In the more than 75 plays Gertrude Stein wrote between 1913 and 1946, she envisioned a new dramaturgy, beginning with the pictorial conception of a play as a landscape. She drew into her plays the daily flow of life around her - including the natural world - and turned cities, villages, parts of the dramatic structure, and even her own friends into characters. She made punctuation and typography part of her compositional style and chose words for their joyful impact as sound and wordplay. For Stein, the writing process itself was always important in developing the "continuous present" at the heart of her work. "Last Operas and Plays" contains many of Stein's most important and most-produced works. As a special feature, it also includes her essay "Plays", in which she reflects on the experience in the theatre of seeing and hearing, and on emotion and time.

"When I see a thing it is not a play for me, but when I write something that somebody else can see then it is a play for me." -Gertrude Stein

About the Author

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. She was the author of many books, including The Making of Americans, Geography and Plays, Tender Buttons, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, and How To Write.

Reviews
To Carl Van Vechten's 1949 selection of some of Stein's most important and most produced plays, this reprint adds the essay Plays, in which Stein elaborates her notion of the play as a landscape and, and a new introduction by Bonnie Marranca. American Literature



Book Information
ISBN 9780801849855
Author Gertrude Stein
Format Paperback
Page Count 536
Imprint Johns Hopkins University Press
Publisher Johns Hopkins University Press
Weight(grams) 612g