JCU: Spring 2012: Modern European Drama: Professor Connelly
Schedule
Week 1: Introduction: What’s so Modern about Modern?
17 Jan: Why here, why now? Theatre’s 19th Century Context
19 Jan: Why these plays? Other selections: Victorian Burlesques, Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Brecht’s Life of Galileo (exercise)
Week 2: Strindberg’s Miss Julie
24 Jan: Presentation #1: The Meiningen Ensemble (1874-1890)
Realism and Naturalism
26 Jan: Strindberg, Class and Power
Week 3: Strindberg’s Miss Julie
31 Jan: DVD: Miss Julie (1999), dir. Mike Figgis
2 Feb: DVD + Discussion
Week 4: Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler
7 Feb: Presentation #2: The Dionysian and the Apollonian: Ibsen and Nietzsche
Hedda vs Eilert
9 Feb: Determinism. Is she strong, is she weak? Suffocating fathers
Week 5: Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler
14 Feb: DVD. Hedda Gabler (1980), Yorkshire Television
PAPER 1 DUE IN CLASS
16 Feb: DVD + Discussion
Week 6: Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya
21 Feb: Presentation #3, The Moscow Arts Theatre, Stanislavski and Chekhov
23 Feb: Indolence, Hopelessness, Self-Indulgence
Week 7: Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya
28 Feb: DVD: Uncle Vanya (1962), dir. Stuart Burge
1 Mar: DVD + Discussion
Week 8: Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
6 Mar: Presentation #4, Verfremdungseffekt in Brechtian Theatre
What is Epic Theatre?
8 Mar: Theatrical Allegory. Fascism. Brecht’s Characterisations
Week 9 Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
13 Mar: DVD: The Three Penny Opera + The Life of Galileo
PAPER 2 DUE IN CLASS
15 Mar: DVD + Discussion
Week 10: Beckett’s Endgame
27 Mar: Presentation #5, The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Bay of Pigs
Beckett, Absurdism, Minimalism
29 Mar: Lecture: Beckett and Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence
Week 11: Beckett’s Endgame
3 Apr: DVD: Endgame (2001), dir. Conor McPherson (84 min.)
5 Apr: DVD + Discussion
Week 12: Pinter’s The Homecoming
10 Apr: Language as a Weapon of Mass Destruction
12 Apr: Presentation # 6: The Pinteresque, the beat, the pause, the silence
Week 13: Pinter’s The Homecoming
17 Apr: DVD: The Homecoming (1973), dir. Peter Hall
19 Apr: DVD + Discussion
Week 14: Kane’s Blasted and 4:48 Psychosis
24 Apr: Presentation #7: ‘In-yer-face theatre’
Blasted. The Atrocity Exhibition + Edward Bond, Saved
26 Apr: 4:48 Psychosis.
FINAL PAPER DUE IN CLASS
From you:
Papers 1 and 2 = 20% per paper. 10 pages each on a choice of topics set by me.
Final Paper = 30%. 15 page research paper on a topic of your choice, in consultation with me.
Presentation = 10%. Do not cut and paste Wikipedia into a PowerPoint. Do not read your presentation to us word for word. I will not reward you for boring us. Instead, delight us and instruct us. Delve. Do not rely only on the internet. Go to the library. Pictures are good. A lack of love is not good.
Attendance and Input = 20%. This is crucial to your success in the course. You should come to the first class of each week having read the relevant play in its entirety. I will also assign secondary readings as necessary. Likewise, you should also have completed these.
I will expect each of you to bring to class three discussion questions per text. These will shape our learning. I would also like you to e-mail me your questions before the 1st class of any new text.
I expect you to come to every class and I will take a register to check on your attendance. If you start to miss classes, I will suggest that you drop the course and / or will hand you a failing grade for the course.
This course will present you with an intensely analytical learning experience with which you will become fully involved in class. If you are faint of heart or workshy, you will be better off elsewhere.
[email protected]