"A Terrible Art of Sharp-Shooting at the Audience": Teaching the Shock of Modernist Drama via the Play of Ideas.

This article examines the modernist "play of ideas" as a theatrical genre that sought to shock early 20th-century audiences by intertwining intellectual inquiry with emotional experience, described by Raymond Williams as a "structure of feeling." It outlines pedagogical strategies for helping students engage with this shock, including contextualizing modernist drama alongside non-theatrical intellectual performances and pairing it with contemporary plays by American playwrights of color addressing whiteness and anti-Blackness. The article emphasizes that shock is a tactical device rather than a universal ideal, highlighting its uneven effects and evolving political implications. It also explores how modernist drama challenges conventional notions of knowledge and thinking by embedding ideas within embodied, social, and affective practices.