Time Schedule:
Thomas E Postlewait
DRAMA 494
Seattle Campus
Topics in drama, history, and criticism. See Time Schedule for specific topic. Prerequisite: DRAMA 302.
Class description
This course focuses on modern drama and theatre of Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, Anton Chekhov, and Bernard Shaw. The course will focus on the development of modernism in the Western theatre during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We will read three to four plays by each of the first modern playwrights, and in addition we will delve into the major modernist movements: realism, naturalism, symbolism, expressionism, and theatricalism in the modern theatre. Besides examining the plays, we will investigate the early production methods for the plays.
Student learning goals
The primary objective of the course is to investigate the contributions of key playwrights who were responsible for the development of theatre during the modernist era.
General method of instruction
In class we will discuss a dozen or more plays, tracing the developments in drama and theatrical movements during the era. We will consider how drama and the modernist movements in the arts interacted. One of our major concerns is how productions were actually staged.
Recommended preparation
Class assignments and grading
Students will help run the class discussions on the plays. In addition, for the research project students will read additional plays by another modernist playwright of their choice, and develop a research study of the production of one play by that playwright (e.g., F. Wedekind, G. Kaiser, E. Toller, L. Pirandello, E. O’Neill, G. Stein, B Brecht, W. B. Yeats, W. Synge. S. O’Casey, H. Granville Barker, ).
