Assignments

English 4440/5440: Modern Drama, Fall 2011

Section 01 (CRN 80583/20584): MW 3:30-4:45PM, Arts & Sciences 353

In Class Activities

1. Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author: From Character and Setting to Representation and Reality

In order to prepare for our large group, philosophical discussion of the relationship between representation and reality, acting and truth, break into five groups to address the one component of the play assigned to your group. Elect a secretary to record your response, and provide at least three quotations to illustrate your reading.

  1. Setting : Where does the story take place in the beginning of the play, and what is the mood? How does the setting change by the very end of the play (page 530), and how does the mood change?
  2. The Father: Do a character sketch of the author listing key traits, core conflict, and the main idea or theme that he brings to the overall play.
  3. The Director: Do a character sketch of the author listing key traits, core conflict, and the main idea or theme that he brings to the overall play.
  4. The Family: Characterize the family dynamic, the group dysfunction. What would the theme of this play be if it was simply about the family and there were no metatheatrical element?
  5. The Theatre Company: Characterize the theatre company. How does it regard the family's lives? How does it act the family's drama?

2. Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire: From Character and Setting to Theory and Theme

Since we just discussed the main characters, setting, and conflicts, let's now look at the play from three different theoretical perspectives by breaking into groups of three or four and answering the assigned questions. Write down your responses because you will report to the class on Wednesday.

  1. Feminism and Gender Studies
      • "He acts like an animal, has animal's habits!" (715)
      • "You're not clean enough to bring in the house with my mother." (740)
      • "I saw! I know! You disgust me . . ." (727)
    1. Feminism: How are Blanche and Stella portrayed in the play? Is Blanche raped by Stanley or does she "want it"? Does the play reinforce or undermine the patriarchal ideology of the time period in which it was originally produced? in our time?
    2. Gender Studies: How does the play define masculinity and femininity? How do Stanley and Mitch conform and not conform to their genders?
  2. Psychoanalysis
      • "Can I—uh—kiss you—good night?" (723)
      • "We've had this date with each other from the beginning" (745)
      • "I don't want realism. I want magic!" (738)
    1. How do Blanche's repressions (what can she not consciously face), fantasies (what does she unconsciously desire), and regression (to a childlike psychological state) structure the play and its meaning?
    2. How might the play be read as Blanche's dream—and/or deterioration into delusion?
    3. Given Stanley's rivalry with all the men in the play and his maternal ejaculatory demand "STELLA!" and given Mitch's relationship with his sick mother, are there any oedipal conflicts in the play and what do these issues reveal?
    4. How is sexuality portrayed in the play? In what ways are sexuality in general and Blanche and Stanley's "date" the central meaningful issue of the play?
  3. Marxism and Cultural Studies
      • "Well—if you'll forgive me—he's common!" (715)
      • "Meat! [...] Bowling!" (687)
      • "Some men are took in by this Hollywood glamor stuff and some men are not." (700)
    1. Marxism: What socioeconomic forces are at work in the play? How does Blanche and Stanley's relationship represent class conflict? Does the play reinforce, criticize, or reinforce and criticize capitalist or classist ideologies? If you have time to discuss this, in what ways do gender and sexuality play into class consciousness?
    2. Cultural Studies: What does the play suggest about the nature of New Orleans working class existence in the late 1940s, especially as contrasted to the collective American culture that traditionally misrepresents or underrepresents its lives? Now that the play has been canonized, what does it suggest about the nature and issues of American culture in general?

3. Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey into Night: Diagraming Dysfunction

For this activity designed to help us diagram the dysfunction of the Tyrone family, individuals will spend 10 minutes writing a character sketch of the assigned character and then find 3 quotations from the assigned Act/Scene that illustrate aspects of the character—1 quotation said by the character, 1 quotation said to the character, and 1 quotation said about the character.

4. From Modern to Postmodern Drama

Beckett's Waiting for Godot serves as a transitional text between modernist and postmodernist literature. Before we discuss decidedly postmodern Pinter' sThe Homecoming, let's look at what we already covered (modernist drama), the definition of postmodern drama, and the two postmodernist plays we have read. Divide into 6 groups and answer the one question assigned to your group.

  1. What do the five plays by Strindberg, Pirandello, Brecht, Williams, and O'Neill have in common? Taking a bird's eye view of the plays, what (modernist) traits do they all share? Provide at least six characteristics.
  2. Compare Beckett and Pinter's plays. What (postmodernist) traits do they both share? Provide at least six characteristics.
  3. How does Schmidt define postmodernism and postmodern theatre? Provide at least six significant passages.

5. Sam Shepard, Buried Child: Contemporary Realism

Last week, we distinguished modern and postmodern drama by using Schmidt's definition of postmodern theatre and looking at the plays themselves. Today, as an introduction to Buried Child, we're going to compare and contrast Shepard's contemporary brand of realism with the realism that came before it. Break into 4 groups to discuss the question assigned to your group.

  1. Character: How are Shepard's characters developed, portrayed, and conflicted in ways similar to O'Neill's? How are they different?
  2. Character: How are Shepard's characters developed, portrayed, and conflicted in ways similar to Pinter's? How are they different?
  3. Setting: In what ways are Shepard's place, tone, and style similar to O'Neill's? Different?
  4. Setting: In what ways are Shepard's place, tone, and style timilar to Pinter's? Different?

6. David Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross: Influences and Ideas

At this point in the semester, we're all very comfortable analyzing characters and core conflicts, so let's skip to the key ideas. To get us started on Mamet, we're going to combine past in class activity hits: comparing playwrights' characters and style as we did with Shepard and asking theoretically informed questions as we did with Williams. With Williams, I provided the quotes. This time, groups should back up their discussions with 2-3 significant passages. Divide into 4 groups and discuss the assigned issue.

  1. Influences
    • The headnote explains that Beckett and Pinter are both influences of Mamet. Compare (not contrast, just compare) how Beckett and Pinter render characters and reality with how Mamet's conceives of characters and reality.
  2. Language
    • There is a lot of cursing in this play. What are the curse words, what do they mean, how are they used by the characters, and how might the cursing point to the overarching thematic idea of the play? If you have time to discuss, in what ways does language use play into gender and capitalism roles.
  3. Feminism and Gender Studies
    • Feminism: How are women discussed and referred to by the all male cast? Is it appropriate to call the ideology of this play patriarchal? Why or why not?
    • Gender Studies: How does the play define masculinity? How is masculinity affected by age? What kind of a man is Levene? Roma? If you have time to discuss this, in what ways is gender anxiety affected by the capitalistic language use in the play?
  4. Marxism and Cultural Studies
    • Marxism: What socioeconomic forces are at work in the play? How do each of the three scenes in the first act, i.e., the scenes between two men of different power positions, exemplify a class conflict and/or power struggle? Does the play reinforce, criticize, or reinforce and criticize capitalist ideologies? If you have time to discuss this, in what ways do language and gender play into the capitalistic unconsciousness?
    • Cultural Studies: If you have time to discuss this, what does the play suggest about the nature of capitalism in the Roaring Reaganomics and Wall Street's Gordon Gecko's "Greed is good" Eighties? In what ways do these sales and salesman constitute a subculture both cast out by but also reifying the dominant capitalistic culture?

7. Tony Kushner, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia of Critical Theories

We concluded our last class with the question of the play's ideological agenda: What do these angels mean for society? In order to answer that premier question, let's look at the play's interaction with the reader, its structure, and its play of meaning, then we'll break down the play's themes regarding history, class, gender, sexuality, and environment.

  1. Reader-Response Criticism
    • How does the interaction of play and reader create meaning? How does the play's indeterminacy regarding the dream or reality of angels (ghosts, shared dreams, and so forth) activate interpretation?
    • What does the play "do" to the reader and how is that distinct from and similar to what the play "means"?
  2. Structuralism
    • Categorize the genre of the play.
    • Classify the play's underlying narrative structures.
  3. Poststructuralism and Deconstruction
    • In what ways are the reality, language, and structure of the play unstable; and how does that put the meaning of the play "in play"?
    • What ideology or main theme does the play at first seem to advance? How does the play point to equally valid yet opposing evidence that generates an incommensurate ideology or main theme, thus making the meaning of the play undecidable?
  4. New Historicism and Cultural Studies
    • How does the play function as a textual artifact or document of cultural history?
    • How does the play reflect the socioeconomic conditions and historical/cultural conflict of the marginalized? How does the work reflect the conflict between the dominant culture and subversive or subcultural discourses?
  5. Marxism
    • How does the play criticize, reinforce, or simultaneously criticize and reinforce capitalist ideology?
    • How does the play criticize, reinforce, or simultaneously criticize and reinforce religion?
  6. Psychoanalysis
    • How do sexual repression in general and closeted characters in particular structure the play and inform its meaning?
    • Discuss the relationship between dream (including fantasy, delusion) and reality in the play both at the level of character and setting, and then comment on how the conflict between dream and reality informs the play's meaning.
  7. Feminism and Gender Studies
    • How does the play portray women? Does the play sustain, subvert, or sustain and subvert patriarchy?
    • How does the play define gender, masculinity and femininity?
  8. Queer Theory
    • What are the sexual politics of the play? How does the play problematize sexuality and sexual identity?
    • Does the play subvert, reinforce, or subvert and reinforce heterosexism?
  9. Ecocriticism
    • What relationship between ecology and culture does the play present? Does the play suggest the interconnectedness of all life, environmental and social?
    • Does the play advocate environmental justice and social justice?

Midterm Exam

You will write two thesis-driven comparison/contrast essays of your choice from a selection of four or five questions.

 

The broad topics that you will be tested on, generated from class discussion Wednesday, September 28, are:

Preparations for this exam include:

The take-home graduate student exam will be posted here on Monday, October 3 by 3:45PM.

The Graduate Take-Home Exam

Write two different essays on four different plays by answering two of the following four essay questions. Do not use a play in more than one essay. Here are important guidelines for essays:

Here are the plays:

Here are the questions:

Research Paper

The scene analysis paper asked undergraduates to closely read a scene, and the film adaptation asked undergraduates to analyze the meaningful changes to a play as it was transformed from print to screen. The comparison/contrast paper asked graduate students to interpret an issue important to a playwright's world view, and the midterm exam tested all to make connections and distinctions among the themes and style of modern drama. The research paper will afford you the time and space to perform a sustained and sourced discussion of a significant issue in a modern or contemporary play. Your thesis-driven paper should employ textual analysis and support its interpretation of the issue with scholarly criticism.

 

Undergraduates: You will write a 7-9 page research paper, incorporating at least 5 scholarly articles, on a contemporary play read in class (but not one written on previously) or a play not studied in class by one of the playwrights studied in class.

 

Graduates: You will write a 12-15 page research paper that enters, engages, and advances the scholarly discourse of a modern or contemporary play either discussed in class (but not one from the comparison/contrast paper) or selected by you and approved by the professor. Your essay should be worthy of being presented at a conference, integrate at least 6 interpretive sources and apply at least 2 theoretical articles on modern or postmodern drama.

Undergraduates

Scene Analysis

For the first paper, perform a close reading of a scene in one of the plays we've read. The scene analysis paper should demonstrate how a nuanced and rigorous reading of the dialogue (and stage directions, if applicable) not only broaches the key issues and core conflicts of the play but also points to the play's overall thematic meaning.

Film Adapation

The film adaptation paper should compare and contrast the significant changes made in adapting stage to screen and analyze and evaluate how those changes affect the meaning of the work. Rather than just listing or cataloging alterations, your paper should be guided and controlled by an overarching idea. You can find elements of film analysis here.

Take-Home Final Exam

If you choose not to take the final exam, calculate your final grade here and note your new assignment grade weights:

 

Paper 1 Scene Analysis, 20%
Exam 1 Midterm In-Class, 30%
Paper 2 Film Adaptation, 20%
Paper 3 Research, 30%

 

If you choose to take the final exam, write two different essays on four different plays by answering two of the following four essay questions. Do not use a play in more than one essay. Here are important guidelines for essays:

Here are the plays:

Here are the questions:

Graduates

Presentation

For the 30 minute presentation, you will select an article that helps the class understand an assigned play, then teach the article and play to the class. Let me know the article and poem(s) you're going to cover at least one week before your presentation so I can distribute the article to the class.

 

Presentation Due Date Reading Student
W, 9-7

Brecht

 
W, 9-14

Williams

Joseph Brogdon
W, 9-21

O'Neill

 
W, 9-28

Beckett

 
W, 10-12

Pinter

  
W, 10-19

Shepard

  
W, 10-26

Mamet

Michelle Stinson
W, 11-2

Hwang

Emily Chamison

W, 11-9 or

M, 11-14

Kushner

 

Comparison/Contrast Paper

You will read two additional plays by a playwright we've read in class and then compare and contrast a recurrent issue or theme in order to determine the author's world view.

 

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