everything.study
21T.131

Script Analysis

3-0-9 units. HASS-A; CI-H · Undergraduate

Focuses on reading a play's script critically and theatrically, with a view to mounting a coherent production. Through careful, intensive analysis of a variety of plays from different periods and aesthetics, a pattern emerges for discerning what options exist for interpreting a script from the distinct perspectives of the playwright, the actor, the designer, and the director. Students discuss the consequences of those options for production. Enrollment limited.

Fall 2011

Topics

  • Introduction and class organization
  • Read and discuss The Bacchae of Euripides
  • Read and discuss Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen
  • Read and discuss Cloud Nine by Caryl Churchill
  • Read and discuss Mother Courage and Her Children by Bertolt Brecht
  • Read and discuss Endgame by Samuel Beckett
  • Read and discuss The Blacks by Jean Genet
  • Final projects

Readings

  • Beckett, Samuel. Endgame & Act Without Words . Grove Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780802144393.
    Listed reading
  • Brecht, Bertolt. Mother Courage and Her Children . Translated by John Willett and Ralph Manheim. Penguin Classics, 2007. ISBN: 9780143105282.
    Listed reading
  • Churchill, Caryl. Cloud Nine . Theatre Communications Group, 1995. ISBN: 9781559360999.
    Listed reading
  • Euripedes. The Bacchae of Euripides . CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012. ISBN: 9781477424452.
    Listed reading
  • Genet, Jean. The Blacks . Translated by Bernard Frechtman. Faber and Faber, 2009. ISBN: 9780571251520.
    Listed reading
  • Ibsen, Henrik. Hedda Gabler . Translated by Edmund Gosse and William Archer. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012. ISBN: 9781475249170.
    Listed reading
Fall 2005

Topics

  • Introduction (Handout)
  • A Doll’s House
  • Joseph Losey’s film of A Doll’s House
  • Wrap-up of A Doll’s House
  • Hedda Gabler
  • Copenhagen
  • The Substance of Fire
  • Euripides’ Medea
  • Anouilh’s Medea
  • Joe Turner’s Come and Gone
  • The Caucasian Chalk Circle
  • Democracy (Final Project Play)
  • The Piano Lesson (Final Project Play)
  • The Good Person of Szechwan (Final Project Play)
  • The Cherry Orchard (Griffiths Translation)
  • The Cherry Orchard (Mamet Translation)
  • Julius Caesar

Readings

  • Anouilh, Jean. “Medea.” In The Plays of Jean Anouilh . Translated by Luce and Arthur Klein. Vol. 1. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1958. (Out of print.)
    Listed reading
  • Aries, Phillipe, and Georges Duby, eds. A History of Private Life . Vol. 4. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987. ISBN: 9780674399754.
    Listed reading
  • Baitz, Jon Robin. The Substance of Fire, and Other Plays . New York, NY: Theatre Communications Group, 1993. ISBN: 9781559360517.
    Listed reading
  • Brecht, Bertolt. The Caucasian Chalk Circle . Translated by James and Tania Stern with W. H. Auden. Edited by John Willett and Ralph Manheim. New York, NY: Arcade Publication, 1994. ISBN: 9781559702539.
    Listed reading
  • ———. The Good Person of Szechwan . Translated by John Willett. New York, NY: Arcade Publication, 1993. ISBN: 9781559701891.
    Listed reading
  • Chekhov, Anton. The Cherry Orchard . Translated by David Mamet. New York, NY: Dover, 1991. ISBN: 9780486266824.
    Listed reading
  • ———. The Cherry Orchard . Translated by Trevor Griffiths. London, UK: Pluto Press, 1984. ISBN: 9780904383737.
    Listed reading
  • Euripides. Medea . Translated by James Morwood. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780192824424.
    Listed reading
  • Frayn, Michael. Copenhagen . New York, NY: Anchor Books, 2000. ISBN: 9780385720793.
    Listed reading
  • ———. Democracy . London, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780521701532.
    Listed reading
  • Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll’s House . Translated by Rolf Fjelde. New York, NY: Signet Classics, 1965. ISBN: 9780451519399.
    Listed reading
  • ———. Hedda Gabler . Translated by Rolf Fjelde. New York, NY: Signet Classics, 1965. ISBN: 9780451519399.
    Listed reading
  • Shakespeare, William. Julius Caesar . Edited by Arthur Humphreys. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1984. ISBN: 9780198129066.
    Listed reading
  • Wilson, August. Joe Turner’s Come and Gone . New York, NY: New American Library, 1988. ISBN: 9780452260092.
    Listed reading
  • ———. The Piano Lesson . New York, NY: Dutton, 1990. ISBN: 9780525249269.
    Listed reading

Prerequisites & course information

Prereq: None U (Fall, Spring) 3-0-9 units. HASS-A; CI-H

Sources