Introduction to Drama

Calendar

Schedule of Classes

You can’t put on a play if the actors don’t show up. You can’t pass this class if you aren’t here to participate in discussions, group work, and performances. It’s that kind of class.

LEC #	TOPICS	KEY DATES
1	Introductory Discussion. Objective To think hard about “drama”: meanings, assumptions, prejudices. To understand why this class matters and how it is designed, and recognizing the skills to be learned.
Intensive Drama
2	Discussion of Euripides’ The Bacchae. Objective To understand the assumptions and structure of Greek drama, the scene as unit. Drama as change over time, v. intensive structure. Initial self-appraisal: consciousness of what you know, the skills base you bring, and what you want to learn.
3	Discussion of The Bacchae. Objective To interpret drama as a complex set of perspectives on values. To think historically, symbolically and poetically. To share responses orally.	First response paper due
	Individual Meetings with Prof. Henderson.
4	Discussion of The Bacchae, Oedipus and Aristotelian Dramatic Criticism. Objective To consider the philosophical bases for drama: what one learns, what is real, what one feels. Discuss the nature of tragedy and its effects on an audience.
5	Discussion of Athol Fugard’s “Master Harold”…and the Boys. Objective To analyze modern drama, considering the “small” event and the scene as unit. To think about identification with character and the political effects of drama. To discuss potentially divisive topics reasonably and persuasively.	Second response paper due
6	Video Screening of “Master Harold.”
7	Discussion of “Master Harold”…and the boys, Stanislavski’s “Direction and Acting,” and Arthur Miller’s “Tragedy and the Common Man.” Objective To understand the Stanislavskian sense of art capturing life, and the place of emotional truth in acting. To reflect upon the relationships and distinctions between drama and ‘real" life, and between film/video and theater as media. Continued work on group discussion.
Ritual and Drama
8	Enact and Discuss The Second Shepherds Play. Objective To consider the communal purposes of ritual and drama in religious contexts. To reflect upon the relationships between scripture and drama, and between belief/holiness/reverence and representation. To experience the pleasure of performing.
9	Discuss and Watch Scenes from the Noh Drama. Performance Groups Assigned. Objective To reflect further upon drama as ritual in a different cultural context, and upon the role of performance in shaping interpretation. To discuss the role of translation (poetic, cultural, contextual) in dramatic performance.
10	Discuss and Enact Portions of Everyman. Objective To understand the functions of allegory, and to think about character schematically. To consider drama as a form for addressing the question: What is the essence of human experience? Further attention to drama as historical document and as performance.
11	Watch Scenes from Nigerian Dramatic Performance and Discuss Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman. Objective To consider drama as a representation of “culture(s).” To understand the meanings and function of “postcolonial” thinking in interpretation.	Turn in your almost-midterm self-assessment
	Individual Meetings with Prof. Henderson: Discussion of Your Almost-midterm Self-assessment.
12	Discussion of Death and the King’s Horseman, with Reference to Amiri Baraka’s “What is Black Theater? Performance Group Meetings. Objective To reconsider tragedy and the roles of race and gender in a different cultural context. To move the rehearsal process forward.
Extensive Drama
13	Discuss Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. Objective To understand the role of poetry in drama. To read Elizabethan drama historically, comprehending what is “early modern” about this protagonist and his story.	Four focused response essays due by this date
14	Discussion of Doctor Faustus, with reference to Sir Philip Sidney’s “On Time and Place, On Comedy and Tragedy” and film scenes. Objective To discern meaning through juxtaposition, as well as other dimensions of extensive structure. To hear verse drama. To work on the ability to present close analysis and to lead discussion.
15	Discussion of Doctor Faustus. Performance Group Meetings. Objective Last class’s objectives, continued. To understand the cultural and artistic significance of this play. To make further progress in the rehearsal process.
16	Discussion of Aphra Behn’s The Rover. Objective To locate Restoration comedy within its post-war culture. Further practice in analyzing extensive dramatic structure, including patterns of repetition-with-a-difference and foils.
17	Discussion of The Rover with Reference to Oliver Goldsmith’s “A Comparison Between Sentimental and Laughing Comedy.” Objective To analyze the components and varieties of comedy, and to understand the logic behind some classic comic tropes.
Modern Experiments
18	Discussion and Performance of Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author. Objective Pirandellans: To perform vividly and lead the discussion and analysis effectively, educating your audience. Brechtians: To attend carefully, critically and generously as an audience member and contributor to discussion.
19	Discussion of Six Characters in Search of an Author, with Reference to Antonin Artaud’s “No More Masterpieces.” Objective To supplement the education and enjoyment provided by the Pirandellans on Monday.	Revised response essays due
20	Discussion and Performance of Bertolt Brecht’s Galileo. Objective Brechtians: To perform vividly and lead the discussion and analysis effectively, educating your audience. Pirandellans: To attend carefully, critically and generously as an audience member and contributor to discussion.
21	Discussion of Galileo, with Reference to Brecht’s “Theatre for Pleasure, Theatre for Instruction.” Objective To supplement the education and enjoyment provided by the Brechtians on Monday.
	Individual Meetings with Prof. Henderson: Discussion of Your Group Work and Research Essay Ideas.
22	Discussion of Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls. Objective Discuss gender and performance. Analyze the use of non-realist techniques and orchestrated speaking.
23	Video Screening of Top Girls.
24	Discussion of the Scene and Research Assignments (tentative).	Scene due
25	Caryl Churchill, Top Girls, with Reference to Marsha Norman’s “Ten Golden Rules for Playwrights” and Suzan-Lori Parks’ “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” Objective To reconsider “realist” and “non-realist” distinctions and effects. To discuss modern “self” creation and its limits: economics and social possibilities.
26	Discussion of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia. Reports. Objective To remember the pleasure of comedy. Analyzing history, science and art as topics and methods. To reap the benefits of one another’s research.	Research papers due
27	Discussion of Arcadia. Reports. Objective To contemplate what we believe in or need to keep going, and how we connect or don’t. To consider which bigger frameworks matter, and why. To celebrate drama’s pleasure, the class’s pleasure, learning’s pleasure. To reap the benefits of one another’s research.
28	Reflections. Reports. Evaluations. Objective To reflect, to evaluate. To reap the benefits of one another’s research. To celebrate achievement and community.	Final examination during exam period