Kitchen Sink Realism
Author: Dorothy Chansky
Genre: non-fiction
Published: 2015
Rating: B
Domestic labor has figured largely on American stages.
The genre “kitchen sink realism” both supports and challenges
the idea that the home is naturally women’s sphere.
1920’s – popular plays staged the plight of women seeking escape from the daily domestic grind
Ambush (1921)
1930’s– recognized housework as work!
Awake and Sing (1935)
1950’s – maids gained a complexity previously reserved only for leading ladies.
Member of the Wedding (1950)
1960’s – problems and comforts of domestic labor in homes took center stage.
Raisin in the Sun (1960)
Conclusion:
This is comprehensive analysis of kitchen and sink realism. Dorothy Chansky highlights plays that I never heard of – Mine Eyes Have Seen (1918), – Aftermath (1919) – and it took some effort to immerse myself in them. Chansky discusses more than 20 different plays! I did discover 2 female playwrights I would like to read:
Rachel Crothers – one of the most successful dramatists first part of 20th C.
Georgia Douglas Johnson – one of the earliest African-American playwrights. She was a participant in Harlem Renaissance.
If you are interested in drama and the societal impact these plays have had in the 20th C…this book is for you!
NancyElin 
Good review, thank you.
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Thanks for you kind words….! I love to read plays and kitchen sink genre has a long history depicting working-class domestic life. In the 21st C some playwrights are writing a new genre “in yer face drama’ depicting sex, violence, drug taking and ‘street life’ in general. I just finished a great play by Mary Anne Butler (Australian) ‘Broken’. Review is on Goodreads. The play was magnificent!
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