Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory Commons^™

Perpetuality In Print: Musing Nature In Sylvia Plath’S The Bell Jar, Kacey Silvia

Senior Honors Projects

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another …

Can't, Shouldn't, And Love Juice: A Midsummer Night's Dream And The Phaedra-Hippolytus Myth, Katherine Shakespeare

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

One of the oldest recurring western mythical traditions finds its roots in the Ancient Near East. At the core of this abiding tale is a high-ranking woman, often married, who attempts to seduce a young man, who spurns her. The affronted woman then accuses the youth of assault and either he or both meet a violent end. Often at the heart of each tale lies something monstrous about the potential union of the two individuals.

In the Greek and Roman tradition, one example of this "spurned-woman" motif manifests itself in the Phaedra-Hippolytus myth. No fewer than three ancient playwrights-Sophocles, Euripides, …

Beowulf, Anthony Alvarado

Masters Theses

My composition is a tone poem based on the Old English epic poem Beowulf Specifically, this piece depicts Beowulf s three battles with three diverse monsters. The first Grendel, second Grendel's mother, and last a dragon. In this composition, the music does not follow any specific or traditional forms. Instead, each episode is presented as a picture of each event.

The choice to depict the story of Beowulf was an interesting choice. While historically the story is significant, it is not a very popular one. The poem is the oldest surviving manuscript written in Old English. However, more recent (relatively) …

The Imaginary Invalid: Moliere In A Nutshell, Andrew Vorder Bruegge

College of Visual and Performing Arts Faculty Publications

Dramaturgical analysis of "The Imaginary Invalid" for program of the production at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC.

Dickens's Hamlet Burlesque, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner

Faculty Publications

Daniel Pollack-Pelzner considers what an interlude in Great Expectations involving a spectacularly bad production of Hamlet can do for Hamlet. Specifically, Pollack-Pelzner looks at what Dickens's rendering of Mr. Wopsle's travesty reveals about Hamlet's openness to an audience's derisive laughter. Wopsle’s production may be a travesty, but Dickens’s narrative of that production is a burlesque, with Hamlet as much its target as Wopsle.

Els Paisatges Europeus De Carles Batlle, Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

A l'escena final d'Oasi (2001) de Carles Batlle, en un moment que conjura, curiosament, reminiscències de L'hort dels cirerers d'Anton Txékhov, el personatge d'Abdal·là, un vell home àrab, roman a l'interior de la casa (situada a Ia Catalunya rural) que és a punt de desaparèixer sota les aigües d'un nou pantà. Abdal·là se serveix un got de vi, un gest més europeu que àrab, mentre descriu el joc del guetan. El joc, una invenció de l'autor i de lleugera semblança al joc dels escacs, és una al·legoria dels encreuaments transnacionals, des del sud cap al nord i des del nord …

Exploding Bombs: Masculinity And War Trauma In Sam Shepard’S Drama, Katherine Weiss

ETSU Faculty Works

This paper examines violence and masculinity in Sam Shepard's work as a symptom of war trauma, apparent in his characterization of several of his male characters as war veterans and the violent language accompanying his other characters. War becomes a cultural disease infesting and destroying the family on Shepard's stage.

“Whosoever Loves Not Picture, Is Injurious To Truth": Costumes And The Stuart Masque, Robert Lublin

Robert Lublin

No abstract provided.

“An Vnder Black Dubblett Signifying A Spanish Hart”: Costumes And Politics In Middleton’S A Game At Chess, Robert Lublin

Robert Lublin

The Imaginary Invalid: Moliere In A Nutshell, Andrew Vorder Bruegge

Andrew Vorder Bruegge, Ph.D.

Dramaturgical analysis of "The Imaginary Invalid" for program of the production at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC.

December 2006 - Volume Vi, Number 1, Theatre Arts Department

Sides (Newsletter)

SIDES Volume VI Number 1 includes articles about the construction of the Doudna Fine Arts Center and a visit from the National Association of the Schools of Theatre.

The Sacred Performative: Holy Wednesday And Colonial Ritual/Theatre, Christopher B. Swift

Publications and Research

"Holy Wednesday" is a late sixteenth century adaptation of a Spanish auto sacramental (sacred play) written in alphabetized Nahuatl, the predominant pre-Columbian language spoken on the High Central Plateau of Mexico. The author remains unknown, however he was likely a Nahua amanuensis educated by Franciscans at Colegio de Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco. Religious drama was one of the important evangelizing tools of the Catholic brotherhoods in colonial Mexico and although a record of performance of Holy Wednesday does not exist, this dramatic depiction of the final meeting of Christ and Mary prior to the crucifixion was almost certainly performed as …

Notes For Michael Cacoyannis' Cabaret Version Of Aristophanes' Lysistrata, Katerina Zacharia

Katerina Zacharia

No abstract provided.

2006 Cave Run Storytelling Festival Poster, Cave Run Storytelling Festival Committee (Morehead, Ky.), Morehead Tourism Commission (Morehead, Ky.)

Cave Run Storytelling Festival Posters

Promotional development poster for the Cave Run Storytelling Festival held on September 29 to September 30, 2006. Those performing included: Bill Lepp, Carmen Deedy, Andy Offutt Irwin, Gay Ducey, Bill Mooney, Donna Washington, Alice McGill and Michael Parent.

“A Tragic Farce: Revolutionary Women In Elizabeth Inchbald’S The Massacre And European Drama.” European Romantic Review 17.3 (Summer 2006): 275-88., Wendy Nielsen

Department of English Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This essay examines Elizabeth Inchbald’s treatment of French Revolutionary women and relationship to European drama in order to appreciate the implications of tragic writing for British women playwrights. Focusing on Inchbald’s connections to French culture and English theater in late 1792 and early 1793 elucidates the self‐censoring and generic conventions of her only tragedy, The Massacre. Events in France like the September Massacres unsettled Burkean notions of femininity and raised the possibility of female violence. This mixing of traditional gender characteristics resembles discourse about Inchbald’s dramas as neither tragic, comic, nor tragicomic. The genre of tragic farce describes Inchbald’s revisions …

Taking Liberties, Matt Kozusko

English Faculty Publications

The 'place' scholars have assigned to the stage in early modern London is as much a reflection of the procedures of contemporary literary criticism as a reflection of the cultural function of popular drama in the early modern period. Modern critics are often not engaged in re-examining available data, preferring instead to rest on a conjectural paradigm or heuristic that has hardened, over the past couple of decades, into a New Historicist version of 'fact'. Critics have collapsed boundaries and important distinctions in London jurisdiction and geography in the interest of a unified critical narrative that characterizes the theatre as …

June 2006 - Volume V, Number 2, Theatre Arts Department

Sides (Newsletter)

SIDES Volume V Number 2 features an article about an unofficial reunion of 1975-1983 Alumni and the obituary of Lucina "Lucy" Gabbard.

Rev. Of Theresa Coletti, Mary Magdalene And The Drama Of Saints, Clifford Davidson

Clifford Davidson

Il Y A L'Autre Dans Le Je(U) : Le Monologue Chez Brian Friel, Noel Fitzpatrick

Conference papers

This conference paper (in French) explores the construction of interlocution in the monologues of Brian Friel's theatre. It proposes a novel means of analysis of the monologue by mobilising key developments in French pragmatic linguistic analysis of I and You and interlocution.

Sophie Treadwell's Machinal: Electrifying The Female Body, Katherine Weiss

ETSU Faculty Works

Excerpt: The American playwright and journalist Sophie Treadwell dedicated her literary career to exploring the lives and motives of lonely and trapped individuals.

L'Habitació Del Nen O La Insuportable Elusivitat De L'Experiència, Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

Les obres teatrals de Josep M. Benet i Jornet estan marcades per un interès en l'experiencia polifacètica de la mirada i el paper del perspectivisme dins el terreny teatral. Un impuls aporètic guia bona part de la seva obra més recent, ja que ens condueix a mons misteriosos i a espais buits en què facilment podem perdre'ns o on ens costarà de trobar el camí. Una atmosfera de misted envolta una ttanscripció poètica de l'espai, ja sigui una realitat psíquica interior o un paisatge exterior. Són espais fràgils en concepció, sovint perillosament al punt d'esvair-se. Els títols epigramàtics d'algnnes de …

高行健之戲劇 : 理論與實踐, Ching Law

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

高行健的戲劇作品與理論，兼備中西文化主題（motifs），東西方劇場的手法，最適合作比較文學的範例。本文全面分析高行健的劇作與理論，從主題與形式兩方面，審度劇作中重複出現追尋自我的主題。其劇作包括《絕對信號》、《車站》、《野人》、《彼岸》、《冥城》、《逃亡》、《山海經傳奇》、《生死界》、《對話與反詰》、《夜遊神》、《周末四重奏》、《八月雪》、《叩問死亡》；五個現代折子戲包括《模仿者》、《躲雨》、《行路難》、《喀巴拉山口》、《獨白》；一個舞劇《聲聲慢變奏》共計十八部戲劇。又整理探究理論文集《對一種戲劇的追求》、《沒有主義》、以及《文學的理由》。作者的主體意識扣緊不同時期的逃亡經驗，經一番外求與內尋的過程，不斷抗衡與否定不同的「他者」。這種抗衡，固然呈現人類本質的狀態，卻缺乏主體的自主性，也展示主題的矛盾。因為無論「他者」怎樣不斷置換為集體、強權、中國、性、慾望等對象，也不能抹殺其先於主體的實存性，反倒確立了主體的依附性。所以他的主體都一貫逃避中心、集體、缺乏實質的內涵，卻又內外交困，無法安頓。這種不斷反詰的精神，又反映在劇作的「間離」的形式上。高行健以敘事、三重角色與儀式（rituals），間離觀眾與角色。雖然他追求戲劇本質，嘗試回復中國儺戲與戲曲的傳統，也緊隨現當代劇作家如布萊希特（Bertolt Brecht）、惹奈（Jean Genet），但是難以調動觀眾的直覺感知經驗，達至娛人的目的。更有甚者，因為敘事手法的視點所限，宣揚個人主義的目的，昭然若揭。他的儀式意在增強戲劇的假定性，不在於回歸中國的佛道傳統，但效果不彰。他的「表演三重論」源於中國戲曲與布萊希特，貢獻止於為表演的監控意識命名，缺乏系統落實的方法，故難以與斯坦尼斯夫斯基（Konstantin Stanislavsky）、以及格羅多夫斯基（Jerzy Grotowski）的表演系統相提並論。本文試以高行健的劇作與理論，與現當代的國際劇作家、以及劇場理論家的成就互相發明，以鑑定其戲劇地位。

Interrogating Torture And Finding Race, Ayanna Thompson

Studio for Law and Culture

Antonin Artaud’s second manifesto for the Theatre of Cruelty cries out for a theatre that will depict “great social upheavals” and “conflicts between peoples and races.” Opposed to “disinterested” theatre, Artaud designed the Theatre of Cruelty to depict and affect not only the “tortured victims,” but also the “executioner-tormentor himself.” Artaud viewed both as trapped by “a kind of higher determinism” which he sought to alter through the Theatre of Cruelty (102). To usher in this new theatrical tradition, Artaud declared that the “first spectacle of the Theatre of Cruelty will be entitled: The Conquest of Mexico” (126). Explaining …

Incest And Empire In The Faerie Queene, Kent Lehnhof

English Faculty Articles and Research

"When considered in the context of Elizabeth's effort to silence all discussion of incest, Edmund Spenser's courtly epic aiming to cultivate favor with the monarch looks like a disastrous miscalculation, for incest appears throughout The Faerie Queene. Indeed, incest sits at the center (both literally and figuratively) of the Book of Chastity, the very book wherein Spenser encourages Elizabeth 'in mirrours more then one her selfe to see.' In the present essay, I investigate the apparently illogical and impolitic prominence afforded to incest in book three of The Faerie Queene, ultimately arguing that the imperialist logic underpinning the epic is …

An Investigation Into Lindsay Vickery's Rendez-Vous: An Opera Noir, Adam Willett

Theses : Honours

A study of Rendez-vous: an Opera Nair, a contemporary chamber opera written by Australian-born composer Lindsay Vickery (b. 1965). The opera was based upon the novel Djinn by the French postmodernist author Alain Robbe-Grillet. Vickery composed the opera over a two-year period from 1993-1995. It was finally performed in 2001 after some revision. The novel contained a non-linear narrative and film genre references. The non-linear narrative structure was represented through a serial-like musical device. Musical influences were derived from classical music and film. Applied technology was utilised in the composition process and in the final production with the introduction of …

Spell #7 And Ntozake Shange’S Project Of Anti-Drama, Robert Lublin

Robert Lublin

No abstract provided.

December 2005 - Volume V, Number 1, Theatre Arts Department

Sides (Newsletter)

SIDES Volume V Number 1 includes articles about the Doudna Fine Arts Center project and a "Where Are They Now?" section.

The Black Body As Souvenir In American Lynching, Harvey Young

Harvey Young

This essay reads the collection of body parts, in the aftermath of the lynching spectacle, as souvenirs, fetish objects, and performance remains. Along the way, it spotlights the importance of narrative to the souvenir, challenges the notion that performance disappears through an emphasis on its remains, and asserts that embodied experiences of the past can be accessed in the present.

2005 Cave Run Storytelling Festival Poster, Cave Run Storytelling Festival Committee (Morehead, Ky.), Morehead Tourism Commission (Morehead, Ky.)

Cave Run Storytelling Festival Posters

Promotional development poster for the Cave Run Storytelling Festival held on September 23 to September 24, 2005. Those performing included: Donald Davis, Bill Harley, Baba Jamal Koram, Mary Hamilton, Peter Cook, Judith Black, Antonio Rocha, and Syd Lieberman.

Arthur Miller's "The Crucible", Jerald Cohagan

Faculty Scholarship – Communication

Documentation includes research and analysis of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, from an initial reaction position, its production history, its critical reception, its scholarly reception, to an approach toward directing the play.