California University of Pennsylvania
3 credits
W 6.00-8.45 PM
Duda Hall 211
M. G.
Aune
Office Hours TTh 2.00 – 3.30, W 4.00 – 6.00 and by appointment
724.938.4341
223 Azorsky Hall
aune(at)cup.edu
Quizzes
There will be ten, brief, ten-item unannounced
quizzes. They will consist of short answer and identification questions. They
will cover the reading for that day and any terms and concepts discussed in
previous classes or presented during lectures. The quizzes will be handed out at
the beginning of class and collected after fifteen minutes. Quizzes may not be
made up.
Examinations
There will be two examinations.
They will only cover the material in that section,
that is, the final examination will not be cumulative.
The exams will consist of a take-home portion given
out the class before the exam.
The take-home will ask you to answer one or two
question in depth and following the format requirements described above.
The
in-class portion will include short answer, quote identification, vocabulary,
and usually an essay question.
Review Assignment
We have talked at various points about
how particular parts of the plays we have read might appear on stage.
We’ve looked in particular at moments of ambiguity,
when the text does not provide a clear guide as to what the audience sees.
Directors and their acting companies must address
these moments and decide what does or does not happen.
These decisions reflect the director’s
interpretation of the play.
Thus, an important element of reviewing a dramatic
performance is familiarity with the play being performed and recognizing a
director’s interpretive choices and how these choices affect the play as a
whole.
This is a three to four page
formal review of a performance or a film of a play we are reading this semester.
The film must be a commercial production, not a
filmed stage performance.
This is to be a formal review, not like a brief
newspaper or popular magazine review.
The review should have three parts:
1. An introduction, which gives the
basic information about the play/film, date, director, lead actors, length, etc.
This should be no more than a paragraph and
introduce only the characters mentioned later in the review.
2. The second part is a summary of the
play/film.
This is not a summary of the playscript, but of the
performance or film that you saw.
It is conventional, but must address any changes
made to the basic playscript.
The summary should be no longer than two paragraphs.
3. The third part is your analysis of the play/film.
As an interpretation of a play, what are its
strengths and weaknesses?
The analysis should take up about two-thirds of the
review.
It should have a thesis statement or argument that presents
your opinion of the director’s interpretation.
An example might be, “Michael Almereyda’s film of
Hamlet
successfully adapts Shakespeare’s play to a postmodern, urban, American
context.”
Your first review may be of
any of the video tapes listed below.
It is due on 2 April.
Your
second review will be of the Theatre Department’s
The Three Sisters.
It is due on 23 April.
Oedipus Rex.
Trans. William Butler Yeats. Dir. Tyrone Guthrie. Corinth Productions. 1957.
PA 4414.O7 Y43 1988.
Oedipus the King.
Trans.& Dir. Don Taylor. BBC Films. PA 4414.O7 T3 1988.
Othello.
Dir. Jonathan Miller. BBC/TimeLife, 1992. PR2829.A23 1992.
The
Glass Menagerie.
Dir. Paul Newman. MCA Home Video,
1994. PS3545.I5365 G42 1994.
Death of a Salesman. Dir. Alex Segal. CBS
Television. PS3525.I5156 D423 2002.
Death of a Salesman. Dir. Volker Schlondorff.
CBS Television 1985. PS3525.I5156 D4 2002.