This course introduces students to key concepts and critical frameworks pertaining to theatre studies, by way of close reading and in-depth interpretations of several major plays written and first produced in the anglophone world of the twentieth century. Consider Simon Critchley’s take on violence as “a historical cycle of violence and counterviolence” from which we find ourselves difficult to escape, and his contention that theatre, from Greek tragedies and Shakespeare to modern and contemporary plays, at its best invites us “to confront the violence of our own histories”; we will study various ways in which violence is brought home to the audience in twentieth-century theatre.

As Hannah Arendt reminds us in her book On Violence that “no beginning could be made without using violence, without violating”, we will also pay attention to the instances, in which certain generic rules (such as that which we understand as “tragedy” and “comedy”), conventions in theatrical performance, frames of anticipation, and social customs are arguably or explicitly violated.

 

Topics include but are not limited to theatre and drama, performance, spectacle and spectators, catharsis, humour, tragedy and comedy. Violence is an underlying theme through which these topics will be threaded together as the course progresses.

 

The primary objective of this course is to provide students with vocabulary and terminology for understanding the art of drama, studying theatre and analysing performance.

Students will be given an opportunity to design a performance of their own (in small groups) and stage it as a skit or short play during the final weeks of the course.

 

The course consists of three contact hours per week (Friday 2:30 pm - 5:20 pm). Each session will be a combination of seminar and workshop (sometimes it can be a 3-hour seminar or a 3-hour workshop).

 

Assessment will be continuous and based 100% on coursework.

Participation	15%
10-minute skit or short play performance	35%
Critical paper	50%

 

A course pack of reading materials (mostly essays) will be available on course Moodle page shortly before the beginning of the first meeting. In addition, the following plays will be studied throughout the course:

Edward Albee. The Zoo Story (1960).

Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones. Dutchman (1964).

Samuel Beckett. Krapp’s Last Tape (1958).

Bertolt Brecht. The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1948).

Caryl Churchill. Top Girls (1982).

Peter Schaffer. Equus (1973).