English 304: A History of Drama Part II: Modernist Theatre is a senior-level, three-credit university course which examines the beginnings of Western modernism in plays of the nineteenth and twentieth century from Europe, Britain, the United States, and Canada. It considers the “realistic” interrogation of social dynamics in the plays of Henrik Ibsen, Bernard Shaw, and Anton Chekhov, the satirical dimensions of epic theatre in a play by Bertolt Brecht, the expressionistic style of Eugene O’Neill, the metatheatre of Luigi Pirandello. It examines the characteristics of the “Theatre of the Absurd” in plays by Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, and of postcolonial theatre in plays by Timberlake Wertenbaker, Brian Friel, Jack Davis, Tomson Highway and Athol Fugard. It concludes with a consideration of the postmodern stylistic and thematic aspects of a play by David Henry Hwang. English 304 provides an analysis of individual plays as theatre and as text, and includes brief background notes on the authors and on the significance of the plays in the context of Western theatre.
English 304 is composed of three units or “Acts”:
Act I — Social Realism: Dialogic and Dialectic
Act II — Expressionist, Epic, and Absurdist Theatre: Personal and Public Voice
Act III — Postcolonialism and Postmodernism: Reconfiguring the Stage
Each unit begins with a historical and social background and a discussion of pertinent dramatic forms and styles, followed by commentaries on three to six plays. These commentaries provide only an introduction to the possibilities in the plays, and are not intended as definitive analyses. As comparisons are made between plays and between “Acts” it is assumed that you have read the material in the order in which it is presented.
