Fall 2009

E 369 • Twentieth-Century Drama

Course Description

This course presents a survey of the major dramatic works of the twentieth century, beginning with twentieth-century drama's precursors in the late 1800s and concluding with contemporary works. Organized chronologically around key dramatists of the past hundred years, the course also considers dramatic texts as works intended to be produced on stage: each play and playwright will be presented in light of their contributions not just to dramatic literature but also to stagecraft and production technique while corresponding developments in acting, design, and other production aspects will be foregrounded alongside literary considerations. Key questions to be examined include how drama in the twentieth century reacted to and attempted to revolutionize the theatre that came before it, how various dramatists declared or obscured their purposes in theatrical manifestos and treatises on the stage, what core characteristics and concerns can be said to unify the century’s drama and how did they manifest in individual works, and how the drama’s development differed in various cultural contexts across Europe and America.

Grading Policy

Attendance and participation, 15%; Two Short Papers (3-5 pages), 15%+15%; Midterm, 15%; Long paper (8-10 pages), 20%; Final, 20%

Texts

Ibsen, Peer Gynt, A Doll's House; Strindberg, Miss Julie, A Dream Play; Shaw, Man and Superman; Chekhov, Three Sisters; O’Neill, The Emperor Jones, Long Day’s Journey Into Night; Artaud, The Theatre and Its Double, The Cenci; Brecht, Jungle of Cities, Mother Courage; Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author; Genet, The Balcony; Beckett, Waiting for Godot; Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire; Miller, Death of a Salesman; Pinter, The Birthday Party; Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross; Churchill, Top Girls; Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Arcadia; Kushner, Angels in America

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