Theatre Arts 140
TOPICS IN THEATRE
HISTORY:
“CONSTRUCTION AND
RECONSTRUCTION”
Professor Mazer
Spring 2003
519 Annenberg Center, 8-7382 and 3-2659;
cmazer@english.upenn.edu
Office Hours:
Tu, 1:30-2:45, Th 10:30-11:45, and by appointment
January 14:
Introduction: What is Theatre
History?
January 16:
Theatre, Theatres, and Cities
Marvin
Carlson, The Places of Performance,
Chapters 3 (“The Urban Hub”), 4 (“The Facade Theatre”), and 5 (“Interior
Space”), pp. 61-162.
January 21:
The Theatre and the City-State
Simon
Goldhill, “The Great Dionysia and Civic Ideology” (bulkpack).
January 23:
Ancient Greece I: Architecture
and Stagecraft
David
Wiles, Tragedy in Athens: Performance Space and Theatrical Meaning,
Chapters *1 (“The Problem of Space”) and 2 (“The Theatre of Dionysus), pp.
1-62 (bulkpack).
January 28:
Ancient Greece II
Aeschylus,
The Eumenides.
Prepared
in-class staging: ___________.
January 30:
Ancient Greece III
Euripides,
Hippolytos.
Prepared
in-class staging: ___________.
February 4:
Recreating Classicism: Italian
Renaissance Theatres
A.M.
Nagler, A Source Book in Theatrical History,
pp. 73-86; Carlson, Places of Performance,
Chapter 2 (“The Jewel in the Casket”), pp. 38-60.
February 6:
Recreating Classicism: Italian
Renaissance Scenes and Machines
Nagler,
pp. 86-102.
February 11:
English Renaissance Popular Theatre I:
Architecture.
Nagler,
pp. 118-119.
February 13:
English Renaissance Popular Theatre II:
Stage Conventions
Alan
C. Dessen, “Shakespeare and the Theatrical Conventions of his Time” (bulkpack)
February 18:
English Renaissance Popular Theatre III: Audiences
Andrew
Gurr, Playgoing in Shakespeare’s London,
pp. 13-79. (bulkpack); Nagler, pp. 133-138.
February 20:
English Renaissance Popular Theatre IV
Thomas
Dekker, The Shoemaker’s Holiday
(bulkpack).
Prepared
in-class staging: ___________.
February 25:
English Renaissance Popular Theatre V:
The Theatre and the City
Steven
Mullaney, The Place of the Stage: License, Play, and Power in Renaissance
England, Chapters 1 (“Toward a Rhetoric of Space in Elizabethan London”)
and 2 (“The Place of the Stage”), pp. 1-59 (bulkpack).
February 27:
The Stuart Masque (with slides)
Ben
Jonson, Oberon (bulkpack; BRING THE
SCRIPT TO CLASS); Stephen Orgel, The
Illusion of Power.
March 4:
Recreating the Rules: French
Neo-Classicism I
Pierre
Corneille, Le Cid (bulkpack).
Prepared
in-class staging: ___________.
March 6:
Recreating the Rules: French
Neo-Classicism II
Le
Cid (cont.); documents from the controversy over Le Cid (bulkpack).
[Spring Break]
March 18:
Recreating the Rules: French
Neo-Classicism III
Molière,
The School for Wives and The Critique of The School for Wives
(bulkpack).
Prepared
in-class stagings: ___________;
___________.
March 20:
Baroque Theatres and Scenography
(BRING
A PAIR OF SCISSORS TO CLASS)
March 25:
Recreating the Rules: French
Neo-Classicism IV
Jean
Racine, Phèdre (bulkpack); Roland
Barthes, excerpts from On Racine
(bulkpack).
Prepared
in-class staging: ___________.
March 27:
Recreating the Rules:
Neo-Classicism reconsidered
Roger
W. Herzel, “‘Playing by the Rules’ in Seventeenth-Century France” (bulkpack).
April 1:
Recreating a Theatre for a Nation:
Wagner
Wagner,
selected essays (bulkpack); Frederick Spotts, Bayreuth: A History of the
Wagner Festival, pp. 29-78 (bulkpack).
April 3:
Reconstruction: Victorian
Elizabethanism
Cary
M. Mazer, “Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Revival, from Shakespeare Refashioned:
Elizabethan Plays on Edwardian Stages (bulkpack).
April 8:
Reconstruction: The Globe I
J.R.
Mulryne and Margaret Shewring, Shakespeare’s
Globe Rebuilt, Chapters 2 (“Shakespeare’s Globe: A History of Reconstructions and Some Reasons For Trying,” by
Andrew Gurr) and 8 (“The Iconography of the Globe,” by Siobhan Keenan and Peter
Davidson), pp. 24-47, 147-156.
April 10:
The Globe II: Performances and
Audiences
Mulryne
and Shewring, Shakespeare’s Globe Rebuilt,
Chapters 9 (“Staging at the Globe,” by Andrew Gurr) and 10 (“Playing the
Globe,” by Mark Rylance), pp. 159-176; Alan C. Dessen, “’Taint Not Thy Mind...’: Problems and Pitfalls in Staging Plays at
the New Globe” (bulkpack); Alan C. Dessen, “Globe Matters” (bulkpack).
April 15:
The Globe III: The Shakespeare
Industry
Dennis
Kennedy, “Shakespeare and Cultural Tourism” (bulkpack); W.B. Worthen,
“Reconstructing the Globe: Constructing
Ourselves” (bulkpack).
April 17:
Recreating an Aesthetic I
John
Russell Brown, Free Shakespeare, skim
first three chapters, and then read Chapters 4 (“Elizabethan Shakespeare”), 5
(“Original Shakespeare”) and 6 (“An Alternative Shakespeare”).
April 22:
Recreating an Aesthetic II
Screening
(to be arranged): video version of the
Royal Shakespeare Company’s 1976 production of Macbeth (directed by Trevor Nunn, with Ian McKellan and Judi
Dench).
April 24:
Catch-up and conclusions
You are responsible for participation in ONE
prepared scene, to be presented during the classes noted. BRING YOUR SCRIPTS TO CLASS THAT DAY, even
if you are not participating in the prepared in-class staging; if no one has
signed up in advance to stage a scene, we might work through a scene and put it
on its feet during the class hour.
There will be TWO take-home essay assignments, plus ONE final research
project, due at a date to be announced, 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 Penn
Book Center:
Marvin
Carlson, Places of Performance; The
Semiotics of Theatre Architecture.
Aeschylus,
The Oresteia.
Euripides;
Hippolytos.
Alois
M. Nagler, Source Book in Theatrical
History.
Stephen
Orgel, The Illusion of Power: Political Theater in the English Renaissance.
J.R.
Mulryne and Margaret Shewring, eds., Shakespeare’s
Globe Rebuilt.
John
Russell Brown, Free Shakespeare.
The bulkpack can be purchased at the Campus Copy
Center, 34th and Sansom.
The listserv for this course is
THAR140-401-03A@lists.upenn.edu . An
electronic version of this syllabus can be found at: http://www.english.upenn.edu/*mazer/140sp03.html. Make a bookmark for this site on your web
browser.
Please aquaint yourself with the University’s
code of academic integrity, at http://www.upenn.edu/osl/acadint.html