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

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.

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