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Adrienne Kennedy is an African-American playwright.〔Peterson, Jane T. and Suzanne Bennett. "Adrienne Kennedy." ''Women Playwrights of Diversity''. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997. 201-205.〕 She is best known for her first major play ''Funnyhouse of a Negro''.〔Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. "Biographical Sketch". ''(Adrienne Kennedy: An Inventory of Her Papers at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center )''. University of Texas at Austin.〕 Kennedy has been a force in American theater since the early 1960s, influencing generations of playwrights with her hauntingly fragmentary lyrical dramas. Exploring the violence racism visits upon people’s lives, Kennedy’s plays express poetic alienation, transcending the particulars of character and plot through ritualistic repetition and radical structural experimentation. Many of Kennedy's plays explore issues of race, kinship, and violence in American society, and many of her works are "autobiographically inspired."〔Sollors, Werner. "Introduction." ''The Adrienne Kennedy Reader.'' Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001. vii. ((An adaptation of the introduction is available online. ))〕 In 1995, critic Michael Feingold of the ''Village Voice'' declared that "with Beckett gone, Adrienne Kennedy is probably the boldest artist now writing for the theater."〔Feingold, Michael. "Blaxpressionism." ''Village Voice''. October 3, 1995. 93.〕 Kennedy is noted for the use of surrealism in her plays. Her plays are often plotless and symbolic, drawing on mythical, historical and imaginary figures to depict and explore the American experience.〔Wilkerson, Margaret B. "Adrienne Kennedy." ''Afro-American Writers after 1955: Dramatists and Prose Writers''. Thadious M. Davis and Trudier Harris, eds. Dictionary of Literary Biography vol 38. Detroit: Gale, 1985. 163.〕 ''New York Times'' critic Clive Barnes noted that "While almost every black playwright in the country is fundamentally concerned with realism—LeRoi Jones and Ed Bullins at times have something different going but even their symbolism is straightforward stuff—Miss Kennedy is weaving some kind of dramatic fabric of poetry."〔Barnes, Clive. "'A Rat's Mass' Weaves Drama of Poetic Fabric" ''New York Times''. Nov 1, 1969. 39.〕 ==Biography== Adrienne Kennedy was born Adrienne Lita Hawkins on September 13. 1931 in Pittsburgh, PA. Her mother Etta Hawkins was a teacher and her father Cornell Wallace Hawkins was a social worker. She spent most of her childhood in Cleveland, Ohio, attending Cleveland Public schools.〔Andrews, William L., et al. “Adrienne Kennedy.” The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Eds. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster and Trudier Harris. New York: Oxford, 1997. 418-19. Print.〕 She grew up in an integrated neighborhood and didn’t face many prejudices until her college years at Ohio State University. As a child she spent most of her time reading books like ''Jane Eyre'' and ''The Secret Garden''. She often enjoyed spending time reading instead of engaging in games many other children enjoyed. She admired and crushed on actors like Orson Welles. Not until her teen years did she begin to enjoy and focus more on plays. One of the first plays she saw was ''The Glass Menagerie''. It was plays such as this that inspired Kennedy to explore her passions for playwriting. When she went to Ohio State University in 1949, her interest in playwriting continued. She graduated from Ohio State with a B.A. in Education in 1953 and went on to study at Columbia University in 1954-1956. 〔Andrews, William L., et al. “Adrienne Kennedy.” The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Eds. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster and Trudier Harris. New York: Oxford, 1997. 418-19. Print.〕 She married Joseph Kennedy on May 15, 1953.〔Andrews, William L., et al. “Adrienne Kennedy.” The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Eds. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster and Trudier Harris. New York: Oxford, 1997. 418-19. Print.〕 They had two children, Joseph Jr. and Adam. The couple divorced in 1966. Kennedy's first produced play was ''Funnyhouse of a Negro'', a one-act play written in 1960 that draws on Kennedy’s African and European heritage as she explores a “black woman’s psyche, riven by personal and inherited psychosis, at the root of which is the ambiguously double failure of both rapacious white society and its burdened yet also distorted victims.”〔Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., et al. “Adrienne Kennedy.” Norton Anthology of African American Literature. 3rd ed. Vol. 2. Eds. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Valerie A. Smith. New York: Norton, 2014. 617-19. Print.〕 She has written thirteen published plays, five unpublished plays, several autobiographies, a novella and a short story. Kennedy used the alias, Adrienne Cornell when she wrote the short story, “Because of the King of France.” Most of Kennedy’s work is based on her real-life experiences. Lovalerie King said Kennedy’s plays “featured nonlinear narratives, dramatic and surrealistic imagery, split characters who existed in dreamlike states, fragmented formats, and unconventional plots. Her routine use of poetic and buoyant language, pregnant with multiple levels of meaning, makes Kennedy a deliberate master of the verbal metaphor. She combines elements of expressionism with a verbal fluidity to evoke a series of profound and provocative effects. Critics of Kennedy's work must be attuned to a variety of critical approaches and traditions to accurately assess her value to the theatrical community”.〔Andrews, William L., et al. “Adrienne Kennedy.” The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Eds. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster and Trudier Harris. New York: Oxford, 1997. 418-19. Print.〕 Kennedy was a founding member of the Women’s Theatre Council in 1971,a member of the board of directors of PEN (1976-1977), and International Theatre Institute representative in Budapest in 1978.〔Andrews, William L., et al. “Adrienne Kennedy.” The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Eds. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster and Trudier Harris. New York: Oxford, 1997. 418-19. Print.〕 She won several awards for her plays including two ''Village Voice Obie Awards''. In July 1995, she was named playwright in residence for the September 1995 through May 1996 season with the Signature Theater Company in New York. Kennedy has taught or lectured at Yale University (1972-1974), Princeton University (1977), Brown University (1979-1980),University of California, Berkeley (1986), Harvard University (1991)and University of California, Davis. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Adrienne Kennedy」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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