Interview, in groups of three, one
of your
classmates and prepare
to report
the following information to the rest of the class:
- Major
-
- Favorite
form of entertainment,
general to specific(sport/what
kind; music/artist; theater/plays)
Course
Introduction
“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, French, and
Italian theater: Ibsen, Strindberg, Ernst Rosmer (Elsa Bernstein),
Wilde (The Importance of Being
Earnest),
Pirandello, Beckett, and Genet. Students will leave with a profound
appreciation for the development of modern Europe and its playhouses.
Satisfies 1b (pre-1900); Drama; multinational; gender studies
- Students will leave with a profound appreciation for the turbulent
world of the modern playhouse.
Unit I:
Pre-1900/Naturalist Drama
1. Henrik Ibsen, Doll's House (Signet )
2. Henrik Ibsen, Hedda Gabler
3. A. Strindberg, Miss
Julie
4. Elsa Bernstein, Twilight
5. Oscar Wilde, Importance of Being Earnest
(Dover)
Unit II:
Theater of the Absurd
Brecht and Artaud (pdf/online)
6. A. Strindberg, Ghost
Sonata
7. L. Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an
Author
8. Jean Genet, The Maids
9. Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot
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, German and Italian Plays
- Appreciation for Gender Issues in Modern Drama and
Culture
- Scholastic Growth and Maturity (from Consumer to
Producer of Knowledge)
Course
Requirements:
- The Spirit of
a
Democratic Classroom: Respect, Collegiality, and Integrity
- Participation
(incl.
attendance,contribution to class discussion, discussion questions)--15%
- Midterm (Unit
I:
Pre-1900)--25%
- Journal
Portfolio--10%
- Performance
Paper--25%
- Final Exam
(Unit II's modern plays, with concepts from Unit I)--25%
- Optional but
strongly
encouraged: attend a performance of one of these plays
Student
Questions on Doll House
1. What’s the relationship between Mrs. Linde and
Krogstad?
2. What is Dr. Rank’s illness about (tuberculosis of
the spine)?
3. Was Torvald a product of his time, or just as self
centered as Nora?
Should we feel sorry for Torvald?
4. What business did Mrs. Linde have in telling K not
to take
Nora’s letter back?
- Would Nora have confronted and left Torvald if they
had not
intervened?
5. Why is it called doll house? Would it be more
appropriately
called bird house?
6. Did Dr. Rank’s role as a supportive friend lead
Nora to see
How unappreciative Torvald is?
7. Was Nora’s comment about ‘sacred duties’ (to
herself, Torvald)
A true realization or a rationalization?
8. Why does she have to leave her children/forget her
role as a mother in order
To become a better woman?
9. In what ways is Nora anti-Aristotelian—and the play?
1.
Is Hedda pregnant?
2. Why does Hedda refer to the vine leaves in
Lovborg’s hair?
Why does the play seem more about Eilert Lovborg than Hedda?
3. Is Ibsen at all sympathetic towards Hedda despite
her cruelty?
How does he feel about the upper classes? How does she relate to
feminism?
Shouldn’t her name be Hedda Tesman?
What does Tesman see in Hedda? What was both of their
motivations for marrying?
4. What does Hedda mean by calling Brack the “one cock
of the walk”?
How would nineteenth-century audiences react to the ménage-
a-trois references?
5. Why does Hedda dislike Mrs. Elvsted so much?
6. Why is Hedda so nasty to Aunt Julie when she
supports them?
7. What is Ibsen saying about women who choose to be
rebellious?
8. Why does Hedda burn the manuscript?
9. What is Hedda’s attitude to old things (leaves,
aunt)?
10. Why does it seem like Hedda is underdeveloped?
Does she grow at all?
11. What do the
character parallels in DH and HG mean?
- Brack / Rank
- Hedda / Nora
- Linde / Elvsted
1.
Was Jean manipulating Julie the whole time?
2. Did they just start the relationship now, or did
they have a
Previous flirtation?
3. Should the title, Miss Julie, have more meaning to
it?
4. Was Strindberg an egalitarian? Is this play really
about human equality?
5. Is Strindberg blaming Julie for her own fate
(refusing to accept
her station/role), or is he alerting his audience to
the danger of hysteria?
6. How does Julie change from being so controlling to
being
submissive?
7. What’s the symbolism of Midsummer’s Eve?
8. Is Jean’s cruelty at the end more about class
conflict
or psycho-sexual tendencies?
Review:
- Meaning of “romance:” chivalric tales from Middle
Ages (knight, damsel in distress, impediment like a dragon or a
villain); popular parlance: unrealistic expectations
- ‘Ritter’ = knight; Graef = similar to Gräfin,
or countess; Isolde = name of heroine in Wagner’s Ring cycle (Tristan
and Isolde)
- Source of Isolde’s disease suspected to be
syphilis, either contract through incest or congenitally
- Regardless, Isolde maintains an unnatural affection
for her father (and corresponding jealousy of her grandmother and Dr.
Sabine Graef)
In-class
Ques. from Students:
1.
What are examples of father-daughter incest in the play?
Are there hints of an improper relationship? How did society
Then view incest then vs. now?
2. What is Isolde’s relationship with Carl? How long
have they been
together?
3. How much of the Tristan and Isolde story is
referenced here?
4. Is it common in plays to belittle the servants?
Why are Ritter and
Isolde so ethnocentric? What culture do they think is elite?
5. In what ways is this play written in opposition to
Strindberg?
6. How does this compare to Doll House and Hedda
Gabler?
Stud.
Ques. not addressed in class:
1. Andrea + Katie: Is Isolde willing to give up her father at the end
of the play, or is her martyrdom just another form of selfishness?
2. Jessica Le.: Sabine seems to be quite the successful, scientific
modern woman. Ritter, on the other hand, is artful, old-fashioned, and
seems to detest modernity. Why, then, do they ultimately seem to have
some attraction to each other?
3. Tara: After working so hard to become an eye surgeon, is it
believable that Sabine would give up medicine to be Ritter’s wife?
Katie: How does Sabine go from this powerful doctor who has enough guts
to ask if Herr Ritter if he has some form of STD to this sheepish, shy,
helpless woman in love who is okay with becoming “stupid—happily
stupid”?
4. Parag: Is Sabine’s depiction of the New Woman more accurate in
comparison to today’s woman because the author is a woman herself?
Theater of Cruelty (Artaud):
- no masterpieces
- interaction with audience
- visceral experience
- religious / magic experience
- harsh sounds and noise
- gestures that communicate
- light “interposed in its turn” (639)
- means to induce trances
- lyrical action
Similarities to Brecht:
- no more 4th wall
- vs. passive spectatorship
- vs. European-style “theater museum”/theater as high
art
- vs. theater as illusion
Brecht, Epic Theater:
- alienation effect
- episodic
- not plot-driven
- didactic
- screens
Pirandello
1. Was the stepdaughter intimate with someone in the
house?
2. What do they mean by being an unrealized character?
3. Why does the director say Pirandello’s plays are
last resort (7)?
4. How does the role of the father compare to
Naturalists? What
Is his role?
5. What does Pirandello think of actors?
6. Why doesn’t Pirandello give name to his
characters?
Are the actors and directors characters as well?
7. On p. 27, how does the director change the story?
Is that why
there’s not a satisfying ending?
Student
Ques.
1. What happens at the end of the play?
2. Why are they role playing?
3. Why does Claire insist they’re being spied
on/watched?
4. Is there an aspect of sexual attraction between
the maids
And madame, and the maids and each other?
Who is the milkman, and what did he do?
5. Why would Solange consider her spit a “spray of diamonds” (52)?
What basic questions does Beckett’s play
seem to raise about human
nature?
1. What is our destiny?
2. How do we depend on others?
3. What needs do we have besides food?
4. Is it really in our nature to help others, or do
we just help ourselves?
5. Is there innate goodness in anyone? Is there such
a thing?
6. Why don’t we act on what we say we will?
Other:
- Why is there suffering?
- Who are we?
- Why are we here?
- What are we waiting for? (Why don’t we just
kill ourselves?)
- What does a human being mean when he says “I”?
Free write on
any of the following words. (10 min.)
- Authority
- Discipline
- Dominant
- Family
- Gay
- Man
- Passive
- Suicide
- Straight
- tragedy
- Woman
Review for Exam:
Ghost Sonata and Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: In what
ways might hypnotism be related to fascism?
Ghost Sonata: a) How does the
Old Man get the Student to follow his commands? b) What do each of the
deaths in Ghost Sonata mean?
Brecht and Artaud: In what ways do the theories of Brecht and Artaud
react to mass culture and fascism?
Six Characters in Search of an Author:
How are women depicted in Pirandello’s play? b) In what ways do the
Father and the Director control the people around them? How, in other
words, do they force others to act as they see fit? c) What is the
significance of the deaths of the children?
The Maids: In what ways does
being servants impact the maids’ sexual identity? b) Does the maids’
wish to be “beautiful, drunk, and free” come true at the end of the
play, or is Genet’s work actually about control and manipulation? c)
Why does Claire kill herself (or does she)?
Waiting for Godot: What does
it mean to be human in Beckett’s play? b) In what ways are Estragon and
Lucky feminine? Does their passivity make Didi and Pozzo masculine? c)
Why don’t the characters kill themselves?