SYLLABUS FOR DRAMA II
Lecturer: Inayatul Chusna
Objective:
All students will:
a. trace the development of modern drama;
b. discuss the characteristics of plays produced in modern time;
c. analyze the texts of plays; focus to the dominant elements of each text
d. engage in focused discussion of drama;
e. discuss several essays on play scripts
F. write detailed and informed analyzes of dramatic work that demonstrate increasing mastery of the above objectives.
Methods:
a. readings (of plays in the text and essays on plays)
b. lectures
c. discussions
d. films
e. writing assignments and test.
Course outline:
1. Introduction
2. The Beginning of Modern Theatre
3. Writing Literary Essays
4. Discussing Antigone
5. Essay I discussion
6. Essay II discussion
7. Midterm test
8. Discussing A Doll’s House
9. Essay I discussion
10.Essay II discussion
11.Discussing Trifles
12.Essay I discussion
13.Essay II discussion
14.Final term paper
Assignments and test:
a. midterm test is a short-paper of 2 pages expressing students opinion and
attitude towards essays that have been discussed in class;
b. final term paper will be atleast 3 pages of a critic of specific issue in a particular play that have been discussed in class;
c. All paper submitted must be typed, one and half format and carefully proofread for clarity and accuracy of expression, and for mechanical correctness. Papers will be evaluated by considering to factors: the coherence and the persuasivenes of the analyses offered, and the quality of the writing. Facts, ideas and opinion borrowed from specific sources, either verbatim or in summary/paraphrase form must be acknowledged in notes and bibliographical entries. Failure to acknowledge sources properly constitutes plagiarism, which is ground for failing the paper and perhaps the course;
d. LATE PAPERS: I will not accept late papers, unless student and I have agreed in advance that special circumstances warrant an adjusted due date in student’s particular case.
Attendance:
You will be allowed to skip 4 sessions. A skip of class for any reason will be considered absent. Any students who miss 5 sessions of class are automatically dropped from the course.
Grades:
Your final grade will be determined from:
a. attendance 10%
b. discussions 20%
c. midterm test 30%
d. final term paper 40
The Beginnings of the Modern Theatre
By the 1870s the public was becoming aware that significant changes were underway in theatre and drama. Manifested first in realism and naturalism, the new directions were sufficiently lasting that even today the modern theatre is usually dated from that decade. These movements also brought increased demands for unified production, and to meet them the director gradually assumed primary artistic control. By the 1920s, the new conceptions of the theatre’s role and means had triumphed almost everywhere.
The background of realism
By the mid-nineteenth century the belief in man’s idealistic nature had received many setbacks. After the defeat of Napoleon, around 1815 most European countries reinstated political conditions as oppressive as those of the eighteenth century. In addition, widespread misery accelerated after the industrial revolution caused workers to pour into urban centers where living conditions became increasingly inadequate. Under such political and economic conditions the romanticist’s emphasis on the ideal seemed both too vague and too impractical, and many reformers came to demand solutions based on systematic inquiry into facts.
Among the major influences on the changed outlook was Auguste Comte (1798-1857), who believed that sociology is the highest form of science and that all knowledge should be used to improve society. He argued that the key to knowledge is precise observation, since all events must be understood in terms of natural cause and effect. It was out of such beliefs that the movement called realism developed. Like most movements it sought truth, but defined it as that knowledge gained through the five sense (sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch).
Realism in the Theatre
As a movement, realism developed first in France, where by 1860 its advocates had stated the following precepts: the playwright should strive to depict truthfully the real world; since he can know the real world only through direct observation, he should write about the society around him and should be as objective as possible.
Given such an outlook, it was only natural that realistic playwrights emphasized the details of contemporary life and introduced subjects not previously seen on the stage. Conservative critics charged that the theatre had become little better than a sewer. To such charges, the realists replied that the plays, as truthful depictions of life, were moral, since truth is the highest form of morality. Furthermore, realists argued, if audiences do not like the life shown onstage, they should change the society that has furnished the models rather than denounce the playwright who has truthfully depicted it.
It was with Ibsen that the new methods truly triumphed, so much so that modern drama is usually dated from the 1870s, when Ibsen adopted the realistic mode. Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) began his career about 1850 with dramas based on Norwegian legends. This early work is clearly related to romantic drama, but in 1877 he turned to the problem plays. With these plays, Ibsen established his reputation as a radical thinker and controversial dramatist.
Much of Ibsen’s work is realistic. He discards asides and soliloquies and is careful to motivate exposition. All scenes are casually related and lead logically to the outcome. Dialogue, settings, costumes, and business are selected to reveal character and milieu and are clearly described in stage directions. Each role is conceived as a personality whose behaviour can be attributed to heredity or environment.
Almost all later serious playwrights were to be affected by Ibsen’s conviction that drama should be a source of insight and a conveyor of ideas rather than mere entertainment. He gave dramatists a new vision of their role.
The spirit of realism soon spread throughout the world. In England the works of such playwrights as Arthur Wing Pinero (1855-1934), Henry Arthur Jones (1851-1929), and George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) show in varying degrees the influence of the new trend. George Bernard Shaw was probably the most vociferous and important of Ibsen’s admirers. But Shaw’s approach differs markedly from Ibsen’s, for while his plays are serious in their intent to influence human behaviour, they use comic devices to make serious points. In his treatment of problems, Shaw begins with what he thinks is the accepted attitude and then demolishes it before proposing his own solution. Shaw also delighted in using paradoxes to make both characters and audiences reassess their values.
Another writer of the late nineteenth century, Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), was to be almost as influential as Ibsen. He began by writing short stories and humorous sketches and moved on to vaudeville skits and one-act farces. Mahy qualities relate Chekhov’s drama to the realistic-naturalistic school. The subject matter and themes, drawn from contemporary Russian life, show how daily routine gradually shrinks the spirit and drains the will.
Naturalism
Even as realism was developing, another movement – naturalism – was also emerging. Realism and naturalism are closely related because both demand a truthful depiction of life and are based on the belief that ultimate reality is discoverable only through the five senses. The naturalists, however, insisted that art must become scientific in its methods and depict behavior as determined by heredity and environment.
The major spokesman for the naturalists was Emile Zola (1840-1902), who argued that art should emulate science both in seeking objects and in treating them. According to Zola, subjects may be of two kinds: those based on scientific findings and those that faithfully recorded record events observed in real life. He also argued that the writer should remain detached and never allow his own prejudices to intrude. In practice, naturalism tended to emphasize the more degraded aspects of lower-class, and consequently much naturalistic drama was preoccupied with human maladies.
Zola and his followers were especially opposed to traditional dramatic structure because to them complication, suspense, crisis, and resolution subordinated truth to theatrical effect. One member of the movements suggested that a play should be a slice of life – that a dramatist should merely transfer to the stage as faithfully as possible a segment of reality.
Because of its belief in environment as a determinant of character and action, naturalism placed greater emphasis on stage setting than had any previous movement. It wished to see every detail reproduced accurately onstage so as to establish the milieu that determined the characters and their actions. This care extended to costumes, furniture, properties, stage business, and acting.
As a conscious movement, naturalism, like realism, began in France and spread to other countries. Unlike realism, however, naturalism attracted few outstanding dramatists and in most cases even they eventually adopted less extreme approaches. Naturalism had for the most part run its course by 1900. Nevertheless, it had focused attention on the need for close observation of life, pointed out relationships between environment and behavior, and encouraged greater attention to the details of stage and production. In its insistence that reality be reproduced onstage, however, naturalism was unsuccessful and it was gradually absorbed into the realistic movement.
The Independent Theatre movement
By the late 1880s both a realistic-naturalistic drama and realistic staging under the supervision of a demanding director had emerged. The new drama was rarely being performed, however, and the new staging methods were being applied primarily to traditional plays. This was difficult to do because in most countries strict censorship forbade the production of such plays as Ghosts on the grounds of moral offensiveness. Eventually the challenge was met by ‘independent theatres’, which began to be established in the late 1880s. Since these organizations were open only to subscribing members, they were not subject to censorship and could perform plays forbidden to other theatres. Therefore, independent theatres were able to accomplish that more established theatres had not, for these new groups embraced the new staging techniques and gave the new drama its chance to be heard.
Not only did independent theatres meet an important need at the time, they also provided a permanent lesson, for since the late nineteenth century whenever the established theatre has become insufficiently responsive to new demands, a solution has been sought in ‘art’ theatres, ‘little’ theatres, Off Broadway, and so on.
Symbolism
Although realism came to dominate the theatre, it was not universally accepted. The first important revolt against it is usually called symbolism (or – alternatively – neo-romanticism, idealism, or aestheticism). As a movement, it appeared in France in the 1880s and had largely expired by 1900. symbolism is anti-realistic in denying that ultimate truth is to be found in evidence supplied by the five senses or by rational thought. Instead, it holds that truth is grasped intuitively.
Since it cannot be logically understood, ultimate truth cannot be expressed directly. It can only be suggested through symbols that evoke feelings and states of mind, corresponding imprecisely to the dramatist’s intuitions.
Unlike the realists, the symbolists chose their subject matter from the past or the realm of fancy and avoided any attempt to deal with social problems or environment. They aimed to suggest a universal truth independent of time and place that cannot be logically defined or rationally expressed. Symbolist drama, consequently, tends to be vague, mysterious, and puzzling.
Expressionism
After symbolism declined, no strong anti-realist movement challenged realism’s dominance until expressionism emerged around 1910 in Germany. The expressionists believed that fundamental truth is to be found within man – his spirit, soul, desires, and visions – and that external reality should be reshaped until it is brought into harmony with these inner attributes so that man’s spirit may realize its aspirations. Many writers sought merely to express their perceptions of this inner spirit, but others wished to transform society. Consequently some historians have divided the expressionists into two groups, the mystics and the activists. The latter were especially opposed to materialism and industrialism, which they saw as the chief blocks to the expressionist goals and as the major warpers of the soul. Almost all expressionists wrote about the ‘regeneration of man’ and the ‘creation of the new man.’ Ultimately, most hoped to build a world free from war, hypocrisy, and hate, where men could express themselves freely and in which humanitarianism would replace materialism.
Expressionist drama tended toward one of two types. Many plays concentrated on the negative aspects of the present in an attempt to show how false ideals have distorted man’s spirit until he is little better than a machine. Other plays look forward to the transformation of society and to achieving harmony between man’s environment and his spirit. Because the plays are message-centered, they are episodic; many take the form of a search or pilgrimage. Since truth is said to lie in internal vision, the external appearance of things is often distorted. Shape may be altered, color may be abnormal, movement may be mechanical, speech may be reduced to short phrases or single words.
Expressionism in the theatre seems to have reached its peak in 1923. its desire to transform the world had raised high hopes, but these were dissipated by the wranglings over peace settlements and the aftermath. By 1925 the movement had ceased to be productive.
Expressionism was for the most part a German phenomenon. During the 1920s, however, expressionism for a time exerted considerable influence elsewhere. In America, dramas indebted to it include Elmer Rice’s The Adding Machine, Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape, and Marc Connelly’s and George Kaufman’s Beggar on Horseback, all written in the 1920s. after 1925 the influence of expressionist is seen largely in the freer treatment of visual elements, in dream sequences, and in other devices that permit free manipulation of time, place, and appearance.
From the 1920s to the Mid-1950s
Between the 1920s and the mid-1950s the theatre extended and consolidated the gains of the preceding decades. Probably the most innovative ideas were voiced by Artaud and Brecht, although neither was widely influential until after 1950, when the doubts raised by World Wad II ushered in a new era of experimentation.
The United Stated
The innovations in play writing and production that had been introduced in the late nineteenth century were at first little known in America, partially because until 1915 the Theatrical Syndicate dominated theatrical production. After 1910, however, the new stagecraft, as the European practices were called in America, began to be imported, in large part through the efforts of those who had traveled and studied in Europe. The new stagecraft was also promoted by “little theatres,” which blossomed between 1910 and 1920. the most important of these groups (which resembled European independent theatres) were the Provincetown Players and the Washington Square Players. It was the Provincetown Players, seeking to encourage new American playwrights, that discovered Eugene O’Neill, generally considered to be America’s foremost dramatist. In 1919 the fully professional Theatre Guild which was the remnants of the Washington Square Players came in. through its choice of plays and production techniques, the Guild did more than any other American company to demonstrate the effectiveness of the new stagecraft.
Brecht and Epic Theatre
During the 1920s one of the most influential of modern movements – epic theatre – took shape in Germany. It is associated above all with Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956),who, to describe his ideal theatre, used three key terms: historification, alienation, and epic.
Unlike the realists, Brecht thought the theatre should not treat contemporary subject matter in a lifelike manner. Rather, the theatre should make actions “strange.” One avenue to strangeness is historification, or the use of material drawn from other times and places. But contrary to old theatrical practices, which depict historical material in today’s pattern, Brecht wanted the dramatist to emphasize the “pastness” of events. The play should make the spectator feel that if he had been living under those conditions he would have taken some positive action to correct them.
Historification is part of the larger concept alienation. In addition to historification, the playwright may deliberately call attention to the make-believe nature of the work through songs, narrative passages, filmed sequences,and other devices so the audience never confuses what it sees on the stage with reality. Some critics have interpreted alienation to mean that the audience should be in a constant state of detachment.
Brecht called his plays epic because he thought they resembled epic poems more than traditional drama. They are usually composed of alternating sections of dialogue and narration which freely change place and bridge passages of time.
Postwar Realism in America
When the Second World War ended in 1945, realism was still the most common theatrical style, but by that time non-realistic movements had altered tastes sufficiently for simplification and suggestion to become accepted techniques, even in realistic art. Postwar realism therefore fused elements drawn from many sources. This fusion can be seen most clearly in the work of Tennessee Williams, who came to prominence in 2945 with The Glass Menagerie and contributed regularly to the theatre thereafter with such plays as A Streetcar Named Desire, Summer and Smoke, The Rose Tattoo and Suddenly Last Summer.
Williams uses many non-realistic and realistic devices. Symbolism is important in almost all of his plays. He also draws heavily on realism, especially in character portrayal. He is particularly concerned with suppressed desires, and Freudian concepts undergrid many of his works. Williams’ characters are often torn between spiritual and material urges, and how a dramatic action is resolved depends upon whether they can reconcile these conflicting sides of human nature.
The Musical Play
During and after WW II, the musical play became (and remains) the most popular of all theatrical entertainments. The origin of musical comedy is usually traced to the work of George Edwardes at the Gaiety Theatre in London in the 1890s. his production, in which sketchy plots provided excuses for songs and chorus-ensemble numbers, proved so popular that a number of imitations soon appeared. In most of these early musical comedies the stories had little to do with everyday life and emphasized the romantic appeals of faraway places and unusual happenings.
Around WW I the vouge for ballroom dancing and ragtime music turned attention to more familiar characters and surroundings. Plot remained unimportant, however, and served principally as an excuse for spectacular settings, songs, dances, and beautiful chorus girls. In the late 1920s another important change occurred when more concern began to be paid to plot and psychological motivations. This evolution was completed in the 1940s in the works of Oscar Hammerstein II and Richard Rodgers. Innumerable fine musicals were written after WW II.
Motion Pictures and Television
In the late 19th century, the theatre was still the major purveyor of mass entertainment, but since that time its appeal has steadily eroded as competitors have multiplied. One of the most serious challengers has come from spectators sports – baseball, football, boxing, racing, and so on. More direct competition, however, has come from other dramatic media – films and television.
Motion pictures have grown steadily in popularity since penny arcades began to show miniature films soon after Thomas A. Edison demonstrated his kinetoscope in 1894. motion-picture theatres, seating about a hundred persons and showing short films, were introduced in 1905. In 1914 the Strand Theatre in New York, with its 3300 seats, began the trend toward larger houses, and in 1915 D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation inaugurated the full-length film. Two other events – the addition of sound to motion pictures in 1927 and the economic depression of 1929 – gave the film such increased appeal that after 1930 the legitimate theatre rapidly declined in popularity.
The weakened theatre was dealt another serious blow after WW II with the introduction of television, for audiences were loath to pay for entertainment when they might have it free in their own living rooms. Thus, television did much to make both films and theatrical producers reconsider the potential of their media. As a result, film-makers became increasingly conscious of the motion pictures as an art form, and theatrical producers sought to revitalize the theatre by offering plays that television, controlled by its advertisers, was reluctant or unable to broadcast. Consequently, much of the experimentation so prevalent since the 1950s has been motivated by the desire to make the theatre a penetrating, relevant, and exciting encounter with significant ideas, issues, and perceptions.
