Summer 2009

E s379M • Shakespeare in Performance--England

Course Description

Please refer to the course schedule for course days, time, room location, prerequisites and possible cross-listings: http://registrar.utexas.edu/schedules/

Shakespeare's plays offer perhaps the most direct and entertaining route to the heart of English culture. This course will afford students an opportunity to read Shakespeare's works and watch them performed on stage by fine English actors.

Our syllabus comprises those plays to be performed this summer in the Globe theater in London and on Royal Shakespeare Company stages in Stratford: As You Like It, Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, and Winter’s Tale. Productions at the Globe attempt to recreate the conditions under which these plays were first performed—on a relatively unadorned, thrust stage by a small repertory company of male actors. Performances by the Royal Shakespeare Company adhere more to present-day theatrical conventions. Every attempt will be made in light of these performances to see how Shakespeare and his company turned Renaissance theatrical conventions to their advantage. The obvious example is Shakespeare's fondness for disguise plots in which young women dress up as young men and which consequently encourage questions about sex roles and the constitution of gender, or perhaps merely about the power of persuasion.

Grading Policy

Students will be asked to keep a reading and performance journal and to review two of the performances in 3-4-page essays (750-1000 words) (40%). There will also be quizzes on the reading (25%) and a memorization assignment, including formal analysis of the verses memorized (35%).

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