stereotypes, the revelation of the sources of ongoing racial tension and suggested solutions.Chapter Three ("Rewriting History") considers plays as lieux de memoire (Pierre Nora and Melvin Dixon) with dramatic conflicts occurring as "moments of danger" (Walter Benjamin). Stage settings serve as historical and metaphorical housings for the authors' perceptions of the American status quo. Their dramas espouse a shared value system that demands responsible action, equitable reward, and recognition of women and African Americans as equally valuable citizens of American society.