Advanced Topics on Modern Drama
Dr. Meiling Cheng
USC School of Theatre
Spring 2012
THTR 314, 63040R, 4 Units TTh 11-12:20PM; KAP 113
Office: CWT, Room 2 E:
Tel. (213) 740-1496; 740-8686 Office Hrs: Fri:10AM-12PM. ByAppointment Only.
Course Description:
An exploration of the ideas, forms, styles, trends, thematic concerns, and dramaturgical modes that contribute to the making of modern drama. Equal emphasis will be placed on the dramatic texts and their aesthetic, cultural, and historical contexts.
Syllabus
T 1/10 Introduction.
Th 1/12 Hu/animal Folly; Divine Comedy: Ibsen; Chekhov; O'Neill.
Henrik Ibsen, The Wild Duck.
T 1/17 The Wild Duck.
Anton Chekhov, The Seagull.
Th 1/19 The Seagull. Eugene O'Neill, The Hairy Ape.*
T 1/24 A Duck; a Seagull; An Ape; in the Human Zoo.
Discussion/Presentation Forum: Solo/Ensemble Performance (DPF) #1: Scrambling Realism, Naturalism, and Expressionism.
Th 1/26 Artifactual Mimesis and Morphing Psyche: Apollinaire; Anouilh and Aurenche; Witkacy.
Guillaume Apollinaire, The Breast of Tiresias.*
T 1/31 The Breast of Tiresias.*
Jean Anouilh and Jean Aurenche, Humulus the Mute.*
Th 2/2 Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz (Witkacy), The Madman and the Nun.*
Guest lecture by Cort Brinkerhoff, Assistant Instructor.
T 2/7 Two Breasts; A Tongue; An Ear Trumpet; Multiple Machines.
DPF #2: Meshing Antirealism.
Th 2/9 Fragmented Consciousness and Split Personas: Kennedy; Shepard.
Adrienne Kennedy, Funnyhouse of a Negro.*
T 2/14 Funnyhouse of a Negro.*
Sam Shepard, Red Cross.*
Th 2/16 Balding Skulls; Itchy Genitals.
DPF #3: Surrealism with Cruelty.
T 2/21 Dimensions of Apocalypse: Beckett; Kane.
Samuel Beckett, Endgame.
Th 2/23 Endgame.
• DUE: The First Set of Commentaries (select 5 entries).
T 2/28 Sarah Kane, Blasted.
Th 3/1 A Shelter, a Theatre, a Purgatory, or a Morbid Motel?
DPF #4: Exhaustion; Amnesia; Grotesque Humor; Fractured Realism.
T 3/6 Midterm Review.
Th 3/8 Midterm Examination (in class).
3/12-3/17 Spring Break.
T 3/20 Sources, Leaps, and Mutations of Epic Theatre: Brecht; Kushner.
Bertolt Brecht, Galileo.
Th 3/22 Galileo.
Tony Kushner, Angels in America: Part One: Millennium Approaches.
T 3/27 Tony Kushner, Angels in America: Part Two: Perestroika.
Th 3/29 Angels in America: Part Two: Perestroika.
T 4/3 The Sky; the Book; the Earth.
DPF #5: Epic Theatre and Its Fabulous Permutations.
Th 4/5 The Haunting of Lost Histories: Houston; Parks.
Velina Hasu Houston, Tea.*
T 4/10 Suzan-Lori Parks, The America Play.
Th 4/12 A Flag; Five Cups; Two Fake Beards; Seven Echoes.
DPF #6: Ritualistic Weaving/Digging of Minor Histories.
T 4/17 Trauma; Obsession; Psychosis; Taboo; Passion: Shaffer; Albee.
Peter Shaffer, Equus.
Th 4/19 Equus.
Edward Albee, The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?
T 4/24 A Horse, A Boy; A Goat, A Man.
DPF #7: Fixation and Its Aftermath.
• DUE: The Second Set of Reading Notes. (Select 5 entries)
Th 4/26 Final Review.
Th 5/3 • DUE: The Final Project.
T 5/10 The Final Exam. (11AM-1PM)
Texts:
I. The following books will be placed on reserve via Ares at the Leavey Library:
Ibsen, Henrik. Ibsen: Four Major Plays: Vol. 1. Trans. Rolf Fjelde. Rev. ed. Signet Classic, 1965. [0-451-52406-3]
Chekhov, Anton. Four Plays and Three Jokes. Trans. Carnicke, Sharon. Hackett Pub. Co, 2009. [0872209970]
Witkiewicz, Stanislaw Ignacy. The Manman and the Nun and The Crazy Locomotive: Three Plays. Eds., Daniel Gerould and C. S. Durer. Trans. Daniel Gerould. Applause Books, 2000. [093683983X]
Kennedy, Adrienne. Funnyhouse of a Negro in Adrienne Kennedy in One Act. University of Minnesota Press, 1988. [0-8166-1692-2]
Shepard, Sam. Chicago and Other Plays. Applause Books, 1981 [1967].
Beckett, Samuel. Endgame. Grove Press, 1958. [0802150241]
Kane, Sarah. Complete Plays. Methuen Drama, 2001. [0-413-74260-1]
Brecht, Bertolt. Galileo. New York: Grove Press, 1991. [0802130593]
Kushner, Tony. Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. Part One: Millennium Approaches. Theatre Communications Group, 1993 [1992]. [1-55936-061-5]
Kushner, Tony. Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. Part Two: Perestroika. Theatre Communications Group, 1994 [1992]. [1-55936-072-0]
Houston, Velina Hasu. Tea in Roberta Uno, ed. Unbroken Thread: An Anthology of Plays by Asian American Women. The University of Massachusetts Press, 1993. [0-87023-856-6]
Parks, Suzan-Lori. The America Play and Other Works. Theatre Communications Group, 1995. [1-55936-092-5]
Shaffer, Peter. Equus: A Play. Penguin Classics, 2007. [0141188901]
Albee, Edward. The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? Overlook TP, 2004. [1585676470]
II. The texts marked with * will be collected in a Course Reader, accessible via a closed-circuit electronic forum.
Course Requirements;
Explanation of Grading System and Written Assignments:
The evaluation of your course performance will include your attendance; your eagerness to be involved in the class activities; and the quality of your efforts and written works. You will fail the class if you only come for the mid-term and final exams without fulfilling all other requirements.
There will be two types of written assignments, one performance assignment, and two scheduled examinations. You will be graded for the level of your understanding, the ingenuity of your plan, the coherence of your organization, and the soundness of your argument, for your ability to support the analysis and interpretation with specific examples from the plays and performance texts, and the skills with which you synthesize different ideas from lecture, research, presentation and discussion. Originality as well as diligence will be rewarded.
Note:
(1) The written assignments should be typed and double-spaced. The margins of your papers should be kept at 1 inch; the size of your letters should not exceed 12-point font.
(2) According to the School of Theatre policy, no late paper will be accepted, unless permission is granted prior to the due date.
(3) Close Reading: Your are strongly urged to read the text required for each class before the lecture, so that you may contribute sensibly to class discussions. Please bring your copy of the relevant text to each class. Be prepared that the Professor might call you to read selected scenes in class. Your willingness to serve as a volunteer reader will count favorably toward your "Participation" grade.
I. Participation: 15%
The participation grade is not guaranteed by mere attendance. It's evaluated in two parts.
• The first part is a reward/discipline section for class behavior. (5%)
You will earn up to 5% of the participation grade for this section if you behave as a responsible citizen of the class. If you disrupt the class order, you will lose 10 points with every written warning from the Professor, or the Assistant Instructor. In addition, unexplained absence from the class will adversely affect your participation grade. Usually you lose 6 points with an unexcused absence, and 3 points with an excused absence.
• The second part of the participation grade is decided by your intellectual engagement.
You may earn up to 10% of the participation grade by your active participation in class discussion and in-class projects. Your efforts to engage in the on-going process of learning and thinking in class will be valued as much as the quality of your participation. Courage, discipline, determination, and the adventurous spirit will speak well for you in this class.
II. Critical Commentaries and Creative Responses:
30% (15% for the first set; 15% for the second)
Due: Feb. 23; April 24, 2012.
For each play studied in our course, you are required to bring in one topic in response to the reading for in-class discussions. In addition, you will develop selected topics into critical commentaries or creative interpretations, collect these responses in a typewritten format and turn them in when they are due. In this semester, you will do two sets of these responses; each set with five entries.
These commentaries/responses may be composed of a set of provocative questions, a series of ideas, analytical paragraphs, drawings, images, poems, and photo essays. Each entry should be one to two pages. The most important criterion is that the commentary/response is engaging and substantial and that it may provoke deeper questioning of the issues under investigation.
III. Solo or Ensemble Presentation: 20%
Due: The scheduled date.
You are required to do either a solo project or a collaborative project for the semester. Providing that we have enough time, you are allowed to do more than one presentation to increase your participation grade.
There will be seven solo presentation/ensemble performance slots for the whole semester, roughly corresponding to the plays we are reading. You should sign up in advance which slot and what kind of project (solo or collaborative) that you are going to do. If you want to change your plan, you must do so at least a week in advance. Consult the Professor for the signing sheet.
Both types of presentations are regarded as performances. An individual presentation should last about five to seven minutes. An ensemble or collaborative performance should last about ten to fifteen minutes. As a rule, an ensemble should include no more than three members. If your project has special requirements that need more than three participants, you may clear the situation in advance with the Professor.
These projects can be either academic or creative, or both. It's your choice to design the format and direction of your presentation. You can perform as a commentator, a theatre student, or a dramatic character, etc., in your solo or ensemble work. Remember: a project's duration has little to do with its quality--longer doesn't make it better!
You will receive an individual grade for your solo project. Your will receive a group grade for the ensemble project--the same grade for each member of the ensemble.
VI. Mid-term Exam (10%) and Final Exam (10%):
You will take a mid-term and a final examination. The final examination must be taken at its scheduled time. According to the USC policy, the final examination cannot be given at any other time unless a student is suffering from illness or there is a death in the family or some other critical emergency. These excuses must be formally documented. These two exams are open-book, open-channeled exams. Please bring your laptops to the classroom for these exams.
V. Final Project: 15% (6 pages minimum)
Due: May 3, 2011.
This assignment aims to train your research ability. Thus, you have to draw at least two outside critical or journalistic sources, in addition to the references made from the original text. You lose "5 points" for every missing source. A minimum of 6 pages is required for the paper. You lose "5 points" for each page less than the minimum requirement. Please consult The Chicago Manual of Style or the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers for the editorial format. Be sure to document your sources properly.
Option 1--Critical Paper:
The critical paper will deal with one of the plays or topics discussed during the semester. Choose the subject that interests you the most, focus on a particular thesis, and develop your own interpretation based on a close reading of the play and an examination of other critical sources. You have to carefully document your sources and present a synthesis of your discoveries. The objective of the paper is to demonstrate your analytical insight, your skill at formulating an argument, and your ability to incorporate examples from the play with critical research.
Option 2--Dramaturgical Newsletter:
The dramaturgical newsletter will deal with one of the plays covered during the semester. It will introduce the playwright's life and works, offer a detailed analysis of the particular play that you recommend for a new production, explain the reasons for your recommendation, survey at least two past productions, and describe your own particular version of production. The purpose of the newsletter is to inform your reader about the playwright and the play, to clarify your individual approach to the play, and to persuade your reader that the production is worth seeing.
School of Theatre Grading Criteria
i) There shall be no unexcused absences.
ii) Letter grades and marks are defined as follows:
A work of excellent quality
B work of good quality
C work of fair quality for undergraduate credit
D- work of minimum passing quality for undergraduate credit
F failure
Grading Scale:
All assignments and examinations will be graded on a percentage (100 points) scale system. The grades will then be calculated into a final point total, which will be converted into a final letter grade.
A+: 100-97; A: 96-94; A-: 93-90; B+: 89-87; B: 86-84; B-: 83-80;
C+: 79-77; C: 76-74; C-: 73-70; D+: 69-67; D: 66-64; D-: 63-60;
F: Below 60.
Procedures and Agreement:
I. How to schedule an individual conference.
If you want to have an appointment with me, talk to me after class, or email me at <>. The best way to contact me is via email. You are also encouraged to schedule individual meetings with the Teaching Assistant/Assistant Instructor, if we have one.
II. How to arrange for academic accommodation.
Students requesting academic accommodation based on a disability are required to register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP when adequate documentation is filed. Please be sure the letter is delivered to the Professor as early in the semester as possible. DSP is located at the USC Center for Academic Support, http://sait.usc.edu/academicsupport/centerprograms/dsp/home_index.html; the office's phone number is (213) 740-0776; email .
III. How to receive early notification of grades at the end of the term.
You may email the Professor to get your grade. For the sake of confidentiality, no grade postcard will be sent, nor any grade sheet posted.
IV. How to have an absence excused.
Attendance is mandatory for both lecture and discussion. When you need to be absent, you have to bring in a written letter, documenting the date and the reasons for your absence. If you need to miss more than three consecutive classes, you need to supply a letter from a guardian or parent that contains a telephone number so that the Professor or the TA/AI may contact your guardian when necessary. Note: There will be occasional signing-sheet passed around for attendance record. It’s your responsibility to make sure that your signature is on the attendance record. Please note also that a telephone message will not be sufficient to have your absence excused.