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Class Schedule

This Schedule of Lectures, Disscussions and Readings is Subject to Change!

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Week Subject Reading
1 Modern Theatre: Antecedents and Origins [Buchner; Wagner; Gesamtkunstwerk]; toward a modern consciousness Required: Modernism, 19-93;
Wagner, "The Art-Work of the Future;"
Williams, "When Was Modernism?"
Buchner, Woyzeck
Optional: Arnold Houser, V. II, ch. 3, "The Origins of the Domestic Drama," The Social History of Art
2 Realism; Naturalism; Becque; Zola Modernism, 497-512;
Zola, "Naturalism on the Stage";
Lukacs, "The Sociology of Modern Drama;"
Becque, The Vultures
3 The Dramaturgy of Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekov Ibsen, Brand, Peer Gynt, Rosmersholm; Strindberg, The Father, A dream Play
4 Symbolism Modernism 206-27;
Maeterlinck, Pelleas and Melisande;
Acts 1-2; Acts 3-4; Act 5;
Deak, "Symbolist Staging at the Theatre D'Art";
Roinard, Song of Songs of Solomon
5 Branches develop: Confrontation and Abstraction; Jarry; the Uses of an Avant-garde Modernism 191-205;
Jarry, Ubu Roi
6 Appropriation of the Avant-garde; Meyerhold; Reinhardt  
7 Futurism Required: Modernism 243-73;
Nichols, Ch. 5;
Kruchenykh, Victory Over the Sun ; Marinetti, The "Variety Theatre" Manifesto  
Optional Gerould, "Eisenstein's Wiseman," and
Eisenstein, "Montage of Attractions;"
Cangiullo, "The Lady-Killer and the Four Seasons"
8 Dada Modernism 292-308;
Tzara, The Gas Heart
Nichols, Ch. 10
9 Surrealism Manifestoes: "Open the Prisons! Disband the Army;"
"Declaration of 27 January 1925;"
"La Revolution Surrealiste;" Apollinaire, The Breasts of Tiresias Cocteau, The Wedding on the Eiffel Tower
10 Expressionsim Modernism 274-90;
Rubiner, "Man in the Center;" Kornfeld, "Epilogue to the Actor;" Kokoschka, Murderer the Woman's Hope;
Nichols, 136-161
11 Dance; Mime and visual Theatre; Bahaus TBA
12 Artaud and the Inter-war Years Artaud, The Theater and its Double, 7-100; Jet of Blood
Weiss, Marat Sade
Genet, The Maids; The Balcony
13 Brecht, Marxism, and Modernism Brecht, "The Street Scene" and
"The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre";
Baal; Man is Man
14 Absurdism, Existentialism and Beyond Required: Esslin, "Introductions" and "The Significance of the Absurd,"
The Theatre of the Absurd;
Pinter, Old Times;
Camus, Caligula
Optional: Esslin, Chapters on Pinter
15 From Modernism to Post-modernism TBA