The Theatre of Dionysus in Athens (under the Romans)

Course Overview: This course offers a brief survey into the nature and history of drama in the Western tradition, emphasizing the art’s history and essence in English literature and culture. Hopefully, the course will enhance the student’s understanding of the special nature of drama as a genre and its variety and power. It offers a detailed critical appreciation of the nature and effectiveness of dramatic methods within a number of great plays, selected from a range of different cultures and historical periods, from ancient Greece to contemporary Europe. During the course, the students will master a critical understanding of major terms – tragedy, comedy, poetic drama, naturalist theatre, and so on. This understanding will come from reading the plays and watching a few notable performances of pivotal plays in the Western tradition. Thus, the abstractions of general theories and terms will be accompanied by the practicality of performances and textual analysis. The plays have been chosen according to their connection to the terms and concepts under discussion in each session. Moreover, the textbook’s content, theory, or play will serve as our primary source of texts knowledge. Students are encouraged to compare and contrast different theatrical methods, terms, dramatic strategies, and plays. While the main concern of this course is not the history of English drama and the lives of the playwrights, historical facts, relations, and development will be discussed whenever necessary.

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“With a capacity of 32,000, the Roman theatre in Ephesus is still used for concerts and special events. The modern proscenium theater has its historical origins in the classic Greek civilization. Fortunately for us, archaeological remains and the documents related to many of the Greek theaters are intact and well worth visiting.”

Objectives:

– Introducing the nature and function of drama in the Western tradition

– Introducing technical elements, terms, and subgenres of drama

– Reviewing famous examples of plays’ texts

– Analyzing stage performances of notable texts

– Introducing the history of drama and theater in the Western tradition

– Presenting methods and strategies for analyzing the content and structure of a given play

Schedule: Session 1:

The nature of drama, definitions, roots, and Greek origins

Session 2:

Greek tradition, stage, character, and dialogue, historical development of drama, Sophocles, Antigone

Session 3:

Greek drama II, Aristotelian theory of drama, Oedipus Rex + Medea

Session 4:

Medieval Drama, ‘Realistic and Nonrealistic Drama’, Everyman (self-study), Greek drama I

Session 5:

‘Tragedy and Comedy, William Shakespeare Othello

Session 6:

Renaissance Drama, Religion and Tragedy, Macbeth

Session 7:

Stage and Alterity, Dr. Faustus + The Twelfth Night

Session 8:

Restoration drama, 18th century drama. Hölderlin, The Human Condition: ‘Sobriety’ versus ‘Intoxication’ and The Modern Condition: Us versus the Greeks. John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (not to be read; just discussed by the instructor).

Session 9:

Romanticism and Melodrama 1800-1880. Kierkegaard: Modernity and Subjectivity, The Greek Tragic Hero Freedom, Fate, Hamartia and the Tragic Effect. Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s The School for Scandal.

Session 10:

August Sternberg’s Miss Julie (just the introduction). Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. ‘The Price of Freedom’.

Session 11:

‘Modern Theater 1880-1945’. Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. ‘Oscar Wilde: Aesthetics and Criticism’. George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman. From ‘Quintessence of Ibsenism’Page | 5

Session 12:

Postwar Theater 1945-1970, Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children. ‘Arthur Miller’s ‘Tragedy and Common Man’. Arthur Miller, The Crucible

Session 13:

Samuel Becket’s Waiting for Godot. Martin Esslin from The Theatre of the Absurd.

Session 14:

Contemporary drama, Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (adaptation).

Session 15:

María Irene Fornés and Caryl Churchill: Introductions. Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls (performance) and A Number.

Session 16:

‘Reading Drama, Imagining Theater’. Reviewing a movie script: Graham Moore’s The Imitation

Session 17:

Tom Stoppard, Arcadia or Leopoldstadt. Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt by William Baker.

Session 18:

Thornton Wilder, Our Town. Much like at home’: The Quiet Eloquence of Death in Our Town (Thornton Wilder) and Eurydice (Sarah Ruhl) by Julie Vatain-Corfdir.

Session 19:

Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun. The Roof of a Southern Home: A Reimagined and Usable South in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun by William Murray.

Session 20:

Review Resources:

Gainor, J. Ellen, Stanton B. Garner, and Martin Puchner. The Norton Anthology of Drama. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2018. Perrine, Laurence. Literature: Drama. Thomson, 2006. Watson, George. Drama, an Introduction. St. Martins Press, 1985.