Theatre Arts 140

TOPICS IN THEATRE HISTORY:

“THEATRE IN TIMES OF SOCIAL CRISIS”

Professor Mazer

Spring 2004

519 Annenberg Center, 3-2659; cmazer@english.upenn.edu

Office Hours: Tu, 1:30-2:45, Th 10:30-11:45, and by appointment

January 13: Introduction: What is Theatre History?

January 15: Theatre and the French Revolution

Readings: Beaumarchais, The Marriage of Figaro (bulkpack).

[January 20: no class]

January 22: Theatre and the French Revolution

Readings: Beaumarchais, The Marriage of Figaro (cont.); Beaumarchais, Preface to The Marriage of Figaro (bulkpack).

Prepared Staging: The Marriage of Figaro ________________

January 27: Theatre and the French Revolution

Reading: Frederick Brown, “The Speechless Tradition” and “The Boulevard of Crime” from Theater and Revolution (first part) (bulkpack).

January 29: English Theatre at the time of the French Revolution

Reading: Elaine Hadley, “The Old Price Wars: Melodramatizing the Public Sphere in Early-Nineteenth-Century England” (bulkpack).

February 3: Popular French Theatre in the Early Nineteenth Century

Reading: Brown, “The Boulevard of Crime” (continued) (bulkpack).

February 5: Popular French Theatre in the Early Nineteenth Century

Reading: Robert F. Storey, Pierrot: A Critical History of a Mask, pp. 93-138 (bulk-pack).

February 10: American Theatre, Race, and the Civil War

Reading: George L. Aiken, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (in Jeffrey H. Richards, ed., Early American Drama).

Prepared Staging: Uncle Tom’s Cabin ______________

February 12: American Theatre, Race, and the Civil War

Reading: Jeffrey D. Mason, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Politics of Race” (bulkpack).

February 17: American Theatre, Race, and the Civil War

Reading: Eric Lott, “Blackface and Blackness: The Minstrel Show in American Culture,” and Alexandra Saxton, “Blackface Minstrelsy” (bulkpack); Minstrel sketches: “Oh, Hush! or, The Virginny Cupids” and “Othello” (bulkpack).

Prepared Staging: Minstrel sketches _______________

February 19: American Theatre, Race, and the Civil War

Reading: Dion Boucicault, The Octoroon (in Early American Drama).

Prepared Staging: The Octoroon _______________

February 24: American Theatre, Race, and the Civil War

Reading: Boucicault, alternative London ending, The Octoroon (bulkpack); Joseph R. Roach, “Slave Spectacles and Tragic Octoroons: A Cultural Genealogy of Antebellum Performance” (bulkpack).

[APPROXIMATE DUE DATE: FIRST TAKE-HOME ASSIGNMENT]

February 26: Theatre and Radical Politics, Inter-war Germany

Reading: Erwin Piscator, “From Art to Politics,” “Foundation and Development of the Piscator-Bühne,” and “Epic Satire” from The Political Theatre (bulkpack); and Sarah Bryant-Bertail, “The Good Soldier Schwejk as Dialectical Theater” (bulkpack).

March 2: Theatre and Radical Politics, Inter-war Germany

Reading: Bertolt Brecht, “Indirect Impact of the Epic Theatre,” “Theatre for Pleasure or Theatre for Instruction,” “The German Drama: pre-Hitler,” and “Criticsm of the New York Production of Die Mutter” (bulkpack); Brecht, The Measures Taken (bulkpack).

Prepared Staging: The Measures Taken ________________

March 4: Theatre and Radical Politics, the United States in the 1930s

Reading: Helen Krich Chinoy “The Poetics of Politics: Some Notes on Style and Craft in the Theatre of the Thirties,” (bulkpack).

[Spring break]

March 16: Theatre and Radical Politics, the United States in the 1930s

Reading: Clifford Odets, Waiting for Lefty.

Prepared Staging: Waiting for Lefty ________________

March 18: Theatre and Radical Politics, the United States in the 1930s

Reading: Clifford Odets, Awake and Sing!

Prepared Staging: Awake and Sing! _________________

March 23: Theatre and Radical Politics, the United States in the 1930s

Reading: The Living Newspaper, Triple-A Plowed Under (bulkpack).

Video Showing (to be scheduled): Who Killed the Federal Theatre Project.

[APPROXIMATE DUE DATE: SECOND TAKE-HOME ASSIGNMENT]

March 25: Theatre under the Nazis:

Reading: John Gross, “Anti-Semites” from Shylock (bulkpack); James Shapiro, “In Hitler’s Shadow” from Oberammergau (bulkpack).

March 30: French Film during the Occupation:

Video Showing (to be scheduled): Marcel Carne, Children of Paradise.

April 1: Theatre and Protest: the United States in the 1960s

Reading: Theodore Shank, ”Theatre of Social Change” from American Alternative Theatre (bulkpack).

April 6: Theatre and Protest: the United States in the 1960s

Reading: Helen Brown and Jane Seitz, “With the Bread & Puppet Theatre: An Interview with Peter Schumann” (bulkpack).

April 8: [to be announced]

April 13: Theatre and Protest: the United States in the 1960s

Reading: Julian Beck, excerpts from The Life of the Theatre (bulkpack); Pierre Biner, “Paradise Now,” from The Living Theatre (bulkpack).

Video Showing (to be scheduled): Signaling through the Flames

April 16: Theatre and Protest: England in the 1960s

Reading: Michael Kustow, et. al., Tell Me Lies: The Book of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Production of US (RESERVE)

April 20: Theatre and Protest: the United States in the 1960s

Readings to be announced.

April 22: 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 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, 34th and Sansom:

Early American Drama, ed. Jeffrey H. Richards

Clifford Odets, Clifford , Waiting for Lefty and Other Plays

The bulkpack can be purchased at the Campus Copy Center, 39th and Walnut..

The listserv for this course is THAR140-401-04A@lists.upenn.edu . An electronic version of this syllabus can be found at: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~A~cmazer/140sp04.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