1. First impressions: notes of reactions to play on initial reading,
including images, colors (be personal).
2. Research: Summarize the most important insights you have gained
from your research into your play. Discuss specifically how your research
findings will influence your interpretation and/or production of the play.
List sources consulted (in bibliographic form).
3. One-sentence statement of action (root action/significant action).
4. Structural Analysis: identify and briefly discuss inciting incident,
each major complication (in order), major crisis (turning point), major
structural climax, major emotional climax, resolution. Give enough detail
in your analysis so that the reader can identify the point in the play
that you are talking about and why you consider this the inciting incident,
etc. For complications, note the effect of the complication on the action.
5. Brief discussion of theme. State theme clearly and support your
choice of theme with evidence from the play.
6. Brief discussion of style of the play. What choices are you making
about style for your production? Why?
7. Spine of the play--identify and discuss briefly.
8. Character Analysis--Biography, History (see act.vtheatre.net).
9. Motivational Units: Break your scene into motivational units
and number/name the units. Present this portion of the analysis in promptbook
format, with starting and ending points of each unit marked; unit analysis
should be on page facing page of text.
10. Discuss any particular directorial problems posed by the play
and the scene.
Useful Questions to Ask Yourself about a Script Under Review 1. Is there anything special about the title? Does it focus on a character, the milieu, or a theme? Is it taken from a quotation or is an allusion? Does it contain a point of view or suggest a mood?
2. Make a note of unrealistic elements and consider their meaning. Does it include documentary material and, if so, to what effect?
3. Is there a main theme? Consider the tempo of the various sections?
4. How many acts and scenes are there? What motivates the divisions of the play and how are they marked (curtains, blackouts, etc.)?
5. What are the retrospective elements of the play and are they explicit or implicit?
6. Is there secondary action and what is its relationship with the main action?
7. Consider the characters entrances and exits and how they are motivated?
8. Is there any difference between playing time (the time it takes to perform the play) and illusory time (the time the action is supposed to take)? What is the relationship between the two, if any?
9. Where is the play enacted? Is the playwright vague or exact about the environment? Is this important?
10. How does the playwright economize with the number of roles? Could any be omitted or doubled? What function do the various secondary characters have?
11. Who is the protagonist? The antagonist?
12. What are the relationships among the characters and how do they change?
13. Is the play in verse, prose, or a mixture?
14. Is the play a translation? Can you compare it to the original? With other translations? Are there significant differences?
15. Is the playwright making significant points of interpretation with the use of punctuation? With breaks and overlaps? With silence?
The Class Presentation: Preliminaries
1. Please be certain that you are prepared to discuss the work you have chosen on the day it is due. The reading schedule will not permit us to make changes readily, so if you miss your turn as discussion leader there may not be another opportunity for you to complete that requirement for the course.
2. As discussion leader, your role is to present the work to the class in an interesting manner. You may use notes or outlines to present the work but do not read to the class from a prepared text. No matter how well written, that sort of thing gets boring. Make a genuine effort to be interesting. Know what you are talking about, and be prepared to field questions during and after your presentation.
3. You may find useful the following suggested procedure.
a. If possible, learn something about the author so that you have some context for your initial approach to the work. Note when the work was written. Provide useful background information.
b. Read the work carefully, writing comments in the margin and noting passages that seem especially important. Take notes.
c. Try to answer fully the questions (when available) at the end of the work in the anthology. (Do not, however, treat "Connections" questions that raise issues about other works we haven't read.)
d. Answer the relevant general "Questions for Responsive Reading" (for fiction pp. 41-43, for poetry pp. 711-12; for drama pp. 1211-12). If you choose a poem, be prepared to read it aloud.
e. If you still need help (but only after you have wrestled with the work), you may use secondary sources such as critical articles and sections in books. For help with finding sources see the "Annotated List of References" (pp. 2100-02). The reference librarians can also help you to locate material if you are unsuccessful on your own. Sometimes disagreements among professional critics can reveal what is central in a work.
4. Your presentation should not simply be a response to the two lists of questions mentioned above. Instead approach the work as you think it is best explained. The emphasis could be on point of view, character, setting, diction, tone, symbolism, irony, or whatever best serves as a way of making sense of the work's meanings and how those meanings are created. You are not restricted to the questions raised in the text. Discuss whatever you judge to be interesting and relevant to your particular work. Make specific, detailed references to the text to illustrate your points. For a variety of approaches review "Critical Strategies for Reading" (pp. 2021-2047). Be sure you are clear about what approach you are taking ( a combination of approaches is, of course, possible).
5. Keep in mind that the purpose of the presentation is to help your classmates understand the work. If something puzzles you, say so and we'll see what the rest of the class can contribute.
6. Your presentation should be about twenty minutes long. If you work up answers to the questions, there should be plenty for you to talk about, and that will allow you to ask questions of your classmates as well. The job of your classmates is to respond to your comments and to ask questions. Also, remember that as others present their works they would probably appreciate questions if they stumble or the pace slackens. Neither I nor the class must agree with your approach to the work, but we must agree that you've had a thesis and something useful to say about the work.
Venice Carnival 2002 & Shrew 2004
