21L.486
Modern Drama
Explores major modern plays with special attention to performance, sociopolitical and aesthetic contexts, and the role of theater in the contemporary multimedial landscape. Includes analysis of class, gender, and race as modes of performance. Typically features Beckett and Brecht, as well as some of the following playwrights: Chekov, Churchill, Deavere Smith, Ibsen, Fornes, Friel, Kushner, O'Neill, Shaw, Stoppard, Soyinka, Williams, Wilson. May be repeated for credit with permission of instructor if content differs.
Spring 2006
This course analyzes major modern plays featuring works by Shaw, Pirandello, Beckett, Brecht, Williams, Soyinka, Hwang, Churchill, Wilson, Frayn, Stoppard, Deveare Smith, and Kushner. The class particularly considers performance, sociopolitical and aesthetic contexts, and the role of theater in the world of modern multimedia.
Readings
- 2 · Shaw’s Pygmalion and the Drama of Language · Pygmalion
- 3 · Pygmalion from Page to Screen · My Fair Lady
- 4 · Pygmalion , My Fair Lady , and the Musical Drama
- 5 · Pirandello’s Henry IV and Psychological Relativity
- 6 · Brecht, Mother Courage and Her Children
- 8 · Beckett, Happy Days · Betrayal
- 10 · Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire · A Streetcar Named Desire
- 11 · Streetcar , Poetic Realism, and the Method
- 12 · Hwang, M. Butterfly · M. Butterfly
- 13 · Wilson, The Piano Lesson
- 15 · Soyinka, Kongi’s Harvest
- 16 · Smith, Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 · Twilight: Los Angeles
- 17 · Twilight Reflections, and Kushner, Angels in America, Part 1
- 18 · Kushner, Angels in America, Parts 1 and 2
- 19 · Angels Reflections
- 20 · Frayn, Copenhagen, Streetcar
- 21 · Stoppard, Hapgood
- 23 · Churchill, A Number
- Shaw, George Bernard. George Bernard Shaw’s Plays . Edited by Sandie Byrne. New York, NY: Norton, 2002. ISBN: 0393977536.
- Pirandello, Luigi. Pirandello’s Henry IV . Translated by Tom Stoppard. New York, NY: Grove Press, 2005. ISBN: 0802141943.
- Brecht, Bertolt. Mother Courage and her Children . New York, NY: Grove/Atlantic, 1987. ISBN: 0802130828.
- Beckett, Samuel. Happy Days . New York, NY: Grove/Atlantic, 1987. ISBN: 0802130763.
- Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire . New York, NY: New Directions, 1980. ISBN: 081120765X.
- Hwang, David Henry. M. Butterfly . New York, NY: Plume, 1993. ISBN: 0452272599.
- Soyinka, Wole. Collected Plays 2 . New York, NY: Oxford, 1975. ISBN: 0192811649.
- Wilson, August. The Piano Lesson . New York, NY: Plume, 1990. ISBN: 0452265347.
- Smith, Anna Deveare. Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 . New York, NY: Anchor, 1994. ISBN: 0385473761.
- Kushner, Tony. Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches . New York, NY: Theatre Communications Group, 1993. ISBN: 1559360615.
- ———. Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika . New York, NY: Theatre Communications Group, 1993. ISBN: 1559360739.
- Stoppard, Tom. Plays 5 . New York, NY: Faber & Faber, 2000. ISBN: 0571197515.
- Frayn, Michael. Copenhagen . New York, NY: Anchor, 2000. ISBN: 0385720793.
- Churchill, Caryl. A Number . New York, NY: Theatre Communications Group, 2003. ISBN: 1559362251.
- Shaw, George Bernard. Heartbreak House . Man and Superman.
- Synge, John Millington. The Playboy of the Western World .
- O’Casey, Sean. The Plough and the Stars .
- O’Neill, Eugene. Long Day’s Journey Into Night .
- Frisch, Max. Biedermann and the Firebugs .
- Garcia Lorca, Federico. The House of Bernarda Alba .
- Coward, Noel. Private Lives .
- Brecht, Bertolt. Galileo .
- Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. After the Fall .
- Williams, Tennessee. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof . The Rose Tattoo .
- Ionesco, Eugene. Rhinoceros . The Lesson .
- Pinter, Harold. The Homecoming .
- Orton, Joe. Entertaining Mr. Sloane .
- Albee, Edward. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
- Soyinka, Wole. Death and the King’s Horseman .
- Fugard, Athol, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona. The Island .
- Fornes, Maria Irene. Fefu and her Friends .
- Dorfman, Ariel. Death and the Maiden .
- Puig, Manuel. The Kiss of the Spider Woman .
- Shange, Ntozake. For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf .
- Wilson, August. Fences. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom .
- Mamet, David. Glengarry Glen Ross .
- Shepherd, Sam. True West .
- Friel, Brian. Translations .
- Barker, Howard. Scenes from an Execution .
- Churchill, Caryl. Blue Heart .
- Sondheim. Sweeney Todd. Sunday in the Park with George .
- Vogel, Paula. How I Learned to Drive .
- Parks, Suzan-Lori. Top Dog/Underdog .
- Kushner, Tony. Homebody/Kabul .
- Wothern, William B. “Approaching the Epic Theatre” and “Casebook on Brecht.” Modern Drama: Plays, Criticism, Theory . San Diego, CA: Harcourt, 1995, pp. 736-737 and 392-420. ISBN: 015501191X.
- Marx, Karl. “Alienation and Social Classes,” “Theses on Feuerbach,” and “Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation.” The Marx-Engels Reader . Edited by Robert C. Tucker. New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 1972, pp. 104-109 and 316-318.
- Brecht, Bertolt. “Short Description of a New Technique of Acting Which Produces an Alienation Effect.” In The Twentieth-Century Performance Reader . Edited by Michael Huxley and Noel Witts. New York, NY: Routledge, 1996. ISBN: 0415116287.
- Miller, Arthur. “On Broadway: Notes on the Past and Future of American Theater.” Harper’s Magazine, March 1999.
- Lahr, John. “Been Here and Gone: How August Wilson Brought a Century of Black American Culture to the Stage.” The New Yorker, April 16, 2001, 50-65.
Prerequisites & course information
Same subject as 21T.244[J] , WGS.285[J] Prereq: One subject in Literature U (Spring) 3-0-9 units. HASS-A Can be repeated for credit.
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
- MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Spring 2006
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.