Genre Innovations in Contemporary Dramaturgy: Crossover Drama

Abstract

The article discusses the genre ofcrossover drama, borrowed from cinema (where it is a genre in which storylines of two or more works and characters of different movies intersect) and widespread in contemporary drama. The functioning of crossover in the history of Western and national film and in popular literature of the twentieth century is considered. The examples of crossover drama in the history of the twentieth century dramaturgy (“Crazy Jourdain” by M. Bulgakov, “Naked King”, “Shadow”, “Cinderella” by E. Schwartz, “Memorial Prayer” by G. Gorin) are researched. Genre and plot peculiarities, the characters of the crossover plays in contemporary drama (end of the 20^th – beginning of the 21^st century) are analyzed on material of the plays by D. Bavilskiy, Y. Barhatov, C. Churchill, V. Dibrova, V. Durnenkov, B. Friel, V. Sorokin, T. Stoppard, M. Vishnyek. The typology of contemporary crossover drama is also suggested: the fictional crossover in which various characters of different fictional worlds intersect (Hamlet, Othello, Lady Macbeth, Juliet, King Lear with his daughters, Titania in “Hamlet and Juliet” by Yuri Barhatov); the quasi-documentary crossover in which real historical persons cross (Lenin, Joyce and Tzara interact in “Travesti” by Tom Stoppard); the crossover of a mixed type in which real historical persons interact with dramatis personae of the fictional worlds (Chekhov's characters come in contact with their creator in “Chekhov Machine”by Matei Vishnyek; Beckett and Godot arecrossed in “The Last Godot” by the same author).