Theatre Arts 236
ACTING SHAKESPEARE
Professor Mazer
Fall 2012
519 Annenberg Center, 3-2659;
cmazer@english.upenn.edu
Office Hours: Tu, Th 1:30-2:30, and by appointment
I.
Language, objectives, action:
Sonnets; Chorus and scenes from Romeo and Juliet.
John Barton, Playing Shakespeare
(DVD, on reserve in Rosengarten), Cicely Berry, The actor and the Text
(chapters TBA).
Ç$d ¿+GÇ$—$_II. Shakespeare’s Stage and Stagecraft: Romeo and Juliet and Henry IV Parts
One and Two.
Essays and chapters by Alan C. Dessen:
“Linking Analogue” (fro.m Elizabethan
Drama and the Viewer’s Eye); “Elizabethan Darkness and Modern Lighting,”
and “Theatrical Metaphor: Seeing and
Not-Seeing” (from Elizabethan Stage Conventions and Modern Interpreters); “Much virtue in As,” “The Vocabulary
of ‘Place,’” and “‘Romeo opens the tomb’” (from Recovering
Shakespeare’s Theatrical Vocabulary).
(Blackboard)
Ç$d ¿+GÇ$—$_III. Text and Performance.
Examples
from Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet.
IV.
Playing the Scene/Building a Play:
Henry IV Parts One and Two.
Ç$d ¿+GÇ$—$_V. Speaking the Verse, Creating the Character.
Richard Paul Knowles, “Shakespeare,
Voice, and Ideology: Interrogating the
Natural Voice”; Sarah Werner, “Performing Shakespeare: Voice Training and the
Feminist Actor,” with responses from Cicely Berry, Patsy Rodenburg, and Kristin
Linklater, and follow up response from Sarah Werner (bulkpack)
VII.
The Director: Conceiving a
Production:
Henry
IV Parts One and Two.
Requirements/Grading:
There will be TWO take-home assignments,
at dates to be announced, and A FINAL TERM PAPER/PROJECT on Henry IV Parts
One and Two. ATTENDANCE IS REQUIRED
AT ALL CLASSES, as is scene-work as assigned.
ABSENCE FROM ANY CLASS AT WHICH YOU ARE SCHEDULED TO PRESENT A SCENE, ESPECIALLY
IF IT IS WITH A PARTNER WILL AUTOMATICALLY BE REFLECTED IN YOUR
GRADE. You are responsible for
scheduling your own rehearsal time for assignments that require it. Lateness to class impedes our collective
work, and is a discourtesy to your fellow students, and will be reflected in
your grade.
Theatre Productions to be seen (to be
announced):
Books to be purchased, Pennsylvania
Book Center (34th and Sansom Sts.):
Cicely Berry: The Actor and the Text.
William Shakespeare, The Sonnets,
Pelican Shakespeare.
William Shakespeare, Henry IV Part
One, Pelican Shakespeare.
William
Shakespeare, Henry IV Part Two, Pelican Shakespeare.
All other readings are available for
download on Blackboard. An electronic
version of this syllabus
(http://www.english.upenn.edu/~cmazer/236f12.htm). The listserv for this course is
THAR236-401-12C@lists.upenn.edu. You
have been subscribed automatically. If
you do not seem to be on it, or if you drop the course and wish to be
unsubscribed, please send a note to cmazer@english.upenn.edu