English 234 - Spring, 2013

Dramatic Literature

Topic: Performance Studies and the Early Modern Theater

Class Information

Instructor: Bloom, Gina
CRN: 62597
Time: M 12:10-3:00
Location: 120 Voorhies
Breadth: Earlier British
Focus: Genre, Interdiscipline, Theory

Description

Performance Studies and Early Modern Theater

This course approaches early modern plays not as texts for readers but as performances for theatergoers. One purpose of the course is to develop students' knowledge about theater history and its methodologies: what do we know about who went to the theater and why they attended plays? But the course also aims to ground students in the field of performance studies and its applications to early modern drama and theater history. To that end we will integrate our readings of plays, drama criticism, and theater scholarship with work by key theorists in performance studies, such as Richard Schechner, Victor Turner, Gay McAuley, and Peggy Phelan. Insofar as these scholars base their theories primarily on modern theater and performance, we will be especially interested to see how their insights may be enriched through attention to the unique theatrical culture of early modern London. For instance, how does the practice of seating audience members on the stage (spoofed in Beaumont and Fletcher'€™s Knight of the Burning Pestle) speak to McAuley's claims about the ways space influences the relationships between actors and spectators?

There will be some assigned essays to be read in advance of the first class meeting; information will be available on the course SmartSite.

Also, as part of the course, we will attend a live performance of Dogs of War, which is based on Shakespeare's history plays and is being performed May 16-19 in the Wyatt Theater on campus. Students will be responsible for purchasing their own tickets, though we will try to attend as a group.

Plays will include:
Middleton, A Game at Chess

Anon., Arden of Faversham

Porter, Two Angry Women of Abington

Heywood, A Woman Killed with Kindness

Middleton and Rowley, The Changeling

Beaumont and Fletcher, Knight of the Burning Pestle

Shakespeare--several history plays TBD

Texts

A Woman Killed with Kindness, Heywood
A Game at Chess, Middleton
Norton Anthology of English Renaissance Drama, Bevington et al.