Modern Drama

Course Description            Course Objectives            Materials            Assignments            Schedule

Course Description

This course provides an introduction to the major themes and techniques of modern drama, starting with dramas composed in the modernist period of the early twentieth century and advancing to the post-modern and post-colonial dramas of present day.

In order to engage with the texts in question we will be paying particular attention to the tension between the plays as written and the plays as performed. We will explore the way in which authorial voice enters into a play through notes and stage-directions and the relationship they have to performance. The extensive stage-directions of Shaw, and Beckett, as well as the highly developed dramaturgy of Brecht, and the intensely personal symbolism of Tennessee Williams often exist in tension with the plays in performance, leading to interesting interpretive questions regarding drama on the page and drama on the stage. This class with explore these issues as they relate to the other important developments in modern and contemporary genre, including Stanislavsky and The Method, and the development of the stage into an overtly psychological space.

This course will consist of lectures, class discussion, as well as in and out of class writing projects. As drama is meant to be performed, students will be expected to perform a scene over the course of the semester. Students will also be expected to participate in in-class readings in addition to the readings done outside of class.

Course Objectives

• Demonstrate in writing and examinations the major features of realist, expressionist, epic, surreal, absurdist, guerilla, post-modern, and post-colonial drama.
• Write in-depth on at least one major author or one major play.
• Demonstrate in writing and on examinations the major features of new acting techniques developed for modern drama.
• Demonstrate in writing and examination new techniques in stage craft developed for modern and contemporary theater.
• Perform or study in depth a contemporary scene or monologue.

Materials

Jacobus, Lee A. The Bedford Introduction to Drama. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford St. Martin’s, 2005.

Assignments

First Short Paper

For this assignment you will choose one scene from a play that we have read (or will be reading) and perform a “close reading” of it. A close reading entails an in-depth analysis and explication of a text, paying particular attention to of the language used and what it means. In writing this paper you will need to analyze the meaning of what goes on in the scene you choose and how the specifics of the language work to create that meaning.

Second Short Paper

For this assignment you will choose one character from a play and focus on them. Examine them in-depth and decide if and how they change over the course of the play. For example: Does Mother Courage (despite what Brecht says in his notes) change? Does Walter Lee in A Raisin in the Sun change?

Long Paper

Throughout this class we will focus on many themes such as illusion in The Glass Menagerie and the American Dream in Death of a Salesman. Your final paper assignment is to examine a theme of your choosing in-depth in one of the plays we have read this semester.

I will give fuller descriptions of each of these assignments at later points in the course.

Course Schedule

This schedule should be considered tentative as readings and assignments may be added or changed by the instructor to meet the needs of the class.

The readings listed should be read before the day indicated. In the case of plays you should also read the “Play in Performance” section before each play.

Week One: Introducing the Course

9/6: Introduction, an incredibly brief history of theater.

Week Two: The Problem Play

9/11: Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll House Acts I and II

9/13: A Doll House Act III

Week Three: The Modern Drama and new methods of acting

9/18: “Nineteenth Century Drama through the Turn of the Twentieth Century” 689-696

Anton Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard Acts I and II

9/20: The Cherry Orchard Acts III and IV

Week Four: Expressionist Theater

9/25: Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie

9/27: In class workshop on set-design and staging

Week Five: Realism and Modern Irish Drama

10/2: Lady Gregory’s The Rising of the Moon.

10/4: J.M. Synge’s Riders to the Sea, Excerpt from The Aran Islands pg 905-9

Week Six: 20th Century American Realism

10/9: Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun Act I and II

1st short paper due.

10/11: A Raisin in the Sun Act III

Week Seven: Epic Theater

10/16: Berthold Brecht’s Mother Courage Scenes 1-3

10/18: Mother Courage Scenes 4-12

Week Eight: Modern Tragedy

10/23: Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman Act I

10/25: Death of a Salesman Act II and Requiem

Week Nine: Surreal Theater

10/30: Midterm Exam

11/1: Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author

Week Ten: Absurdist Theater

11/6: Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days Act I

11/8: 2nd Short Paper due

Happy Days Act II

Week Eleven: Feminism and Drama

11/13: Carol Churchill’s Topgirls Act I

11/15: Topgirls Act II

Week Twelve: Post-Colonial Drama

11/20: Brian Friel’s Translations

11/22: Thanksgiving Break

Week Thirteen: Post-Colonial Drama and Post-Modern Drama

11/27: Luis Valdez’s Zoot Suit Act I

11/29: Zoot Suit Act II

Week Fourteen: Contemporary Drama

12/4: Tony Kushner’s Angels in America Act I and II

12/6: Long Paper Due

Angels in America Act III

Week Fifteen: Review and Final

12/11: Review day

12/13: Final Exam

Course Description            Course Objectives            Materials            Assignments            Schedule