ZL-005 Introduction to Western Theatre

ZL-005 Introduction to Western Theatre

[3] List of Documents Pertaining to Contemporary Drama

1. Brochure with a small summary

2. Brochure with a large summary

3. Booklet on course material with university regulations

4. Booklet on course material with lecture notes

5. Manual 1 - selected readings

6. Manual 2 - selected plays

7. Lecture contents for the teachers

8. Complete List of Readings and References

[3] Booklet 2: brochure with a large summary

The Department of Foreign Languages & Literature

Kaohsiung National University

British & American Theatre

Keywords and concepts:

· Primarily for intermediate to upper-intermediate students of English

· Theatre & Drama critical reading skills

· Theatre in the Twentieth Century

· Theatre of the Absurd

· Modern Tragedy

· Realist Drama

· British dramatic writers: Shaw, Pinter, Beckett, Stoppard

· American dramatic writers: O'Neill, Williams, Shepherd

Timetable:

3 periods per week, divided as follows -

1. Lecture on major topic;

2. Tutorial session discussing readings;

3. Play-reading and discussion workshops.

Unit Textbooks:

Manual - Selected Theoretical Writing

Unit Description Booklet - Course description, lecture notes and information concerning assignments and presentations

Shaw's Major Barbara

Pinter's The Birthday Party

Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound

O'Neill's The Hairy Ape

William's The Streetcar Named Desire

Shepherd's Unborn Child

Basic Structure:

The intention of this course is to provide the student with an introduction to major dramatic writers in both England and the United States. Through analysing these plays the intention is to look at how these playwrights have used language and other dramatic means to achieve particular thematic goals, stemming from the theatre of the absurd in the work of Pinter, through social realism in the work of Williams to a questioning of theatre conventions in Stoppard. The student should complete the course with the skills necessary to write about contemporary drama in an informed way and view performance in a critical fashion.

Course Description:

This course is intended to give students at an upper-intermediate to advanced level English a chance to appreciate Western theatrical literature and performance theory. The intention is to provide the student with theoretical and critical tools to analyse Western theatre and drama works explored in the tutorial sessions. In addition it provides them with the chance to perform through a series of workshops. Assessment involves for a degree a performance-based element which is negotiated during the semester with the professor. Course material consists of two manuals, and one unit content booklet containing course information such as suggestions for assignments. The first of the two manuals contains a selection of readings from important plays, and the second descriptive papers concerning theoretical and historical background material. The student is expected to read the texts in his or her own time, and to bring up specific issues pertaining to the theatre texts in tutorial sessions, issues which are introduced in the unit content booklet. Half of the time spent with the professor is used discussing the theoretical material, while the rest of the time is spent reading the theatrical texts. Information about the topics to be discussed in the tutorials, the possible essay subjects and other vital information is included in a separate document. In addition to the tutorials a number of specific open lectures are given on specific topics related to areas in Western theatre. Inclusion of the viewing of performances and field trips is a possibility. The performance-based aspect of the assessment is negotiated in small groups or as individuals performing specific aspects for production at the end of the semester. The students are also required to complete a single essay to be completed in English on specific topics selected from a list or negotiated with the professor.

Requirements:

Students are expected to attend all lectures, workshops and tutorials. If more than three classes are missed unannounced the students grade could be affected. If, on the other hand, the student contacts the lecturer on the beforehand, negotiation is possible. Forms of communication include post, email, personal discussion and via the telephone. Information about basic assessment procedures is included below.

Assessment:

Grades are determined as follows:

Attendance: 10%

Participation in classroom activities: 20%

Essay or presentation: 35%

Performance: 35%

Weekly Plan:

The following list contains the general structure of the semester

1. Introduction and Basic Terminology

2. Dramatic Texts as Discourse: writing about theatre/play-reading skills

3. Shaw's Major Barbara lecture 1: Shaw's themes & language use

4. Shaw's Major Barbara lecture 2: events and outcomes

5. O'Neill's The Hairy Ape lecture 1: expressionism

6. O'Neill's The Hairy Ape lecture 2: dramatic realisation

7. Pinter's The Birthday Party lecture 1: theatre of the absurd

8. Pinter's The Birthday Party lecture 2: language of abuse

9. Miller's Death of a Salesman lecture 1: tragedy and the common man

10. Miller's Death of a Salesman lecture 2: themes and characterisations

11. Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound lecture 1: theatrical conventions

12. Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound lecture 2: theatrical realisation

13. Shepherd's The Unborn Child lecture 1: thematic content

14. Shepherd's The Unborn Child lecture 2: the past and the present

15. Revision & Conclusion

1. What is theatre? What is a play?

- Basic definition: A performs B for C.

- What makes theatre different from other forms of literature.

- Theatre as a strange ritual based on agreement between audience and performers.

- Based on set of accepted beliefs about representation on stage.

- Theatrical experience does not necessarily `reflect` a given culture; it plays and has played many different roles, its orign being closely connected with forms of ritual.

- We can use these conventions to reproduce examples of what once was the accepted convention or use the old conventions, themes as a way to question our current predicament. This is popular in contemporary reproduction; making sense of work (involving processes of 'contextualisation'.

- Function of art and theatre: condensing, clarifying and ordering the chaos, disorder and inconsequenstial happenings of life. It can achieve this in any number of ways.

- Importance of getting to know the conventions of particular forms of theatre, what is the `agreement` between audience and performers? Depending on both historical period and location this can change considerably.Knowing the conventions also allows one to comprehend why particular playwrights react against them or present alternatives.

- How easy it is for us to accept the conventions of theatre as `realistic` when in fact it is not. Compare to filmic discourse.

- describe assessment for the unit.

- the role a director (as opposed to a playwright) can play in `contextualising` the dramatic text.

- The writer has a degree of freedom which is taken from the playwright and often put into the hands of a wide range of different people which influence the `product`.

-Theatre observed in the form of all types of human culture, traceable back almost as far as we can view humanity. Initially intended for a supernatural audience or for ritual-based purposes; entertainment was initially incidental.

-Theatre includes many other forms of human activity, including juggling, acrobatggics, some kinds of sports, music, mime; the lsst can go en.

- Theatre demands attention; less passive than film, often confrontational: heigtened behaviour ine sense of ritual.

-The audience is bound by conventions society has placed upon them.

WORKSHOP

- What is a workshop? Which theatre schools have used it; how it can help us to understand theatre which is a highly visual medium. What it can teach us about performance.

- Concept introduced by Brecht and adopted into Western theatre, particualrly experimental theatre.

- Difference between reading a text and watching one: you can`t (normally) rewind, full foreward etc.; you have to go at the pace of the performance.

- What is a play?

- Complex set of instructions for groups of performers who work together to produce a piece of theatre; a live event on stage in front of real people. It is far more than words on a page.

- It is impossible to mistake a theatrical text for any other.

- One has to consider how the audience is treated by the playwright; what were the conventions behind the theatrical traditions which created these works.

- What are the dynamics of plays; how are they structured.

- Importance of visualisation in interpretation.

- Contrasting types of plays in the twentieth century: television and radio plays.

- Film versions of plays; how does this contrast.

- Using scene descriptions to construct an image of what happens in the play (use examples)

PLOT: summary of a play`s incidents OR organisation of meaningful events, i.e. Overall structure of play.

Structural elements: the beginning, middle, end; exposition - setting forth of info about earlier ev ents/motivations - the amount of exposition required depends on the POINT OF ATTACK, the moment at which the action begins. Shakespeare typically uses early points of attack, i.e. the action is chronological. This is not necessarily always so. Greek tragedies use late points of attack.

- The action of a play depends on our knowledge of the past and thus a lot of exposition is required; methods of exposition vary immensely - Euripedes uses monologues, discussionofthe past, dance and song, and also flashbacks.

INCITING INCIDENCE - name for the CAUSE around which complications develop.

- The substance of complications is ften DISCOVERY in some form. Such discoveries may involve objects, persons, facts or values. Other means may be used to precipitate action - natural/mechanical disaster. Series of complications result in CLIMAX. Analysis of drama: working out which kinds of units are used to develop drama and how these help the work to realize is theme or develop its suspense, catharsis and resolution.

The End - also known as resolution and denoument.

- The `ideal play`

The mode of discourse which is traditionally agreed upon and accepted by a western audience

It has 3 or 4 acts

- Introduces a set of human characters with a conflict

- This conflict brings about complications.

-These complications are resolved in a denouement (resolution)

Analysing the structure of a play:

1. How is the exposition handled.

2. Discover how scenes and acts are brought to climaxes in comparison to the whole.

3. Think about the manner and the nature of the plot (denoument)

[Hedda Gabler and The Cherry Garden are good examples of ideal plays for this type of analysis]

-Audience theory: compare the difference between the role played by the `reader` and the `viewer` (audience member: audience theory)

- Language use -soliloquy, grand speeches and garbled nonsense. What is the playwright communicating with the WAY he is making use of language? Does it communicate extra-linguistically (such as Lucky`s speech).

- Space: the unwritten/partly transcribed thing separating performance etc. What does the use of specified space tell us about the play? What can be left to interpretation?

- How does the playwright treat temporality? Why? Is it being used as a tool to aid the narrative or character development, or in some other way.

- How does the play resemble reality, and when does it not? Why?

- Work out how to divide text into scenes and acts.

- Drama is a special form with own unique characteristics separating it from other forms of literature. `Theatre is the stuyd of what happens when `dramatic` texts are brought to life. Dramatic texts are difficult to read, and it becomes a demanding task for any reader, because of the amount of creativity required from the reader

WORKSHOP

Play reading skills; contrasts between different types of plays

- Using scene descriptions to construct an image of what happens in the play (use examples)

3. The comedy and the tragedy: Ancient Greek and Roman Theatre

Two archetypal forms.

-Aristotle was a biologist in training, studied and wrote about performance. This led to the much referred to work "Poetics" which only survived in part. Oldest surviving treatise on theatre discover in the 15th century. It became an authority - especially tragedy; i.v.m. Tragic outlines, cause-to-effect arrangement of incidences, pressing complications and resolutions as most affective way of unifying action; so important is a work students should be familiar with.

- The word drama comes from the Greek word `to do` or `act`. The word Theatre also comes from the Greek word "Theatron" which means a place for seeing.

TUTORIAL

Aristotle`s Poetics

- Organization of dramatic actionmay be approached through plot, character, thought, dction, music and spectacle.

4. Critical Reading

- First reading: the action - what actually happens on stage.

- narrative/plot

- the predicament of the protagonists; this is important to modern drama which will end our historical approach.

- Identifying the world of the play and its social order.

- The following is a typical way of analysing the ideal modern play.

[i] Achieve a broad outline;

[ii] define the predicament;

[iii] trace tensions and threats;

[iv] examine the world of the play and its social order;

[v] think about the play in performance.

- Critical reading involvss also an attempt to understand the major themes behind a a given theatrical text; from a broad perspective what does the playwright want to achieve.

- Introducea set of structures and skills for preparing an essay such as main paragraph argument and concllusion. Map out the structure with students of a particular lecture and how they can useit intheir own writings.

-Audience play is intended for is highly important in dramatic criticism.

-Aim of theatre critics: understanding, effectiveness, and ultimate worth,i.e. What were playwright, director, etc. Trying to do, how well did they do it and how valuable was the experience; what are the problemtics of these issues, i.e. How contentious. Influence of criticism on audience response (in comparison to other forms of criticism).

- Common methods of organizing dramatic action: Cause-Effect (as introduced in Ancient Greek drama; obstacle, action is based on its surmounting), [less common] character as source of action [Happy Days]. Also biographies. In the 20th Century often are based around THOUGHT - scenes linked by central theme - Beckett is a particularly good example.

First steps in analysis:

First reading: action - what happens on stage.

Later:

- the predicament of the protagonists

-identifying the world of the play and its social order

- contextualise/ the contextualisation of that world. This can be done using some of the following steps:

1. Achieve a broad outline

2. Define predicament

3. Trace tensions & threats

4. Examine world of play and its social order

5. Think about the play in performance

Language & themes

Language & characters

Silence (what is not said)

Language & action (text/sub-texts, motivation supporting speech acts)

Language & reality (regionality)

- Key speeches: pieces of dialogue which particularly bring out certain elements of particular characters.

1. What theme does the speech embody;

2. What are particular characteristics of the language unique to character;

3. Example purpose for which language is used;

4. Examine what is unique about the character`s language use; i.e. Regional, type of person being addressed, attitude, class, jargon, dialect, etc.

5. Any aspects brought to light while text is recited.

WORKSHOP

Ancient Greek Text

- Writing about the theatre

Particular skills essential for students; important terminology they have to know and be ablee to espouse to relate in a textual fashion to theatrical discourse.

5. Medieval Theatre

Language Use

- the presentation of language is in many ways entirely different to other types of literature.

- many different types of language is present; sometimes it 'imitates' life, but others it is a realisation of convention, such as Shakespearean asides and inner dialogues which wouldn't actually be spoken.

- Other types of language use we will look at include commentary in rhythmic recitation in song in Ancient Greek drama or other types of poetic dialogue.

- Grand speeches are important in almost all forms of western drama; they provide the output for the skill of great actors and they express important thematic moments.

- What is the playwright communicating with the way he is making use of his/her language?

- Does he/she adopt regional dialects?

- What can be left to the actors to decide and what is assumed by the playwright.

- It is important to see performances of given works.

- Does the language communicate extra-linguistically.

- Language and themes

- Language and characters

- Use of silence for dramatic effect.

- Language and motivations/text-sub-text of discourse units.

- Language and reality

- Regionality of language use; what is the geographical specification and is that connected to how language is treated.

- In contemporary drama such as the work of Pinter language is used to fill up space or to avoid communication; the actual intention of the speaker contrasts highly to the words spoken which are often just used to avoid threatening silences.

WORKSHOP

- Working out short scenes, interactions between characters, like character A meets character B and attempts to start up conversation. Using this as the basis for short improvisations.

- The Roles played by characters

Explorehow the actions of charactrs can represent a set of specific ideologies, such as themain character in Barnard Shaw`s Major Barbara who represents or espouses the basic concepts or ideologies; how the changes a character makes can also reflect strongly thematic content or even their resistance to change or their reaction to different kinds of change.

6. Use of Time & Space in the Theatre

- How do different types of western theatre treat space; provide general introduction.

- Distinguish between performance space (where the performance takes place) and dramatic space (fictional world).

- The use of space as the unwritten/partly transcribed thing separating performance. What does the use of specified space tell us about the play? What can be left to interpretation?

- Using scene descriptions to construct an image of what happens in the play (use examples).

- Dramatic time and real time. This relates to thhe important noti8ons of `plot` and `narrative`.

WORKSHOP:

Using environment to communicate, discussing what playwrights do to communicate using stage description.

7. Rennaissance Theatre: Shakespeare, Commedia dell'Arte and Moliere

Representation of reality

- In what ways does the play resemble reality - and when does it not; and why?

WORKSHOP:

Using short improvisations based on short descriptions as a way to create drama. Pair into groups to create short scenes.

8. Key Speeches

- Analysis of spcifictypes of #key speeches from Ancient Greekto modern theatre.

- Such speeches often embody major themes of theatre works.

- Following steps can be followed:

1. What theme does the speech embody.

2. What are particular characteristics of the language unique to the character.

3. Examine the purpose for which the language is used.

4. Examine what the language use communicates about the character, i.e. regional specificity, attitude of speaker to person being spoken to, jargon used, discoursal levels of communication etc.

5. Is there anything brought to life about the plot or narrative of the drama.

WORKSHOP:

- Finding and exploring specific key speeches and how they should be read; what they can communicate. Have a number of major key speeches in the texts.

- Contrasting different kinds and intentions of key speeches; howthey can be used on stage depending on conventionto represent inner thought; how they can be used for the expression of poeticlanguage or deep philosophical issues such as in Shakespeare`s Hamlet.

9. Theatre of the 19^th Century: melodrama and realism

Types of Plays

The Ideal Play (described above)

Problem or Thesis Plays

Methods of analysis:

[1] Define the characteristics which motivate the characters.

[2] Identify the decisions which have to be faced by the main characters and the moral issues involved.

[3] Try to detect the dramatists#s stance towards his characters and the themes. Note clearlyh how he or she leaves it open-ended.

[4] Work out the stance of the audience at the time when the work was released. Barry Keefe and Carol Churchill are playwrights well-known in this form.

Problem plays have `shocked audiences such as Ibsen`s Ghosts and a Doll`s House. Another example is Cathy Come Home which led to the formation of an organisation for the homeless.

- More complex Structures involved with deep social issues.

- Involves also conditions pertaining to social issues pertinent to the time when the play was written.

- The New Realism

The Squalor of Pinter, Miller and Osborne; reasons for bringing about this type of play. New realist plays are often mistaken for 'absurdist' plays in that they demonstrate that if we had a brief insight into real-life activity, not knowing who the people are and what they 'don't' say and what is assumed knowledge, the activity may very well look absurd, when the playwright is intending to present a more real-life image of reality; the absurdity of human behaviour.

- Epic Theatre

Represented particularly well in the theatre of Brecht.

WORKSHOP:

Work on specific scenes which involve some kindof tension; explore the specific meaning communicate by the dynamics of performers on stage. Walk through scenes with students in an effort to better understand them.

- Ask students to map out the `dynamics` between characters that are implied by the theatrical text and get them to discuss how they would realise this in performance.

10. Symbolism

In the theatre a variety of `symbols` are used to represent specific things in theatrical discourse. Often such symbols are objects used on stage. A clear exampleis the tape rec order in Miller`s The Death of a Salesman which represents theobsession of Western society with gadgetry and materialism. Other elements can also be symbolic, such as the light in Ibsen`s plays, where light comes to represent truth. In Beckett`s plays objects are symbolic of the obsession with items and the way we fill our lives with meaningless behaviour making use of such objects. Non-verbal behaviour; how one situates oneselfin relation to another can also be very symbolic.

- Iconic, Indexical and Symbolic interpretations of theatre texts in semiotics.

-Symbolism in Death of the Salesman, namely the tape recorderr as an indicationof the obasession of contemporary society with material objects.

- Symbolism of the field in Buried Child, the vegetable fielt (show fragment around page 45).

WORKSHOP:

- Students becoming characters in plays, describing their lives,using this improvisation as basis for creating theatrical realities or getting to understand better the drama or to help the actor `become` the performer. In the dialogue, allow the `sub-text` of the character to come to the fore; use it as a chance to represent specific sides to the character the student thinks are important.

WORKSHOP

- Understanding they dynamics of particular dialogues by working through them; what non-verbal levels can be communicated dramatically on stage. Include major dialogues such as Pinter`s characters.

11. Modern Drama

Important to distinguish the term "realism" from "modernism". Realism is a form of drama where the dramatist demonstrates people behaving in recognisibly human ways in situations which look like the real world - has structure and denouement. Naturalism is a movement in late 19th Century France where are,as a result of philosophical and scientific development, was said to have to reflect the real world - a naturalistic play was to reveal nature as it was, therefore no denoument or carefully contrived storyline.

WORKSHOP:

-Setting up a group where there is a central character representing the director and each of the characters taken by a single student. Each character has to have the chance to tell his or her story from his or her perspective; using this as a way to better understand how characters interact with oneanother. Students can attempt to `become` the characters and express opinions about other characters as dictated by the central director. The players can attempt also to suggest what theire plans are after the play is finished and what they may have done before the play started. Plays, after all, are only representations of specific time periods and lives fo on after the play ends.

- Bulding `sociograms`, diagrams to represent how people interact with one anotheer and using this as a basis to create performance.

12. Absurdist theatre; a brief intorudction to the major schools.

13.

14. Epic Theatre

WORKSHOP:

Working outthestorylines of plays and using this as the basis for constructing short dramas of less than five minutes; drawing first diagrams of the tension in specific sets of dramatic exchanges and then realising them on stage.

15. Performance Theory:multimedia, dance-theatre and interculturality

WORKSHOP:

- Using one single line of dialogue to create short dramas with very specific types of meanings; using non-verbals means to set up specific dynamics between characters.

Use a simpleshared dialogue such as the following:

Character A: Excuse me,do you have the time?

Character B: No, I`m sorry, I can`t help you.

- Using speicifc short exchanges as a basis for continued improvisations around particular topics which can later be developed into particular plays.

References

PICKERING, Kenneth, How to Study Modern Drama, Macmillan Press, London, 1988.

STANISLAVSKY, Konstantin, "Creative Work with the Actor", in Directors on Directing, pp. 109-118.

4. Booklet on course material with lecture notes

List of major dramatic terms and brief summaries of their meaning

The English Department

Kaohsiung National University

English & American Drama

LECTURER'S NOTES: Lesson 1

P1-1

- Brief introduction to the course.

- Describe structure of the lessons.

- Readings will be provided and have to be prepared.

- In this course COMMUNICATION is a given and students are expected to participate actively; if you don't want to, then it's better to stop.

P1-2

- Make list of students names, and a ask them to make a brief description.

P1-3

- Go through course description with the students.

- describe the course assessment procedures.

P1-4

- List major terms important for theatre vocabulary:

Theatre, Drama, Play, Performance, Acts, Dialogues, Monologues, Key Speeches, 'Beats'.

- What is a play?: Complex set of instructions for groups of performers who work together to produce a piece of theatre; a live event on stage in front of real people. It is far more than words on a page.

- Theatre conventions: agreed upon rules between audience and performers.

- Theatre is considered to emerge from ancient human ritual; indeed seeing theatre is a ritual in itself.

- How easy it is for us to accept conventions; difficulty of film.

- The role of 'director' and 'playwright'; how do they differ?

- Role of director in 'conTEXTualising' the play. Role of playwright in making the dramatic TEXT.

- Theatre demands attention; less passive than film, often confrontational: heightened behaviour in the sense of ritual.

P2-1

Tutorial Based on the subject matter: what is theatre and what is a play?

THEATRE CONVENTIONS

-4 How have the students experienced theatre in the past.

-5 Statement: theatre as a strange ritual [based on agreement between audience and performers] - what do the students think of this?

-6 How do the students experience Western theatre in terms of their own experiences.

-7 What are contrasting 'agreements' on what is theatre and what is not?

-8 Theatre includes many other forms of human activity, including juggling, acrobatics, some kinds of sports, music, mime and so on.

P2-2

THEATRE IN SOCIETY

-9 What role does theatre play in society?

-10 Is it different now to what it was in the past?

P2-3

WHY DO WE CREATE THEATRE?

-11 What are some of the major reasons people write plays?

-12 Function of art & theatre; clarifying order & chaos, making sense of disorder & inconsequential events of life.

P2-4

TERMINOLOGY

-13 What is the difference between theatre and drama, between a performance and a play?

-14 What is the difference between a playwright and a director? What do they do? What is their input.

-15 What is in effect the creative difference between a writer of novels or poems and the writers of plays? Who plays roles in giving the text meaning? Do texts really belong only to playwrights?

-16 What role does the 'audience' play? Who are they? Are they always the same in all forms of theatre? Are they also bound by conventions?

P3-1

What is a Workshop?

- What is a workshop? Which theatre schools have used it; how it can help us to understand theatre which is a highly visual medium. What it can teach us about performance.

- Concept introduced by Brecht and adopted into Western theatre, particularly experimental theatre.

P3-2

Basic Improvisations

- Basing scriptwriting on short activities. Divide up into groups of two and organise short scenes only with a brief encounter between two people.

P3-3

What can we learn from Workshops?

P1-1

The English Department

Kaohsiung National University

English & American Drama

LECTURE NOTES:

Lecture 1 - Introduction

Drama and Theatre are terms which refer to quite different acts. Drama refers to the written form, i.e. the rules of discourse which a writer obeys to create a dramatic text. Theatre refers, in contrast, to what the director or the playwright and the director together do, with a group of actors, to bring a dramatic text to life on the stage. This course bases itself in drama, but discusses also its realisation as theatre.

Play and Performance are similar terms. A 'play' is the word used for a dramatic text, whereas as a 'performance' is what takes place on stage.

When looking at drama we refer to a number of key terms which you will need to be familiar with when writing about drama. Fill in the definitions as provided by the lecture:

ACT:

SCENE:

MONOLOGUE:

DIALOGUE:

KEY SPEECH:

'BEATS':

An 'ideal play' is a play which obeys all the dramatic rules accepted by a set of conventions which we have come to know as 'modern theatre' (which almost all of the plays we'll be looking at belong to). Fill in some of these conventions of the 'ideal play' below; looking for them in the dramatic texts in this course will help you understand better how western drama works.

Conventions of an ideal play include the following:

The English Department

Chinese Culture University [Extension]

Western Theatre & Performance

TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION: Director & the Dramatic Text

These discussion topics refer to the article "Rules for Directors" by George Bernard Shaw, the author of the first play we will be examining (Major Barbara). Shaw is an important figure in English drama around the turn of the century, and like Wilde he is most well-remembered for his comedies, the most famous of which is undoubtedly Pygmalion which was brought to life endearingly in the musical My Fair Lady.

This text is interesting, however, because it attempts to make a link between the role of the playwright and the role of the director.

While reading the text seek answers to the following questions. Sometimes I will ask for your opinion. Make sure you think your answers through before coming to the tutorial. You don't have to write the answers down, but it may help as I expect you to contribute to the class during the discussion. The questions are as follows:

1. Do you think Shaw sees the director as playing a passive role or an active role in the production of a play?

2. Who, according to Shaw, is the perfect director?

3. Does Shaw think that the director should have some creative freedom in the production of the play? Do you agree with him?

4. At one point in the article Shaw refers to the role of the director as like 'the attention a cat pays to a mouse'. What does he mean?

5. What is the final phase of direction, according to Shaw?

6. On pages 104 and 105 Shaw compares two types of directors by comparing two different types of 'notes' made during rehearsals. What does he mean? What do you make of it? Do you agree with his judgements?

7. Do you think that this article is still relevant or that it is out of date for the type of theatre produced today?

8. What do you think this article says about Shaw, the playwright?

The English Department

Kaohsiung National University

English & American Drama

LECTURER'S NOTES: Lesson 4

Play Reading Skills

- Difference between reading a text and watching one: you can`t (normally) rewind, full forward etc.; you have to go at the pace of the performance.

- It is impossible to mistake a theatrical text for any other.

- One has to consider how the audience is treated by the playwright; what were the conventions behind the theatrical traditions which created these works.

- What are the dynamics of plays; how are they structured.

- Importance of visualisation in interpretation.

- Contrasting types of plays in the twentieth century: television and radio plays.

- Film versions of plays; how does this contrast.

- Using scene descriptions to construct an image of what happens in the play (use examples)

PLOT: summary of a play`s incidents OR organisation of meaningful events, i.e. Overall structure of play.

INCITING INCIDENCE - name for the CAUSE around which complications develop.

The End - also known as resolution and denoument.

- The `ideal play`

The mode of discourse which is traditionally agreed upon and accepted by a western audience

It has 3 or 4 acts

- Introduces a set of human characters with a conflict

- This conflict brings about complications.

-These complications are resolved in a denouement (resolution)

Analysing the structure of a play:

1. How is the exposition handled.

2. Discover how scenes and acts are brought to climaxes in comparison to the whole.

3. Think about the manner and the nature of the plot (denoument)

[Hedda Gabler and The Cherry Garden are good examples of ideal plays for this type of analysis]

-Audience theory: compare the difference between the role played by the `reader` and the `viewer` (audience member: audience theory)

- Space: the unwritten/partly transcribed thing separating performance etc. What does the use of specified space tell us about the play? What can be left to interpretation?

- How does the playwright treat temporality? Why? Is it being used as a tool to aid the narrative or character development, or in some other way.

- How does the play resemble reality, and when does it not? Why?

- Work out how to divide text into scenes and acts.

WORKSHOP

Play reading skills; contrasts between different types of plays

- Using scene descriptions to construct an image of what happens in the play (use examples)

The English Department

Kaohsiung National University

English & American Drama

LECTURE NOTES:

Lecture 1 - Introduction

Play and Performance are similar terms. A 'play' is the word used for a dramatic text, whereas as a 'performance' is what takes place on stage.

When looking at drama we refer to a number of key terms which you will need to be familiar with when writing about drama. Fill in the definitions as provided by the lecture:

ACT:

SCENE:

MONOLOGUE:

DIALOGUE:

KEY SPEECH:

'BEATS':

Conventions of an ideal play include the following:

The English Department

Chinese Culture University [Extension]

Western Theatre & Performance

TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION: Themes & Contexts for Major Barbara

3. Why does Barbara become depressed and leave the Salvation Army? Do you think she makes the right choice? Do you think the Salvation Army was right or wrong for taking the money?

4. What do you think the role is of the character Charles (Cholly) Lomax?

5. There are many 'messages' Shaw is trying to communicate in the play, underlying themes expressed in the drama. Comment upon one or two of them, and try to find a speech which is expressive of this theme.

The English Department

Kaohsiung National University

English & American Drama

LECTURER'S NOTES: Lesson 5

Eugene O’Neill

-1888-1953

- The first American playwright of major talent; now considered to be a major figurehead of modern drama like the inimitable Shaw.

- Only playwright to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936, and is still regarded as America’s finest.

- He is well-known because of the element of auto-biography in ALL of his plays, even the play we’ll be looking at The Hairy Ape, but especially later works such as the brillian Long Day’s Journey into Night and The Iceman Cometh.

- He admired many other playwrights, and his style was primarily ‘subjective’; he is considered the most subjective of dramatists. He considers Strinberg to be his mentor who also was obsessed with his own life and family history.

- He was the son of actor James O’Neill, and he derided the sentimental and melodramatic theatre of his father’s day. Immersed in a theatrical milieu from birth, he unconsciously absorbed the basics of stagecraft. He felt lifelong feelings of guilt, born from his mother, a shy devout Catholic, innocently becoming a drug-addict as a result of his birth. This helped him turn against society and all orthodoxies, and theatre became a means to rebel against these systems.

- His sense of tragedy, then, grew from his life and not from knowledge of the Greeks and/or Shakespeare.

- Intent on experiencing ‘real life’, he sought the lower depths from the world of acting, and ended up going to sea, drifting on the waterfronts of Buenos Aires and New York. It wasn’t until after an attempted suicide attempt that he later began writing plays. It became a means of self-assessment and development.

- The play ‘The Hairy Ape’ and its settings on a boat.

- Eugene in 1916 joined a group of amateur playmakers on Cape Cod, who became known as the Provincetown Players on moving to Greenwich Village in New York.

- The major theme of the play which involves the hero yank and the way he sees himself. Theme of the individual and society, animal and human, perpetuation and transcendence, class/capitalism (socialism; his political beliefs).

- Discuss the title of the play and what it means.

- The early plays, and ‘The Hairy Ape’ ending this period.

- Describe ‘expressionism’ and what it means in a theatrical sense; what the students should look for in the play.

The English Department

Kaohsiung National University

English & American Drama

LECTURE NOTES:

Lecture 1 - Introduction

Play and Performance are similar terms. A 'play' is the word used for a dramatic text, whereas as a 'performance' is what takes place on stage.

When looking at drama we refer to a number of key terms which you will need to be familiar with when writing about drama. Fill in the definitions as provided by the lecture:

ACT:

SCENE:

MONOLOGUE:

DIALOGUE:

KEY SPEECH:

'BEATS':

Conventions of an ideal play include the following:

The English Department

Chinese Culture University [Extension]

Western Theatre & Performance

TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION: Themes & Contexts for Major Barbara

1. What do you think is unique about the settings chosen by the playwright?

The English Department

Kaohsiung National University

English & American Drama

LECTURER'S NOTES: Lesson 5

Eugene O’Neill

-1888-1953

- The first American playwright of major talent; now considered to be a major figurehead of modern drama like the inimitable Shaw.

- Only playwright to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936, and is still regarded as America’s finest.

- His sense of tragedy, then, grew from his life and not from knowledge of the Greeks and/or Shakespeare.

- The play ‘The Hairy Ape’ and its settings on a boat.

- Eugene in 1916 joined a group of amateur playmakers on Cape Cod, who became known as the Provincetown Players on moving to Greenwich Village in New York.

- Discuss the title of the play and what it means.

- The early plays, and ‘The Hairy Ape’ ending this period.

- Describe ‘expressionism’ and what it means in a theatrical sense; what the students should look for in the play.

The English Department

Kaohsiung National University

English & American Drama

LECTURE NOTES:

Lecture 1 - Introduction

Play and Performance are similar terms. A 'play' is the word used for a dramatic text, whereas as a 'performance' is what takes place on stage.

When looking at drama we refer to a number of key terms which you will need to be familiar with when writing about drama. Fill in the definitions as provided by the lecture:

ACT:

SCENE:

MONOLOGUE:

DIALOGUE:

KEY SPEECH:

'BEATS':

Conventions of an ideal play include the following:

The English Department

Chinese Culture University [Extension]

Western Theatre & Performance

TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION: Themes & Contexts for Major Barbara

1. What do you think is unique about the settings chosen by the playwright?