The lesser-known Avant-garde of the Off-Off Broadway’s playwriting

Abstract

At the beginning of the Sixties, during the diffusion of the New Theatre, a new movement named Off- Off-Broadway was born in New York City. It was promoted by little theatres located in coffeehouses, churches and galleries. The main and common objective was to produce the new plays of the young playwrights who did not have access to the institutional Off-Broadway and Broadway scenes. The article presents this new dramaturgy, influenced equally by the American Pop Art, Jazz, Beat poetry, Comics and mass culture, the European dramaturgy of the Absurd and Artaud’s theories. These influences gave birth to a new playwriting’s genre. Its peculiar style was due to the specific moment, the East Village’s milieu and the dimension of the caffees’ stages. Through the analysis of Motel, a one-act play written by Jean-Claude van Itallie, a playwright linked to Cafè La MaMa, the author illustrates the structure and the style of writing that was exclusive of the New York’s theatre.