Max Shulman, The American Pipe Dream: Performance of Drug Addiction, 1890 – 1940

In "Plato's Pharmacy" (1981), Jacques Derrida deconstructs the pharmakon in Plato's work.He notes that the signifier has many different, even contradictory meanings, such as signifying both remedy and poison.He says the "pharmakon is the movement, the locus, and the play: (the production of difference.It is the difference of difference."As he goes on, he makes the signifier's relevance to the study of drugs explicit and suggests that the inquiry into addiction and intoxication has a long lineage going back at least to the classical period.Max Shulman participates in this genealogy across the eight sections of The American Pipe Dream: Performance of Drug Addiction, 1890 -1940, as he demonstrates the dramatic, historical, philosophical, and legal intersections of addiction and its performance on American stage and screen during the US progressive era (c.1890-1940).In situating his book at these crossroads, Shulman extends the subfield of addiction studies to dramaturgy and theater history.It is a welcome development.Although the literary study of addiction often relies heavily on its representation in fiction and creative nonfiction-perhaps too heavily-American Pipe Dream consistently demonstrates the rich and extensive history of its representation in drama.