ENLT 375--MODERN DRAMA: IBSEN TO O'NEILL    Spring 2005

Prof. Wendy Nielsen / MR 2:30 PM-3:45 PM

“Modern European Drama”

What is the tragedy of the modern family? How are family members expected to “perform”? And can the theater even begin to portray the comedy and tragedy (or tragicomedy) that is modern life?

So-called Anti-Aristotelian dramas, or the plays written and produced between ca. 1870 and 1950, address these and many other questions. This course covers Naturalist Drama to Theater of the Absurd. We will read and consider the performance histories of Scandinavian, Irish, German, French, and Italian theater: Ibsen, Strindberg, Hauptmann, Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest), O’Casey, Pirandello, Beckett, and Genet.

Students will leave with a profound appreciation for the turbulent world of the modern playhouse.

Satisfies: pre-1900, Drama, multinational, gender issues

Unit I: Pre-1900/Naturalist Drama

1.    Ibsen 1 (Signet above)

2.    Ibsen 2

3.    Strindberg (Dover)

4.    Wilde (Dover)

Unit II: Theater of the Absurd

Brecht and Artaud (pdf/online)

5.    O’Casey

6.    Pirandello (good edition)

7.    Beckett

8.    Genet

Course Objectives

(pre-1900, Drama, multinational, gender issues, 300-level course)

-    Historical/Literary Epochs: Sophisticated Command of “Modern European Drama” ca. 1870-1950 (Naturalist Drama & Theater of the Absurd)

-    Genre: Ability to distinguish between Drama as Text and Performance

-    Comparative Prowess: Contrasts and Similarities between Scandinavian, French, Irish, English, and Italian Plays

-    Appreciation for Gender Issues in Modern Drama and Culture

-    Scholastic Growth and Maturity (from Consumer to Producer of Knowledge)

Methods of Assessment:

2 Formal Writing Projects (= 60% of final grade)

Review of L. 1

Play, Drama, Performance, and Theater

Neoclassical “3 Unities:” Time, Place, and Plot

Anti-Aristotelian Theater and its Basis for Theater of the Absurd

1.    Not unified time                        Circular or Non-linear Development (Beckett)

2.    Character/plot not unified        Action takes place over unlimited time frame

3.    Not “great characters”                “Ordinary” Human Struggles (Ibsen) 

Review of L. 2-3:

Interpretive issues in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House:

1)    How do you interpret Nora’s “emancipation” at the end of the play? Does it verify late nineteenth-century concerns that a woman’s independence means abandoning her roles as wife and mother? Or does Ibsen mean to support a revolution in family politics? Likewise, what is the political/economic agenda of the play (if any), and can we pinpoint Ibsen’s “voice” in issues like bourgeois complacency and capitalism?

2)    What does a reading experience of Ibsen’s play leave out that a performance might clarify?

Text, stage and screen categories

1. play area

2. scenery

3. properties

4. light

5. sound effects

6. music

7. physical constitution

8. mimicry

9. kinesics (gestures, movements)

10. proxemics (stage positions)

11. make-up (incl. hair)

12. costume

13. paralinguistic signs

14. linguistic signs

Review of L. 4-5:

Questions to think about for writing projects:

-    Is Hedda Gabler a feminist heroine or a monster?
-    How do Hedda and Nora categorize the New Woman?
-    What is the tragedy of family in Ibsen’s world?

Some thoughts about Naturalist scenery:

-    Can the work ever go outside its historical milieu?
-    Will this always be a story encoded with late nineteenth-century European issues?

Writing projects on Thursday:

-    post your paper to Blackboard if you have not already (including Group A)
-    class will meet in Dickson 277

Review of The Father

Opening scene = model for other themes in the play

•    Very masculine space (guns, hunting bags, arms)

•    Dialogue: Faith (Pastor) and “Reason” (Captain)

•    Nöjd “is waiting for orders in the kitchen”

•    Lack of certainty in paternity

•    The Captain’s lack of a strong will

•    Nöjd: “God save you, Captain” (3).

The Role of Sympathy in The Father

•    Laura: Only one (or perhaps two—as mother to Adolf) role(s) in life: mother; has to acquiesce on the surface to her husband; consciously performs (more than Nora Helmer)

•    Adolf: Many roles in life (cavalry captain, scientist, and father); feels overpowered by the women in his life

•    To what extent does Adolf’s recognition of his flaws (lack of will) lead to his madness and eventual death?

Religious Motifs

•    Cuckolding / Immaculate Conception

•    Captain is only “non-believer” in the household

•    Nurse, Grandmother coerce Bertha and Adolf

•    Laura believes in the power of the Church

•    “The Father” becomes a play on the heavenly father . . .

Review of Research Strategies

- Please do NOT reiterate a scholarly article’s argument about the play in question

- Rather, use your library research to support issues of PERFORMANCE that your paper hopefully raises

RESOURCES/Reference Books on First Floor:

- Drama for Students (PN 1601.D595)

- The New York Times Theater Reviews (PN 2266.N48)

- New York Theatre Critics’ Reviews (PN 1601. N4 1971; see separate index)

- McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama (PN 1625.M3 1984)

- Critical Survey of Drama (PN 1625.C68 2003)

Databases:

EBESCO

MLA: maids and genet

Project Muse

JSTOR