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Description:
This is a BA optional seminar. The course will introduce students to some of the core elements of late nineteenth century and twentieth century anglophone theatre, combining attention to plays, dramaturgy and theatre history. We will explore different ideas of playwriting and the purpose of theatre, and will examine how these ideas intersect with diverse social, political and aesthetic contexts. In addition, we will attend to the role of production and adaptation – how a play text becomes a theatre performance. Playwrights will include Oscar Wilde, G.B. Shaw, Susan Glaspell, Eugene O’Neill, Seán O’Casey, Samuel Beckett, Arthur Miller, Lorraine Hansberry, John Osborne, Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, Brian Friel and Caryl Churchill. Schedule (May be subject to small changes) Week 1 (2.10): Introduction – drama at the end of the 19th century Week 2: (9.10) From Lady Windermere to Mrs Warren: Oscar Wilde, Lady Windemere’s Fan (1892) Bernard Shaw, Mrs Warren’s Profession (1893/1902) Week 3: (16.10) Two American shorts: Susan Glaspell, Trifles (1916), Eugene O’Neill, The Hairy Ape (1922) Week 4: (23.10) Patriotism and its discontents: Seán O’Casey, The Plough and the Stars (1926) Week 5: (30.10) Lyrical dispositions and dispossessions: Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie (1945) Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman (1949) Week 6: (6.11) American realism, American idealism: Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun (1959) Week 7: (1.11) Experiments, marking time and the end of the world: Samuel Beckett, Endgame (1957) Week 8: (20.11) Humanities week: arrangements to be finalised. Experiments, forced entertainments: Harold Pinter, The Birthday Party (1958) Week 9: (27.11) British realism, next generation: John Osborne, Look Back in Anger (1956) Week 10: (4. 12) Intertexts and existentialism: Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (1966) Week 11: (11.12) Decoding the past, mapping the present: Brian Friel, Translations (1980) Week 12: (18.12) History loop: Caryl Churchill, Top Girls (1982) Week 13: (8.1) Conclusions and discussion of essay proposals Last update: Wallace Clare, doc., M.A., Ph.D. (15.09.2024)
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Materials Primary texts: Your main attention should be on the weekly readings. All the plays on the syllabus are available in our library. However, if multiple copies are often not available or works are not part of the library’s holdings, primary materials will be circulated in on Moodle. Selected resources secondary resources: Aston, Elaine. Feminist futures? Theatre, Performance, Theory. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillian, 2007. Bareham, T. ed. Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, Jumpers, Travesties: a casebook. London: Macmillan, 1990. Bigsby, C.W.E. A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-Century American Drama. Volume one, 1900-1940. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Bigsby, C.W.E. A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-Century American Drama. Volume two,Williams/Miller/Albee. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Bigsby, C.W.E. Modern American Drama, 1945-2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Brown, John Russell ed. Modern British dramatists: a collection of critical essays. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1968. Dukore, Bernard F. American Dramatists 1918-1945 excluding O'Neill. London: Macmillan, 1984. Dutton, Richard. Modern tragicomedy and the British tradition: Beckett, Pinter, Stoppard, Albee and Storey . Brighton: Harvester Press, 1986. Elsom, John. Post-war British theatre criticism . London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981. Esslin, Martin. Pinter the playwright . London: Methuen, 1992. Esslin, Martin. The theatre of the absurd [Penguin]. - 3rd ed., rev. and enlarged; repr. (1982). Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1980. Finkelstein, Sidney. Existentialism and Alienation in American Literature. New York: International Publishers, 1965. French, Warren ed. The Forties: Fiction, Poetry, Drama .DeLand: Everett/Edwards, 1969. Gassner, John. Eugene O'Neill. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1965. Gassner, John. Theatre at the Crossroads: Plays and Playwrights of the Mid-Century American Stage. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960. Gordon, Robert. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Jumpers and The Real Thing: text and performance. London: Macmillan, 1991. Hayman, Ronald. British theatre since 1955: a reassessment . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979. Hogan, Robert. Arthur Miller. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1964. Innes, Christopher. Modern British Drama 1890-1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Innes, Christopher. Modern British Drama: The Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Jouve, Emeline. Susan Glaspell's poetics and politics of rebellion. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2017 Kernan, Alvin B. ed. Modern American Theater: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ : Prentice Hall, 1967. Manheim, Michael ed. The Cambridge companion to Eugene O'Neill .Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Milling, Jane. Modern British playwriting: The 1980s: voices, documents, new interpretations. London: Methuen Drama, 2012. Osborne,John. Look Back in Anger: notes / Gareth Griffiths. London; Beirut: Longman York Press, 1981. Roose-Evans, James. Experimental theatre from Stanislavsky to Peter Brook London: Routledge, 2001. Shellard, Dominic. British Theatre since the War. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 2000. Shepherd, Simon and Peter Womack. English drama: a cultural history. Oxford; Cambridge: Blackwell, 1996. Tőrnqvist, Egil. Transposing drama: studies in representation. London: Macmillan, 1991. Trewin, J. C. Drama 1945-1950. London: Longmans, Green, 1951. Weales, Gerald. Tennessee Williams. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1965. Williams, Raymond. Modern Tragedy. London: Chatto & Windus, 1966. Zeifman, Hersh and Cynthia Zimmerman eds. Contemporary British drama, 1970-90. Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1993. Last update: Wallace Clare, doc., M.A., Ph.D. (19.09.2022)
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seminar
Full course materials and participation tasks will be shared on the course Moodle site. Details of how to access the course Moodle will be emailed to students who have enrolled on the SIS. Deadline for proposals: uploaded on the course site by 18.00 on 17 December 2024. Deadline for essays: uploaded on the course site by 18.00 on 20 January 2025. Chicago format for citations and bibliographies is required (models can be found in the library, the departmental Study Guide and on the internet—See http://ualk.ff.cuni.cz/doc/essays.doc. Essays will be submitted to Turnitin and checked for plagiarism and AI. Last update: Wallace Clare, doc., M.A., Ph.D. (15.09.2024)
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