Modern Drama: Self, Society and the Stage - AAA134011

• Title: Modern Drama: Self, Society and the Stage
• Guaranteed by: Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (21-UALK)
• Faculty: Faculty of Arts
• Actual: from 2022
• Semester: winter
• Points: 0
• E-Credits: 3
• Examination process: winter s.:
• Hours per week, examination: winter s.:0/2, C [HT]
• Capacity: unknown / unknown (unknown)
• Min. number of students: unlimited
• 4EU+: no
• Virtual mobility / capacity: no
• State of the course: taught
• Language: English
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Note: course can be enrolled in outside the study plan; enabled for web enrollment
• Guarantor: doc. Clare Wallace, M.A., Ph.D.

Annotation

Last update: doc. Clare Wallace, M.A., Ph.D. (12.09.2023)

PLEASE NOTE: This class is not on offer in 2023/24

Description:<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
Schedule<br>
Week 1 (4.10): Introduction – drama at the end of the 19th century<br>
Week 2: (11.10) From Lady Windemere to Mrs Warren: Oscar Wilde, Lady Windemere’s Fan (1892) Bernard Shaw, Mrs Warren’s Profession (1892/1902)<br>
Week 3: (18.10) Two American shorts: Susan Glaspell, Trifles (1916) Eugene O’Neill, The Hairy Ape (1922)<br>
Week 4: (25.10) Patriotism and its discontents: Seán O’Casey, The Plough and the Stars (1926)<br>
Week 5: (1.11) Lyrical dispositions and dispossessions: Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie (1945) Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman (1949)<br>
Week 6: (8.11) American realism, American idealism: Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun (1959)<br>
Week 7: (15.11) Experiments, marking time and the end of the world: Samuel Beckett, Endgame (1957)<br>
Week 8: (22.11) Experiments, forced entertainments: Harold Pinter, The Birthday Party (1958)<br>
Week 9: (29.11) British realism, next generation: John Osborne, Look Back in Anger (1956)<br>
Week 10: (6. 12) Intertexts and existentialism: Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (1966)<br>
Week 11: (13.12) Decoding the past, mapping the present: Brian Friel, Translations (1980)<br>
Week 12: (20.12) History loop: Caryl Churchill, Top Girls (1982)<br>
ESSAY PROPOSALS ARE DUE<br>
Week 13: (3.1) Conclusions and discussion of essay proposals<br>

Literature

Last update: doc. Clare Wallace, M.A., Ph.D. (19.09.2022)

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.

Teaching methods

Last update: doc. Clare Wallace, M.A., Ph.D. (19.09.2022)

seminar

Grading Scheme
Attendance	You are permitted a max of 2 absences
Participation – see Moodle for specifics	50%
Final Essay (+ proposal)	50%

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.