American dramatists, 1918-1945

1918-1945 was the period when American's first wave of major dramatists came of age. In this study the author examines some of the most influential playwrights of the period. He explores a whole range of drama, from the realistic melodrama of Lillian Hellman's Little Foxes and the poetic and lyric realism of Saroyan's The Time of Your Life to the comedies of Kaufman and Hart and the expressionism of The Adding Machine by Elmer Rice.