Twentieth-Century American
Theatre History
COURSE HANDBOOK
Autumn Term, 2009
Tutor: Niall Munro
CONTENTS
1. Course aims and content p.3
2. Course timetable p.3
3. Assessment p.4
4. Essay questions p.4
5. Wiki p.4
6. Reading list with recommended editions, pp.4-11
key secondary reading, and key ideas
7. Presentations and texts for presentations pp.11-14
8. Secondary reading pp.14-37
A) About main texts pp.15-27
B) About texts for presentations pp.27-31
C) Groups and movements pp.31-34
D) General secondary reading pp.34-37
9. Theatregoing, and current and upcoming
theatre events of relevance pp.38-39
Twentieth Century American Theatre History
Tutor: Niall Munro ()
Class time: Tuesdays, 4-6pm
Location: RHB 350
1. Course aims and content
This course is designed to give students a detailed overview of the American theatre in the twentieth century, its texts and contexts. By looking in depth at nine plays, and through student-led presentations which will explore eight others, we will gain a sense of how the American theatre developed over a sixty year period (1920-1980).
In addition to the plays themselves, we will also look at a number of the key companies, groups, and practitioners producing work at this time, such as the Provincetown Players, the Black Arts Movement, the Negro Ensemble Company, and the Open Theater, and examine the importance of Broadway and Off-Broadway movements in general. As a Theatre History module, we will be keenly focussing upon the social, historical and political backgrounds to this period, and the effects of these upon the texts and groups under discussion.
2. Course timetable
Week/date / Text / Presentation / Other1 (29/09) / Introduction
2 (06/10) / The Emperor Jones (1920)
3 (13/10) / Our Town (1938) / Machinal (1928)
4 (20/10) / The Little Foxes (1939) / Waiting for Lefty (1935)
5 (27/10) / A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) / Picnic (1953)
6 (03/11) / READING / WEEK
7 (10/11) / Death of a Salesman (1949) / Dutchman (1964)
8 (17/11) / A Raisin in the Sun (1959) / Fefu and Her Friends (1977)
9 (24/11) / Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) / 5th of July (1978)
10 (01/12) / American Buffalo (1975) / F.O.B. (1979)
11 (08/12) / Buried Child (1978) / Tongues (1978)
4,000 word essay due: 15/01/2010
3. Assessment
Assessment for this course will take the form of one 4,000 word essay, due in on
15th January. You will be required to write about at least three plays in your essay.
There will be ongoing (unofficial) assessment in the form of the presentations and occasional quizzes. These quizzes will draw upon both the main texts, and the texts for presentation and will generally contain knowledge-based questions.
So to complete the module, students will be required to do the following:
a) Give a presentation on an assigned play and post their work to the
course’s wiki space;
b) Complete set quizzes and make notes on each week’s set of key ideas;
c) Submit a 4,000 word essay dealing with three or more plays.
There is more information about the presentations in section 7 below.
4. Essay questions
You will be assessed by one 4,000 word essay, due in on 15th January. A wide choice of essay titles will be distributed in week 4.
5. Wiki
There is a dedicated wiki space for use by students on this American Theatre History course. Students can consult the pages for information about the plays and socio-historical contexts, explore links listed on the pages, and edit the pages themselves. In particular students will be able to upload their presentations about plays not in the main reading list, and contribute their own comments to ongoing discussions about the main plays. Please use and contibute to it.
The wiki can be found at: http://wiki.gold.ac.uk/wiki/display/wiki/Goldsmiths+Wiki, where, after you log-in, you should see a list of the wiki spaces to which you have access.
6. Reading list with recommended editions, key secondary reading, and key ideas
The texts below are those prescribed for the course. You must have a copy of each of these. There may be alternative editions available for some of these texts, but the ones listed below contain the most useful introductions and/or notes. However, apart from the Sam Shepard, there should be no problem if you purchase a different edition. Indeed, if you are particularly interested in a playwright's work, you might consider buying a collection of their plays, and not just individual playscripts. If you want recommendations as to which collection to buy, contact me.
Most of the texts for the main part of the course and for presentations are freely available in the usual places like Waterstones, Borders, Blackwell's (they have a large store with a good drama section on Charing Cross Road) and Foyles (also located on Charing Cross Road). These last two places are particularly recommended. The National Theatre on the South Bank (http://www.nt-online.org.uk/24979/online-bookshop/bookshop.html) also has a decent selection of drama texts and books on theatre. You can buy online or, of course, visit.
However, you may wish to save money by purchasing secondhand copies from local stores and online.
Secondhand booksellers in London
Skoob Books - by Marchmont Street in Bloomsbury (also has an online arm)
Judd Books - also on Marchmont Street
Black Gull Books - Camden Lock
Several of these stores also offer a discount to students - ask before paying.
Online sellers
Apart from Amazon, you can also find some good secondhand copies at the following:
Abebooks
The Book Depository
Green Metropolis
Betterworld Books - only order from here if there are a few weeks until the text is to be used in class, since their books ship from the U.S.
Wherever you buy the texts, do your best to get hold of the recommended editions, listed below.
Each week, some key ideas are listed for you to consider whilst you are reading the play or when you have finished it. Make notes on each idea, and bring those notes to class. You may be required to consult some secondary reading.
Week one: Introduction
Key ideas to consider (consult secondary reading or websites on the wiki if necessary)
1) What fundamental problems with the modern theatre led George Cram Cook and his followers to found the Provincetown Players?
2) Make some notes about Susan Glaspell’s role within the Players.
3) Get a sense of the range of the Players’ interests and politics by finding out a little more about another one of them (e.g. George Cram Cook, John Reed, Louise Bryant, Hutchins Hapgood).
Key secondary reading for this week (see main secondary reading section below for more general introductions to American theatre)
Berkowitz, Gerald M., American Drama of the Twentieth Century, Longman
Literature in English Series (Harlow, Essex: Longman, 1992), chapter 1, ‘Introduction’, pp.1-10, and chapter 2, ‘1890-1930: The Beginnings’, pp.12-42
Bigsby, C.W.E., ‘Provincetown: the birth of twentieth-century American
drama’, chapter 1 of A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-Century American Drama, v. 1: 1900-1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp.1-35 [812.509 BIG]
Evans Bryan, Mark, American Drama, 1900-1915, chapter 2 of A Companion
to Twentieth Century American Drama (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), ed. by David Krasner, pp.3-17 [812.509 COM]
Gelb, Arthur and Barbara, O'Neill (London: Cape, 1962), chapters XXVI-XXVII, pp.303-
337 [812.5 On/GEL]
Week two: The Emperor Jones by Eugene O'Neill (1920)
Recommended edition: Anna Christie and The Emperor Jones (London: Nick
Hern Books, 1991), 98pp, ISBN: 978-1854591012
Also suitable: Three Great Plays, containing The Emperor Jones, Anna Christie and The
Hairy Ape (London: Dover, 2009), 144 pages, ISBN: 978-0486442181
We only have the space to look at one O’Neill play, but given his significance, you are highly encouraged to look at other work by him, in particular The Iceman Cometh (1939) and Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1939-1941) – both are published by Nick Hern books in the same series as The Emperor Jones, and available in the library. Filmed versions of these two plays are also to be found in the library – see O’Neill secondary reading below for details.
Key ideas to consider (consult secondary reading or websites on the wiki if necessary)
1) What was Expressionism, where did it come from, and how does it feature in The Emperor Jones?
2) What perspectives upon the black man within society does O’Neill offer in the play?
3) How effective do you find O’Neill’s use of extended monologues? Give examples that you find effective or not, and say why.
4) Draw a sketch of the stage set for one of the eight scenes as you imagine it should be.
Key secondary reading (see main secondary reading below for more texts)
Bigsby, C.W.E., ‘Eugene O’Neill’, chapter 2 of A Critical Introduction to
Twentieth-Century American Drama, v. 1: 1900-1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp.36-119 [812.509 BIG]
Krasner, David, ‘Eugene O’Neill: American Drama and American
Modernism’, chapter 10 of A Companion to Twentieth Century American Drama (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), ed. by David Krasner, pp.142-158 [812.509 COM]
Manheim, Michael, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Eugene O’Neill,
Cambridge Companions to Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) [812.5 On/CAM]
Week three: Our Town by Thornton Wilder (1938)
Recommended edition: Our Town and Other Plays, Penguin Modern Classics
(London: Penguin, 2000), 288pp, 978-0141184586
Key ideas to consider
1) How would you describe the Stage Manager’s function in the play?
2) How does the third act affect your understanding of the previous two?
3) Wilder said of the play: ‘[Our Town is about] the trivial details of human life in reference to a vast perspective of time, of social history and of religious ideas’. Give examples from the play which support his analysis.
Key secondary reading (see main secondary reading below for more texts)
Bigsby, C.W.E., ‘Thornton Wilder’, chapter 8 of A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-
Century American Drama, v. 1: 1900-1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp.256-273 [812.509 BIG]
Haberman, Donald, ‘Our Town’: An American Play, Twayne’s Masterwork Studies, No.
28 (Boston: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1989)
Grebanier, Bernard, Thornton Wilder, Pamphlets on American Writers (Minneapolis,
Minnesota: University of Minnesota, 1964) [812.5Wi/GRE]
Week four: The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman (1939)
Recommended edition: The Little Foxes (London: Josef Weinberger Plays, 2001),
107pp, 978-0856760914
Key ideas to consider (consult secondary reading or websites on the wiki if necessary)
1) The Little Foxes is set in the south of the United States. How do the characters express their ‘Southernness’?
2) Read over the epigraph to the play. Why does Hellman choose this verse from the ‘Song of Solomon’ in the Bible to foreground the play and as the source of her title?
3) What are the key differences between and within the generations in the play?
Key secondary reading (see main secondary reading below for more texts)
Adler, Thomas P., ‘Lillian Hellman: feminism, formalism, and politics’, in The Cambridge
Companion to American Women Playwrights, ed. by Brenda Murphy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp.118-133 [812.509 CAM]
Bigsby, C.W.E., ‘Lillian Hellman’, chapter 9 of A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-Century
American Drama, v. 1: 1900-1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 274-297 [812.509 BIG]
Week five: A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (1947)
Recommended edition: A Streetcar Named Desire, Penguin Modern Classics (London:
Penguin, 2009), 128pp, 978-0141190273
You are highly encouraged to read beyond this edition to sample other Williams plays such as: The Glass Menagerie (1945), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), and Suddenly Last Summer (1958). Filmed versions of the former two are available in the library – see the extended secondary reading list below.
Key ideas to consider (consult secondary reading or websites on the wiki if necessary)
1) What kinds of sexual desires are on display in Streetcar?
2) How are the worlds of the (Southern) aristocracy and the working class shown to clash in the play? Compare the notion of the upper class in this play with The Little Foxes.
3) By what means does Williams present the atmosphere of New Orleans?
Key secondary reading (see main secondary reading below for more texts)
Boxill, Roger, Tennessee Williams, Modern Dramatists (London: Palgrave Macmillan,
1987) [812.5 Wi/BOX]
Roudané, Matthew C., The Cambridge Companion to Tennessee Williams (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997) [812.5 Wi/CAM]
Stanton, Stephen S., ed., Tennessee Williams: A Collection of Critical Essays, 20th
Century Views Series (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1978) [812.5Wi/TEN]
Week seven: Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (1949)
Recommended edition: Death of a Salesman: Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts
and a Requiem, Penguin Modern Classics (London: Penguin, 2000), 112pp,
978-0141182742
You are also highly encouraged to read more Miller plays, in particular: All My Sons (1947), The Crucible (1953), A View from the Bridge (1955), and Broken Glass (1994).
Key ideas to consider
1) Miller has said that one of the ideas that sparked Salesman was: ‘The image of ferocity when love has turned to something else and yet is there, is somewhere in the room if one could only find it.’ How does the play give expression to this idea?
2) In an early version of the play, Willy tells Biff that ‘Ambition is things. A man must want things, things.’ How does Miller make this sentiment clear in the final version of the play?
3) Note down one way in which Miller uses the tools of the theatre to express Willy’s conflicts, and explain why you find it effective.
Key secondary reading (see main secondary reading below for more texts)
Bigsby, Christopher, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Arthur Miller, Cambridge
Companions to Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) [812.5
Mi/CAM]
Bigsby, C.W.E., ‘Arthur Miller: the moral imperative’, in Modern American Drama: 1945-
1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp.72-125 [812.509 BIG]
Koon, Helene Wickham, ed., Twentieth Century Interpretations of ‘Death of A Salesman’:
A Collection of Critical Essays (London: Prentice-Hall, 1983)
Week eight: A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (1959)
Recommended edition: A Raisin in the Sun, Methuen Modern Plays (London: Methuen, 2001), 144pp, 978-0413762405