Table of Contents
Preface for Instructors
Introduction: Thinking about Drama
What Is Drama?
Drama and Ritual
Drama: The Illusion of Reality
Seeing a Play Onstage
Reading a Play
The Great Ages of Drama
Genres of Drama
Elements of Drama
Lady Gregory, The Rising of the Moon
GREEK DRAMA
Origins of Greek Drama
Genres of Greek Drama
The Great Age of Greek Drama
Greek Drama Timeline
Sophocles, Oedipus Rex (translated by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald)
Oedipus Rex in Performance
Commentaries on OEDIPUS REX
Aristotle, Poetics: Comedy and Epic and Tragedy
Sigmund Freud, The Oedipus Complex
Claude Lévi-Strauss, From The Structural Study of Myth
Antigone (translated by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald)
Antigone in Performance
COMMENTARIES ON ANTIGONE
Oliver Taplin, Emotion and Meaning in Greek Tragedy
Jean Anouilh, From Antigone
Aristophanes, Lysistrata (translated by Dudley Fitts)
ROMAN DRAMA
Indigenous Sources
The Greek Influence
The Roman Stage
Roman Drama Timeline
Roman Dramatists
Plautus, Excerpt from The Twin Menaechmi (Act III)
Terence, Excerpt from The Brothers (Act V)
Seneca, Excerpt from Thyestes (Act V, Scene ii)
MEDIEVAL DRAMA
The Role of the Church
Miracle Plays
Mystery Plays
Morality Plays
The Medieval Stage
The Actors
Medieval Drama Timeline
Hrosvitha, Dulcitius (translated by K. M. Wilson)
Dulcitius in Performance
COMMENTARIES ON HROSVITHA
Marla Carlson, Reading Hrotsvit's Tormented Bodies
Sue Ellen Case, Re-viewing Hrotsvit
*Zeami Motokiyo, Lady Han (Hanjo) (edited and translated by Royall Tyler)
Lady Han in Performance
Everyman
Everyman in Performance
RENAISSANCE DRAMA
Italian Drama
Elizabethan Drama
Spanish Drama
Renaissance Drama Timeline
William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream in Performance
COMMENTARIES ON A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
Enid Welsford, Masque Elements in A Midsummer Night's Dream
Linda Bamber, On A Midsummer Night's Dream
Peter Brook, The Play Is the Message . . .
Clive Barnes, Review of A Midsummer Night's Dream
Othello
Othello in Performance
COMMENTARIES ON OTHELLO
A. C. Bradley, Othello's Character
Virginia Mason Vaughan, Macready's Othello
John Holstrom, Going It Alone: A Review of Olivier's Othello
A CULTURAL CASEBOOK: The Issue of Race and Othello
Sir John Mandeville, From Mandeville's Travels
Richard Eden, From Decades of the New World
Leo Africanus and John Pory, From A Geographical Historie of Africa
G. K. Hunter, From "Othello and Color Prejudice"
Margaret Webster, Shakespeare without Tears
Ben Jonson, The Masque of Blackness
The Masque of Blackness in Performance
COMMENTARY ON JOHNSON
Eldred Jones, Africa in English Masque and Pageantry
LATE SEVENTEENTH- AND EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY DRAMA
The Restoration: Rebirth of Drama
Theater on the Continent: Neoclassicism
Theater in England: Restoration Comedy
Late Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Drama Timeline
Molière, The Misanthrope (translated by Richard Wilbur)
The Misanthrope in Performance
COMMENTARY ON MOLIERE
Lionel Gossman, Alceste's Love for Célimène
*Chikamatsu Monzaemon, The Love Suicides at Sonezaki
The Love Suicides at Sonezaki in Performannce
A CROSS-CULTURAL CASEBOOK:
Kabuki, J-oruri, and Bunraku Theater
Jacob Raz, The Genroku Period -- The Golden Age
Faubion Bowers, Return to the Puppets
Tsuruo Ando, The Playwright Chikamatsu
Donald H. Shively, The Development of Theater Buildings
Earle Ernst, The Evolution of the Kabuki Stage
Benito Ortolani, Background of Kabuki and J-oruri
NINETEENTH-CENTURY DRAMA THROUGH THE TURN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Technical Innovations
Romantic Drama
Melodrama
The Well-Made Play
The Rise of Realism
Nineteenth-Century Drama Timeline
Henrik Ibsen, A Doll House (translated by Rolf Fjelde)
A Doll House in Performance
COMMENTARIES ON A DOLL HOUSE
Henrik Ibsen, Notes for the Modern Tragedy
Bernard Shaw, A Doll's House
Muriel C. Bradbrook, A Doll's House: Ibsen the Moralist
August Strindberg, Miss Julie (translated by Harry G. Carlson)
Miss Julie in Performance
COMMENTAYR ON Strindberg
August Strindberg, From the Preface to Miss Julie
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People
The Importance of Being Earnest in Performance
COMMENTARIES ON WILDE
Peter Raby, An Unpublished Letter from Oscar Wilde on The Importance of Being Earnest
Peter Raby, The Origins of The Importance of Being Earnest
Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard (translated by Ann Dunnigan)
The Cherry Orchard in Performance
COMMENTARIES ON CHEKHOV
Anton Chekhov, From Letters of Anton Chekhov
Maxim Gorky, From Recollections
Virginia Woolf, On The Cherry Orchard
John Corbin, Review of The Cherry Orchard
Peter Brook, On Chekhov
DRAMA IN THE EARLY AND MID-TWENTIETH CENTURY
The Heritage of Realism
Realism and Myth
Myth and Culture
Poetic Realism
Social Realism
Realism and Expressionism
Antirealism
Epic Theater
Absurdist Drama
Early and Mid-Twentieth Century Drama Timeline
Susan Glaspell, Trifles
Trifles in Performance
COMMENTARY ON GLASPELL
Christine Dymkowski, On the Edge: The Plays of Susan Glaspell
Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author: A Comedy in the Making (translated by Edward Storer)
Six Characters in Search of an Author in Performance
COMMENTARY ON PIRANDELLO
John Corbin, Review of Six Characters in Search of an Author
Eugene O'Neill, Desire under the Elms
Bertolt Brecht, Mother Courage and Her Children: A Chronicle of the Thirty Years' War (translated by John Willett)
Mother Courage in Performance
COMMENTARIES ON BRECHT
Bertolt Brecht, The Alienation Effect
Bertolt Brecht, Notes for Mother Courage, Scene 12
Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie in Performance
COMMENTARIES ON THE GLASS MENAGERIE
Lewis Nichols, Review of The Glass Menagerie
Donald Spoto, Laurette Taylor in The Glass Menagerie
Benjamin Nelson, Problems in The Glass Menagerie
Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman in Performance
COMMENTARIES ON MILLER
Arthur Miller, In Memoriam
Arthur Miller, Tragedy and the Common Man
Michiko Kakutani, A Salesman Who Transcends Time
*Samuel Beckett, Happy Days
Happy Days in Performance
COMMENTARIES ON BECKETT
*Deirdre Bair, The French Production of Happy Days
*Sidney Holman, Happy Days: Creation in Spite of Habit
*Eugene Webb, On Happy Days
Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun
A Raisin in the Sun in Performance
CONTEMPORARY DRAMA
Experimentation
Experimentation within the Tradition
Contemporary Drama Timeline
Athol Fugard, "MASTER HAROLD" . . . and the boys
"MASTER HAROLD" . . . and the boys in Performance
COMMENTARIES ON FUGARD
Heinrich von Staden, Interview with Athol Fugard
Athol Fugard, From Notebooks
August Wilson, Fences
Fences in Performance
COMMENTARIES ON WILSON
David Savran, Interview with August Wilson
Frank Rich, Review of Fences
Paula Vogel, How I Learned to Drive
How I Learned to Drive in Performance
COMMENTARIES ON VOGEL
Christopher Bigsby, Paula Vogel
David Savran, Paula Vogel
Jill Dolan, Review of How I Learned to Drive
*Suzan-Lori Parks, Topdog/Underdog
Topdog/Underdog in Performance
COMMENTARY ON PARKS
*Joshua Wolf Shenk, Beyond a Black-and-White Lincoln
*Nilo Cruz, Anna in the Tropics
Anna in the Tropics in Performance
COMMENTARY ON CRUZ
*Christine Dolen, Anna in the Tropics Shines on Broadway
Appendices
Writing about Drama
Why Write about Drama?
Conventions in Writing Criticism about Drama
Approaches to Criticism
From Prewriting to Final Draft: A Sample Essay on The Rising of the Moon
How to Write a Review
Glossary of Dramatic Terms
Selected Bibliography
Selected List of Film, Video, and Audiocassette Resources
* new to this edition
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