An Introduction to Dramatic Literature and Theater Art. Contributors: Charles W. Cooper - author. Publisher: Ronald Press Co.. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1955 (?)
Some of my notes are my wishes, I have to try it in class, if it works... "Art and Craft" -- I am still trying this idea (the difference).
Drama: A Guide to the Study of Plays by J. L. Styan; Peter Lang, 2000 - Chapter 1: —the Nature of Drama—
- Chapter 2: —the Elements of Speech—(King Lear, 4.6.153)
- Chapter 3: (The Merchant of Venice, 2.5.1)—seeing and Perceiving—
- Chapter 4: —the Shape of the Stage—
- Chapter 5: —the Player and His Part—
- Chapter 6: —story, Structure and Theme—
- Chapter 7: —genre, Mood and Mode—
- Chapter 8: —realism and Beyond—
What a temptation to focus this (Fall 2002) Dramlit around woman v. man, gender wars, and etc. Themes
Dec. 9, last week. "How I learned to drive": incest -- full circle since Oedipus, including 3 choruses. One step from "Death of A Salesman" and we are at pomo extreme minimalism. PM Self (forgiving the Other in order to forgive yourself).
Child and childhood = American culture (relativistic values?). How low is low? "Man with no limitations"?
NB. Cultures are the technologies: another protestant revolution = electronic. Full alienation from oneself, I as Others (time as space of existence: past and present games in play).
"Meaning of Life"? Even the word "meaning" we understand differently.
Symbolism: Drive.
Comedy or tragedy?
Great harm from the people who love us. Or "great love from the people that harm us"? Love your enemy! "Jerry Show" kind of love. No to love?
"the gift of how to survive" (Vogel): what does it mean to survive? To survive yourself?
Memory Play: memory as punishment.
"Catharsis purges the pity and the terror" (Vogel): "put behind us" 9/11. Debates on capital punishment. Limits of personal responsibility.
Understanding = Forgiveness
Important and dangerous: the order of THR215 -- 2002 Fall central theme 'woman v. man'
Self and gender [ 10.21 ]
1. Strindberg
2. Pirandello
3. O'Neill
4. Lorca
5. Fornes
6. Miller
7. Pinter
8. Shepard
(how about 'Pygmalion' and Beckett -- without women)
[ Skip Wilde? ]
Connect back to Oedipus, Hamlet, Mother Courage, Lysistrata, Cherry Orchard, A Doll's House
Four Major Plays: A Doll House, the Wild Duck, Hedda Gabler, the Master Builder (Signet Classics (Paperback))
Among the greatest and best known of Ibsen's works, these four plays--A Doll's House, The Wild Duck, Hedda Gabler, The Master Builder--brilliantly embody his landmark contributions to the theater. Rich in symbolism and often autobiographical, each work deals convincingly with the human emotions of greed, fear, and sexual hostility, and confronts the external conflicts between reality and illusion. Reissue.
Importance Of Being Earnest And Four Other Plays (Barnes & Noble Classics)
Summary
If I labeled both Dramlit and Playscript classes as "Dramatic Analysis for Actors and Directors" should I let "actor" and/or "director" to narrate?
Who?
Notes
Maybe in THR413 I could start with simple plays (or even movies) and go back to the masterpieces.
The Cherry Orchard is Chekhov's last play, written in 1903 and 1904 when he was obviously dying of tuberculosis. Like The Seagull (1895), he labeled this work a "comedy in four acts." This accords with the ancient Greek conception, in which comedy is concerned with foibles in the day-to-day lives of ordinary people, while tragedy deals with great souls, elevated themes, and the workings of fate.
The uncertainty, irresolution, love, hope, idealism, pragmatism, moral weakness, yearning, self-deception, miscommunication, triumph, loss and suffering that characterize The Cherry Orchard certainly fit into this notion of comedy. What about the happy ending? Well, despite the fact that some of the characters seem destined for aborted dreams, Lopahin scores a financial coup, and a newly solvent Madame Ranevsky zips off to Paris (and to her profligate lover). Not bad for "real life."
The Cherry Orchard presents a microcosm of Chekhov's world. You have the ancient serf who yearns for the old regime (Firs);the profligate and ineffectual landowners (Madame Ranevsky, Gaev, Semyonov-Pishtchik) landowners, unable to cope with the changing world; the idealistic but brittle intellectual (Trofimov); and, finally, the New Man (Lopahin), whose pragmatism and energy allow him to influence events, rather than being crushed by them.
Among this cast of characters, Chekhov, the physician and public health worker, most closely resembles Lopahin, who observes, "I get up at five and work from morning to night. . . I see lots of people, see what they're like. And you just try to get anything accomplished: you'll see how few decent, honest people there really are." (p. 358)
Meanwhile, Trofimov represents the late 19th century Russian intellectuals who spout theories, but have no intention of accomplishing them, "We have to seek out the truth, you know. Most of the people in this country aren't working toward anything. . . They certainly don't do much." (p. 357) [This from a man who has just spent five years lolling around, sponging off the Ranevsky family.]
Although Tom has most of the lines and the play is a memory of his, I
think that Laura is the main character. Tom must be somewhat obsessed
with the life of his sister. She has a mostly easy life in his eyes.
She sits around the house and dusts off her glass collection. But if
this really is Tom's memory, why do we see so vividly Laura's feelings
and struggles that I think Tom would not be in tune with. There are
scenes that Tom was not present for, so how do you account for that
being part of his memory? The scene with Amanda and Laura about her
skipping school was one that Tom was not present for. I think we see
the most of Laura's true character in scenes where Tom is not present
because they are not memories of Tom's. In that scene and the scence
when Jim and Laura are alone, we see that Laura isn't as "crippled" as
she thinks she is. She makes a break through telling the truth to her
mother and having an intimate moment with a man. I think that Tom and
Amanda's character's purposefully hinder Laura in their scenes
together. The only reason she is "crippled" is because they do not
tell her otherwise. I think Williams is successful in making the
audience feel sorry for Laura and mad at her family for making you
feel sorry.
film-blog
Importance Of Being Earnest And Four Other Plays (Barnes & Noble Classics)
