What are we humans doing when we go about our human business? What happens when love goes wrong? Is justice possible and what does injustice look like? In what ways do our families define us? Are we able to choose our own destiny even when dealt a tragic hand? These are just some of the questions that the masterworks of theater have posed. Theater poses these vital questions in gripping, spectacular ways, and the way a question is posed is likely meaningful to how we answer it. Using three loose themes—Fate & Freedom, Love & Lineage, Justice & Judgment—we will uncover significant questions plays ask (and answers they provide) while paying attention to theater's form. This form, drama, is almost universal across world cultures. Better acquaintance with Sophocles, Euripides, Terence, Shakespeare, Molière, Goethe, Chekhov and other great playwrights might even help explain why during the pandemic, Americans with the relevant subscriptions stream eight hours of "content" per day. More importantly, encounters with these plays will challenge us to think, feel, and perhaps even act (pun intended) more spectacularly.
Readings:
Anonymous, Everyman; Aristotle, Poetics (selections); Chekhov, The Seagull; Euripides, Bacchae; Goethe, Egmont; Marlowe, Dr. Faustus; Molière, Psyché; Nottage, Sweat; Terence, Adelphoe; Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, Richard II; Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus; Wilson, The Piano Lesson
Grading scheme:
5 short papers: 30%; 2 longer essays (plus re-writes): 25%; recitation of monologue: 10%; group performance: 10%; final exam: 15%; active participation and attendance: 10%