Theatre Arts 112/English
98
Theatre, History,
Culture III:
Modernism to
Post-Modernism
Professor Mazer
Fall 2007
519
Office Hours:
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11-11:50, and by appointment
September 6:
Introduction
I. Against/Beneath/Beyond Realism
September 11:
Maurice Maeterlinck, “The Tragic in Everyday Life” (bulkpack);
Anton Chekhov, The Seagull.
[September 13:
NO CLASS]
September 18:
Edward Gordon Craig, “The Actor and the Über-Marionette”
from On the Art of the Theatre (bulkpack); Adolphe Appia, “Ideas on a Reform of our Mise en Scène (bulkpack)”; William ButlerYeats, At the
Hawk’s Well (bulkpack).
II. Dada and Surrealism
September 20:
Alfred Jarry, Ubu Roi (bulkpack);
Guillaume Apollinaire, The Breasts of Tiresias (bulkpack).
III. The
Theatre of Cruelty
September 25:
Antonin Artaud, ”Metaphysics and the Mise en Scène,” “On the Balinese Theater,” “No More Masterpieces,” “The
Theater and Cruelty,” and “Theater of Cruelty (first manifesto)” from The Theater and its Double (bulkpack).
IV. Expressionism
September 27:
Kenneth Macgowan and Robert Edmond Jones,
“Beyond Realism” and “The Living Stage,” from Continental Stagecraft (bulkpack); Robert
Edmond Jones, “A New Kind of Drama” from The
Dramatic Imagination (bulkpack); Georg Kaiser, From
Morn to Midnight (bulkpack).
V. Constructivism and Bio-Mechanics
October 2:
Robert Leach, “Vsevolod Emilievich
Meyerhold” (bulkpack); Mel
Gordon, “Meyerhold’s Biomechanics” (bulkpack); Vsevolod Meyerhold, “Observations on the Play” and “Meyerhold at Rehearsal” (bulkpack).
VI. The Epic Theatre
October 4:
Piscator and Brecht: Bertolt Brecht, “The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre,” “Theatre
for Pleasure or Theatre for Instruction,” “Alienation Effects in Chinese
Acting,” “The Street Scene” and “A Short Organum for
Theatre” (bulkpack).
October 9:
[Approximate date: FIRST TAKE-HOME ASSIGNMENT]
VII. American
Non-Realism and Realism
October 11:
Eugene O’Neill, “A Manifesto on Masks” (bulkpack);
Sophie Treadwell, Machinal
[FALL BREAK]
VIII. Post-War American
Realism and Beyond
October 18:
Lee Strasberg, “The Voyage Continues II: The Actors Studio and My Classes,” A Dream of Passion (bulkpack);
Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman.
October 23:
IX. Theatre of the
Absurd
October 25:
Samuel Beckett, Endgame.
X. Synthesis
October 30:
Peter Brook, The Empty Space;
film viewing, on reserve in Rosengarten: Peter Weiss, Marat/Sade, directed by Peter
Brook.
XI. The actor and the
Body
November 1:
Jerzy Grotowski,
“Towards a Poor Theatre,” “The Theatre’s New Testament,” and “He Wasn’t
Entirely Himself,” from Towards a Poor
Theatre (bulkpack).
XII. Post-Colonial
Theatre
November 6:
Brian Crow and Chris Banfield, “Introduction,
from An Introduction to Post-Colonial
Theatre (bulkpack); Wole
Soyinka, Death
and the King’s Horseman; Soyinka, “The Fourth
Stage” (downloadable for the Blackboard website).
XIII. Performance
Anthropology and the New Inter-Culturalism
November 8:
Gautam Dasgupta,
“Peter Brook’s ‘Orientalism’” (Performing Arts Journal, Vol. 10, No. 3. [1987], pp. 9-16)(downloadable for the Blackboard website); slides, and
video clips about Peter Brook’s Mahabharata
and Ariane Mnouchkine’s
Shakespeare and Aeschylus.
[Approximate date: SECOND TAKE-HOME ASSIGNMENT]
XIV. Feminist Theory and
Performance
November 13:
Jill Dolan, “The Discourse of Feminism:
The Spectator and Representation,” from The Feminist Spectator as Critic (bulkpack).
[POSSIBLE THEATRE-GOING: Villanova University Theatre’s production of Brecht’s Mother
Courage and her Children, Nov. 13-18, 27-Dec. 2]
[November 15:
TO BE ANNOUNCED]
November 20:
Caryl Churchill, Cloud Nine.
[THANKSGIVING]
XV. Performance and
Performance Art
November 27:
Marvin Carlson, “Performance and Identity,” from Performance: A
Critical Introduction (bulkpack).
XVI. Camp, Queer Theatre
November 29:
Susan Sontag, “An Essay on Camp” (bulkpack); Split Britches and Bloo
Lips, Belle Reprieve (bulkpack).
XVII. Post-Modernism and
The Theatre of Images
December 4:
Richard Foreman, “Foundations for a Theater,” “Directing the Actors,
Mostly,” “Visual Composition, Mostly,” from Unbalancing
Acts (bulkpack); slides and video-tapes of
productions by The Wooster Group, Robert Wilson, Richard Foreman.
December 6:
Catch-up and Conclusions
There will be TWO take-home essay assignments
(approximately 5 pages), plus ONE final paper (approximately 10-12 pages), due
at a date to be announced during reading and exam period, on a topic that must MUST BE APPROVED IN ADVANCE. Attendance in class is crucial; CHRONIC
ABSENCE OR LATENESS WILL BE COUNTED AGAINST YOU.
The following books can be purchased at the
Anton Chekhov, The Seagull
Sophia Treadwell, Machinal
Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman
Bertolt Brecht,
Mother Courage and Her Children
Samuel Beckett, Engame
Peter Brook, The Empty Space
Wole Soyinka,
Death and the King's Horseman
Caryl Churchill, Cloud Nine
The bulkpack can be
purchased at the
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The syllabus for this course is available at
http://www.english.upenn.edu/mazer/112f07.html. Make a bookmark on your web browser for this
site. There is a “Blackboard” web site
for this course, to which you are automatically subscribed, which includes an
electronic copy of the syllabus, and (under “Course Documents”) downloadable PDF
files of several of the course readings.
We may discover other uses for this web site over the course of the
semester.