About the Book

Mama Dada is the first book to examine Gertrude Stein's drama within the history of the theatric and cinematic avant-gardes. It explores her development of a unique playwriting esthetic based in avant-garde drama, cinema, and queer identity. This is the first study to examine in detail Stein's major plays--Four Saints in Three Acts (1927), They Must. Be Wedded. To Their Wife. (1931), Listen to Me (1936), Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights (1938), Yes Is for a Very Young Man (1944-46), and The Mother of Us All (1945-46)--and to distinguish between her major and minor dramatic works. It is also the first book to consider Stein's impact as a major influence on the American avant-garde, in particular her influence on The Living Theater, Richard Foreman, and Robert Wilson. Through close examination of her career and work (as text and in performance), Sarah Bay-Cheng aims to demystify Stein's drama and to connect her achievements to a larger historical and theoretical tradition in European and American theater.