Modern Western Drama and the History of

In the professional theatre, the actor’s craft offers a serious methodology for textual interpretation. This course brings acting theory and practical acting exercises into the English literature classroom as tools to aid in the analysis of modern drama. Because innovations in playwriting and acting often arise in tandem, the semester will take us on a tour of landmark 20 th -century plays and developments in western theatre history. We will devote the first twenty minutes of each class session to practical work on a performance exercise from the week’s readings. Acting’s investments in imagination,
embodiment, and experimentation will enrich our seminar discussion in the remaining three-quarters of the class. In addition to offering a new methodology for close-reading and enlivening new avenues of interpretation, acting’s traditional focus on the “character” or “role” will raise large questions about the human: What are the nature and limits of identification and empathy? Which acting styles encourage practitioners to seek something universal in human emotion or experience? Conversely, which propose to investigate the historical and cultural specificity of human behavior? Can the process of constructing a character shed light on the social construction of gender and race? How do these plays, from different decades and national contexts, represent changing conceptions of these social categories? Are some acting styles inherently political or more political than others? Each participant will engage these questions in an embodied as well as a theoretical way by rehearsing a scene and performing it in-class. However, no performance experience is required to enroll in this course, and students will not be graded on their acting abilities.