Date of Award
2024
Document Type
Thesis - ECU Access Only
Publisher
Edith Cowan University
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
School
Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts
First Supervisor
Jonathan W. Marshall
Second Supervisor
Marcella Polain
Abstract
This thesis examines three plays authored by US Armenian female playwrights to explore the survivor memory of the Catastrophe and its transmission to what Marianne Hirsch terms as “postgenerations” (Hirsch, 2008). The study introduces a pioneering approach to understanding the Catastrophe’s impact on post-1970s US Armenian drama. Through staging their “postmemories” —their living connections to a past that is temporally and spatially distant and actively reconstructed—the US Armenian playwrights illustrate that drama and theatre possess the power to breathe life into historical narratives, captivating a new audience and the younger generation with the stories, objects, and images of the past (Hirsch, 2008, pp. 106-107). Using biographical criticism, I demonstrate how the authors transform their postmemories into collective works of art. Simultaneously, by employing Bertolt Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt—a range of techniques that expose the action on stage to a process that may be translated as making the familiar strange or striking—the playwrights empower audiences to reflect and potentially act upon the plays’ diverse themes. Both a tribute and an exercise of imagination, these postmemorial plays underscore drama’s role in remembering and transmitting the past through verbal testimony and visual elements, while also representing, recreating, and reaffirming the US Armenian community and identity.
DOI
10.25958/22v3-dq20
Access Note
Access to this thesis is embargoed until 1 June 2026
Recommended Citation
Karali, S. N. (2024). US Armenian female playwrights writing the Catastrophe in the post-civil rights era. Edith Cowan University. https://doi.org/10.25958/22v3-dq20