TOPICS IN THEATRE HISTORY: "REALISMS" Professor Mazer Fall 1998 Bennett Hall 305, x8-7382; cmazer@english.upenn.edu Office Hours: Tu/Th 1:30-3:00 (and other days, by appointment only) January 13: Introduction: What is Theatre History? What is "Realism?" January 15: What is "Natural" About Acting? I: the example of Elizabethan acting Joseph R. Roach, "Changeling Proteus: Rhetoric and the Passions in the Seventeenth Century," in The Player's Passion" (bulkpack). January 20: Baroque and Neo-Classical perspective scenery (with slides and video). (BRING A PAIR OF SCISSORS TO CLASS) January 22: Eighteenth-Century: Representing the Middle Classes I: John Lillo, The London Merchant (bulkpack). Prepared in-class staging: ___________. January 27: Representing the Middle Classes II: Gotthold Ephraim von Lessing, Miss Sara Sampson (bulkpack). Prepared in-class staging: ___________. January 29: Acting, Sensibility, and Sentiment: Joseph R. Roach, "Garrick, the Ghost, and the Machine" (bulkpack); excerpt from Henry Fielding, Tom Jones (bulkpack). February 3: What is "Natural" About Acting? II: Diderot, The Paradox of Acting (bulkpack); Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Rules for Actors" (bulkpack). [APPROXIMATE DUE DATE: FIRST TAKE-HOME ASSIGNMENT] February 5: Spectacular Realism: Richard Altick, The Shows of London, "The Eidophusikon" (pp. 117-127); skim pp. 128-183; "The Theatrical Art of the Panorama" (pp. 184-197); "Panoramas in Motion" (pp. 198- 210). (ON RESERVE IN ROSENGARTEN). February 10: Spectacle and Historicism: Michael R. Booth, Victorian Spectacular Theatre, pp. 30-59 (bulkpack); Richard W. Schoch, "`The Homestead of History': Medievalism on the Mid-Victorian Stage" (bulkpack). February 12: Pictorialism and The Director: André Antoine, excerpt from Memories of the Théâtre Libre (bulkpack); Constantin Stanislavski, My Life in Art, pp. 196-201 (bulkpack); Georg II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, "Pictorial Motion" (bulkpack). February 17: Pictorialism and Narrative: Martin Meisel, "Speaking Pictures" (pp. 38-51) and ""W.P. Frith and the Shape of Modern Life" (pp. 373-401) in Realizations: Narrative, Pictorial, and Theatrical Arts in Nineteenth-Century England (ON RESERVE IN ROSENGARTEN). February 19: Urban Melodrama: Tom Taylor, The Ticket-of-Leave Man (bulkpack). Prepared in-class staging: ___________. February 24: Domestic Realism: T. W. Robertson, Caste (bulkpack). Prepared in-class staging: ___________. February 26: Acting and Acting Theory I. Henry Irving, Preface to the English edition of Denis Diderot, The Paradox of Acting (bulkpack); William Archer, "Introductory," "Sunt Lacrymae Rerum," "`Autosuggestion' and `Innervation,'" and "The Brownies of the Brain," from Masks or Faces? (bulkpack). March 3: The "Naturalist" Movement: Émile Zola, "Naturalism on the Stage," (bulkpack); preface to Thérèse Raquin (bulkpack); Thérèse Raquin, in Norris Houghton, Seeds of Modern Drama; André Antoine, excerpt from Memories of the Théâtre Libre (bulkpack); Antoine, "Behind the Fourth Wall" (bulkpack). March 5: Naturalist Drama and Theatre: Henrik Ibsen, Ghosts. [SPRING BREAK] March 17: Naturalist Drama and Theatre (cont.): August Strindberg, "Preface to Miss Julie" (bulkpack); Miss Julie (in Houghton); Una Chaudhuri, "Private Parts: Sex, Class, and Stage Space in Miss Julie" (bulkpack). March 19: [TO BE ANNOUNCED] March 24: Naturalist Drama and Theatre (cont.): Gerhart Hauptmann, The Weavers (in Houghton). March 26: Naturalism in the Mainstream Theatre: John Stokes, "An Aesthetic Theatre: The Career of E.W. Godwin"; Oscar Wilde, "The Truth of Masks" (bulkpack). [APPROXIMATE DUE DATE: SECOND TAKE-HOME ASSIGNMENT] March 31: Acting and Acting Theory II: Bernhardt and Duse. G. Bernard Shaw, two theatre reviews from The Saturday Review (bulkpack); Arthur Symons, "Eleonora Duse (Introductory)" and "Impressions of Sarah Bernhardt," from Eleonora Duse (bulkpack). April 2: Stanislavski. Stanislavski, My Life in Art, pp. 265-287; 458-467. April 7: Artifice and Realism: Verismo Opera: Listening Assignment (in the Ormandy Listening Room, Van Pelt Library): Puccini (and Sardou), Tosca. April 9: Naturalism in the American Mainstream: Lise-Lone Marker, David Belasco: Naturalism in the American Theatre, pp. 46-98 (bulkpack); David Belasco, The Girl of the Golden West (bulkpack). Prepared in-class staging: ___________. April 14: 1920s and '30s American Social Realism Helen Krich Chinoy, "The Poetics of Politics: Some Notes on Style and Craft in the Theatre of the Thirties," (bulkpack); Clifford Odets, Waiting for Lefty (bulkpack). Prepared in-class staging: ___________. April 16: Realism and the Post-war American Avant Garde I: Happenings: Reading: Kirby, Michael. "On Acting and Not-Acting" (bulkpack). April 21: Realism and the Post-war American Avant Garde II: "Actuality": Richard Schechner, "Six Axions" and "Participation" from Environmental Theatre (bulkpack); Joseph Chaikin, The Presence of the Actor, pp. 1-26 (bulkpack). April 23: 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, 37th and Walnut: Norris Houghton, Seeds of Modern Drama Ibsen, Plays V. II The bulkpack can be purchased at the Campus Copy Center, 39th and Walnut. I have set up a listserv for this course on e-mail, to which you have been automatically subscribed (if this is not so, contact me via e-mail). You will be sent a copy of every e-mail message posted to the listserv, and any message you send will be distributed to everyone who signs up (including the professor). Important announcements about assignments and due dates, notices about local theatre events, etc., will be posted regularly, so CHECK YOUR E-MAIL EVERY DAY. The listserv can also be used by you and your classmates as a clearing house for thoughts and impressions about the readings and the class discussions. Just send a note to Mazer140@english.upenn.edu, or reply to any message you receive over the listserv. An electronic version of this syllabus can be found at: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mazer/140sp98.txt