Erik posted: "Drama is an awkward creature, poised somewhere between literature and performance art (especially CURRENT drama). For example, does one ask about literary content or performance? Critical impact or audience impact? Are plays more like books or movies? While drama merits questions, it seems to be borderland literature, not as purely "literary."" I would argue against this; while the American popular theater has definitely been sparse on undeniably literary works in the last twenty years or so (though people like Tony Kushner and Margaret Edson have put out stuff that will probably be considered of lasting value), there has been a tremendous amount of this type of drama on stages around the world. Wole Soyinka has put out some terrific work, just to name one really pertinent and well-known example. But that brings up another question: is the purview of QB to ask about things that are "well-known" or things that are "important"? And how does one judge the importance of new works? Because the most effective way to judge the relevance of a piece of literature, IMVHO, is to look at the influence that it's had on other works. Which is, after all, why works tend to increase or decrease in critical approbation ten, twenty, a hundred years after their appearance. And that's why it's tough to determine which current literature is worth asking about, but drama especially. Because it's, by its very nature, big business. I don't think current drama, or at least the best of current drama, is inherently any less literary than in prior eras. After all, things like vaudeville and burlesques were big business in much the same way that things like big-budget Broadway works like "The Lion King" are today. We don't hear many questions about that kind of thing because their value is more historical than literary. Drama, more so than other forms of literature, is responsible to financial pressures because a drama requires so many more resources to perform than a book or poem does to publish. But that doesn't prevent really good or important works from reaching the stage, and it shouldn't mean that those valuable works that do are any less important. Anyway, my point is that the best literary dramas are about as important as the best poetry and prose simply because of their impact on the world of writing and literature. However, because there are *less* dramas that have had that kind of impact, their appearance in question distributions will naturally be skewed accordingly. --V.
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