Table of Contents
PROLOGUE: The Immediate Precursors of the Modern Theater. The Precursors of the Modern Theater.
Romanticism.
The Melodrama.
Showcase: “Hernani: The Romantic Melodrama That Changed Western Theater.”
The Well-Made Play.
Showcase:“Eugene Scribe's Well-Made Play: The Glass of Water.”
The Problem Play.
Showcase: “The Original Problem Play: La Dame aux Camillias (Camille).”
The “Other” First Modern Play?
Play: WOYZECK (Georg Buchner: 1836, Carl R. Mueller, trans.).
I. EARLY MODERN DRAMA: 1870-1918.
Realism.
Influences on Realism.
Showcase: “Influences on Realism: The Rise of the Director and Germany's Meiningen Players.”
Naturalism.
The First Generation of Realists: Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, and Stanislavsksy.
Showcase:“The Provincetown Playhouse and Susan Glaspell: The Birthplace (and the Mother) of the Modern American Theater.”
Alternatives to Realism and Naturalism.
Relativism.
Expressionism.
Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House.
Showcase: “The Tarantella and Other Healing Dances.”
Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard .
Showcase: “The Stanislavsky System and the Moscow Art Theater.”
John Millington Synge, Riders to the Sea.
Showcase: “The Irish Renaissance.”
August Strindberg, The Ghost Sonata.
Showcase: “Independent and Intimate Theaters.”
Bernard Shaw, Heartbreak House.
Showcase: “Notes for a Production of Heartbreak House” (Harold Clurman).
II. LATE MODERN DRAMA AND ITS DECLINE: 1920-63:
The Aftermath of World War I.
Showcase: The Prototype of the Relativist Drama: Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author.
Other “Isms.”
Surrealism.
Futurism.
Constructivism.
Popular Culture.
The Epic Theatre.
Showcase: “The Epic Theatre: The Berliner Ensemble of Bertolt Brecht: 1949-99”.
THE SECOND GENERATION OF REALISTS.
African-American Theater.
Showcase: “A Raisin in the Sun: Portrait of America in Transistion.
England and Europe.
Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.
“Pioneers in Puerto Rican Theater: The Rollin' Theater of Puerto Rico and Rene Marques’s The OxCart.
The Theatre of the Absurd.
Showcase: “ Forerunners of the Absurd: Alred Jarry's Ubu Roi and Jean-Paul Sartre'No Exit.”
Sophie Treadwell, Machinal .
Showcase: “Theater in the Industrial Age.”
Federico García Lorca, Blood Wedding .
Showcase: “Designing Scenery for Blood Wedding”(Haibo Yu).
Bertolt Brecht, The Good Woman of Setzuan .
Showcase: “The Conventions of Chinese Theater.”
Eugene O'Neill, A Moon For The Misbegotten .
Showcase: “A Great American Play: Arthur Miller and Death of a Salesman.”
Showcase: “Designing A Play: Death of a Salesman” (Jo Mielziner).
Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof .
Showcase: American Acting Matures: The Group Theatre and the Actors Studio.
Harold, Piner The Birthday Party .
Showcase: “Britain's Theater Revolution of 1956.”
Samuel Beckett, Krapp's Last Tape .
Showcase: “A Modern Masterpiece: Waiting for Godot.”
Edward Albee, The American Dream (Edward Albee: 1961).
III. THE CONTEMPORARY AND POST MODERN THEATER, 1964-THE PRESENT.
A New Theater for a New World.
Influences on Contemporary Thought.
Postmodernism and the Theater.
Artaud and the Theater of Cruelty.
Showcase: “The Theater of Cruelty at the RSC: Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade.”
Theater Collectives and Alternative Theater.
Showcase: “The Living Theater and Other Collectives.”
Contemporary Playwriting.
Showcase: “Dario Fo: Nobel Laureate, Anarchist, and Clown.”
Acting in Contemporary Plays.
Contemporary Dramatic Criticism: Deconstructionism, Theory, New Approaches.
Showcase: “Performance Art.”
Showcase: “Docudrama.”
Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Supplement: “A Hamlet Primer.”
Showcase: “Reconstituting the Classics.”
Egon Wolff, Paper Flowers .
Showcase: “Theater in a Dangerous Time: Latin American Theater Under the Gun.”
Wole Soyinka, Death and the King's Horseman .
Showcase: “The Yoruba Obatala Festival at Ede, Nigeria, West Africa.”
Heiner Müller, Hamletmachine.
Showcase: “From The Theater of Images” (Bonnie Marranca).
Maria Irene Fornes, Fefu and Her Friends .
Showcase: “From Acting Out: Feminist Performances” (Lynda Hart and Peggy Phelan).
LUIS VALDEZ, ZOOT SUIT.
Showcase: “Pre-Columbian Theater in MesoAmerica.”
Derek Walcott, Pantomime .
Showcase: “The Trinidad Carnival.”
Sam Shepard, True West .
Showcase: “Myth and the Theater.”
Athol Fugard, “MASTER HAROLD”... and the boys .
Showcase: “South African Township Theater.”
David Henry Hwang, The Dance and the Railroad .
Caryl Churchill, Top Girls
Gao Xingjian, The Bus Stop .
Showcase: “China's National Drama: The White Haired Girl.”
August Wilson, Fences .
Showcase: “From 'Building Fences: An Interview with Mary Alice and James Earl Jones.'”(Heather Henderson).
Griselda Gambaro, Personal Efects .
Tony Kushner, Angels In America, Part One: Millennium Approaches.
Showcase: “Tony Kushner on Bertolt Brecht and Alternatives to Capitalism.”
Diane Glancy, The Woman Who Was a Red Deer Dressed for the Deer Dance .
Showcase:“ “Native American Theater.”
Suzan-Lori Parks, Topdog/Underdog .
APPENDIX: Glossary of Terms.
Credits.
Index.
