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DRAMA (L15) (Dept. Info)

Arts & Sciences (Policies)

Social Identity and Dramatic Character in Historical Practice

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In everyday life, we present ourselves in different ways to different people. As we play different roles with family, friends, professors, and classmates, we shape ourselves differently in each context. We are also shaped by roles conditioned by race, gender, sexuality, and class. And the roles that we play and act out on social media add new complexities to the presentation of ourselves in everyday life. Sometimes these roles--perhaps those we share with our closest friends-seem truly authentic. And other times it may feel like we are wearing a mask. We can also consider roles played by other people in the past and across the globe, especially as they are imagined in the characters and roles created by playwrights and performance cultures from ancient Greece to the present day. Each historical theater, even the most "realistic," considers dramatic characters positioned in relationship to other fictional characters, as they play out their respective roles. If there is a servant, there must be a master. If there is a lover, there must be a beloved. If there is a dissident, there must be an authority figure. The character arrangements, or "systems," in theater and performance across space and time provide remarkable insights into the social relationships and social performances in each culture. And we learn that systems of class, race, gender, and sexuality are neither natural nor inevitable. This course examines the roles that dramatic characters play within the "worlds" of the play and performance culture they inhabit. In some cases, we can speak of metaphorical "masks" presented to the world; in others, the theater may use actual masks. We begin with classical antiquity, examining the differentiation of physical masks and characters in both tragedy and comedy (we will note that the word "person" comes from the Latin word "persona," the word for mask in ancient Roman comedy). We then consider the complex system of types in classical Indian and later Kathakali dance-drama: types that each had specific emotions associated with them. Chinese musical theater of the fourteenth century, with strong ties to a rapidly growing urban environment, had its own distinct types. Following this unit we consider the masked characters of Italian Renaissance comedy (the commedia dell'arte) and its uncanny parallels to the nearby Karogöz, Turkish shadow puppet theater. We next move to the theater of Shakespeare, considering the boy actor and gender fluidity in Twelfth Night. Then we consider the "realist" playwright Ibsen, in view of the social roles performed by the play's characters. In Cloud Nine, Carol Churchill gives us insights into the performance of gender in modern life. A unit on modern and contemporary African drama examines the performance (or erasure) of political identity in crisis, as we read Athol Fugard's Sizwe Bansi is Dead and also the play Woza Albert! (Mtwa, Ngema, Simon). The course concludes with two African-American plays, August Wilson's Fences and Lynn Nottage's Sweat. This course fulfills the "Studies in Historical Practice" requirement for Drama majors and minors.

A&S IQ: HUM EN: H

Instruction Type:

Classroom instruction

N/A

Every 2 Years / History

Building / Room

01

-T-R---

4:00P-5:20P

TBA

Henke

Paper/Project/TakeHome

20

8

0

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