English 271/Theater Arts 275. Political Theater

Professor Rebecca Bushnell
116 Bennett Hall
Office: 898-8220
Office hours: T/Th 9:30-10:30, Wed. 1-2:00
e-mail: bushnell@dept.english.upenn.edu
listserver: bushnell271@english

Books/Texts: 
At the Penn Book Center

Artaud, Antonin, Theatre and its Double (Grove)
Aristophanes, Frogs 
Brecht, Bertolt, Life of Galileo 
Willet, John, ed., Brecht and the Theatre 
Euripides, Bakkhai, trans. Bagg (Univ. of Massachusetts)
Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays, trans. R. Fagles  (Penguin) 	
Genet, Jean, The Balcony, trans. Frechtman (Grove)
Marlowe, Christopher, Tamburlaine the Great I and II, ed. Jump
(Nebraska)
Shaw, George Bernard, Major Barbara  (Penguin)
Fugard,Athol Statements (Oxford) 
Churchill, Caryl, Top Girls (Routledge)
Soyinka, Wole  The Bacchae (Norton)
Ibsen, Henrik, Plays 
Jones, Leroi (Baraka, Amiri), The Dutchman and the Slave 	(Morrow)
Havel, Vaclav, The Memorandum (Grove)
Fo, Dario, Accidental Death of an Anarchist

Written Assignments:
Short paper on staging of a scene (5 pp.); short paper on critical history
reception of a play (5 pp.); longer take-home examination (10 pp.)

Jan. 13: Introduction

State Theater

Jan. 15: Euripides, Bakkhai

Jan. 20: Euripides, Bakkhai, cont.; selection from Plato,
Republic(photocopy to be distributed)
Jan. 22: Sophocles, Antigone

Jan. 27: Sophocles, Antigone, cont.; reading from Vernant. Myth and
Tragedy in Ancient Greece (photocopy to be distributed)
Jan. 29.  Aristophanes, Frogs

Feb. 3. Ben Jonson, Masque of Queens, and reading from Stephen Orgel, The
Illusion of Power (photocopy to be distributed). Paper topic distributed.
Feb. 5. Fugard, The Island


Popular/Socialist Theater

Feb. 10. Marlowe, Tamburlaine I
Feb. 12  Tamburlaine, cont. paper I due.

Feb. 17. Ibsen, An Enemy of the People
Feb. 19. Shaw, "Quintessence of Ibsenism" (photocopy to be distributed)

Feb. 24. Shaw, Major Barbara
Feb. 26. Odets, Waiting for Lefty (photocopy to be distributed). Paper 2
explained

March 3. Brecht, Life of Galileo
March 4. Brecht, Life of Galileo, cont.

Modern/Post-Modern Theater and Theory

March 17. Brecht, "Short Organon for the Theater," "The Modern Theatre is
the Epic Theatre," and "Three Cheers for Shaw"), from Brecht on Theatre
March 19. No class: paper 2 due in my mailbox.

March 31. Artaud, section from The Theatre and Its Double
April 2. Genet, The Balcony

April 7. Soyinka, The Bacchae
April 9. Churchill, Top Girls, and  Hal Foster, "For a Concept of the
Political in Contemporary Art," in Recodings: Art, Spectacle, Cultural
Politics (photocopy to be distributed)


April 14. Jones/Baraka, The Dutchman and The Slave
April 16. Spike Lee, Do the Right Thing (film: viewing to be arranged).
Questions for take-home exam due

April 21. Vaclav Havel, The Memorandum
April 23. Dario Fo, Accidental Death of an Anarchist: take-home
examination distributed

Take-home exam due in my office by 3:00 April 30.