Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory Commons^™

Antitheatricality And Irrationality: An Alternative View, Kent Lehnhof

English Faculty Articles and Research

"Over the last three decades, antitheatrical authors like Stephen Gosson, Phillip Stubbes, and William Prynne have become increasingly visible in the literary and cultural studies of the early modern period. Even so, the tendency has been to treat these authors as ideological extremists: reactionary hacks whose opposition to stage plays originates in outrageous ideas of the self, impossible notions of right and wrong, and bizarre beliefs about humanity’s susceptibility to external suggestion. This characterization can be traced back to several of the pioneering studies in the field, including Jonas Barish’s The Antitheatrical Prejudice (1985) and Laura Levine’s Men in Women’s …

Shakespeare's Blush, Or "The Animal" In Othello, Steven Swarbrick

Publications and Research

This essay examines how the rhetoric of animalization in Shakespeare’s Othello compels us to think early modern categories of race in connection with early modern discourses of “human” versus “animal.” Beginning with Shakespeare’s representation of Iago, I suggest that it is the potential for sameness conditioned by Iago’s counterfactual statement (“Were I the Moor, I would not by Iago”) that is most significant about his relation to Othello. From there I consider the overlap between the play’s representations of animality and black skin. Read in the context of Jacques Derrida’s reflections on animals, I consider the deconstructive value of linking …

More Than A 'Mere Painted Scene': The Role Of Theatricality And The Carnivalesque In 'The Mayor Of Casterbridge', Christine R. Vahaly

Student Publications

This essay examines the role of Thomas Hardy's scenes of community theatre, drawing examples from Far from the Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native, and The Mayor of Casterbridge. Only in such scenes from The Mayor of Casterbridge does Hardy employ Mikhail Bakhtin's carnivalesque, reversing the roles of the spectator and the creator of spectacle, the supporting cast and the lead actor, in order to magnify the fall of protagonist Michael Henchard.

Playing With Croxton, Molly Mccann

Selected Honors Theses

The Croxton Play of the Sacrament is an often overlooked, yet highly important piece for understanding the social climate of England in the fifteenth century.

This time period was riddled with religious and nationalist anxieties ingrained in the text of Croxton. This paper is designed to give an overview of these tensions and explain how our production of this drama sought to navigate and translate these tensions for a modern audience.

Disciplines, Institutions—And Desires, Will Stockton, Mario Digangi, Ruth Mazo Karras, Melissa E. Sanchez

Publications and Research

Will Stockton: I would like to begin by asking you to consider the chiasmus under which we gather: “Desiring History and Historicizing Desire.” The chiasmus focuses our attention on the crossing of two terms, each with noun and verb forms their grammatical flexibility indexed, perhaps, to the methodological flexibility of the fields in which most of us work: early modern (here both Renaissance and late-medieval) queer and/or sexuality studies. Talk a bit about the definitions of desir/e/ing and histor/y/icizing, and the relation of these terms to the periodization and thematization of your and our work. Is defining these words more …

Three Readings Of Reading, Pennsylvania: Approaching Lynn Nottage’S Sweat And Douglas Carter Beane’S Shows For Days, Courtney Mohler, Christina Mcmahon, David Román

Scholarship and Professional Work – Arts

No abstract provided.

Is He Dead?, Otterbein University Department Of Theatre And Dance

2015-2016 Season

This play was written by Mark Twain in 1898 and first published in print in 2003. The play focuses on a fictional version of the great French painter, Jean-François Millet, as an impoverished artist in Barbizon, France who, with the help of his colleagues, stages his death in order to increase the value of his paintings, and afterwards dresses as a woman to keep his secret safe. Combining elements of burlesque, farce, and social satire, the comedy relies on such devices as cross-dressing, mistaken identities, and romantic deceptions to tell its story, which raises …

A Case Study: Using Blackboard Tools To Measure Correlations Between Student Engagement And Student Achievement, Andrew Vorder Bruegge

Winthrop Conference on Teaching and Learning

The Blackboard course management system includes the tool "statistics tracking." An instructor can use this tool to generate a report that "displays the summary of usage for that content item and [the students] enrolled in the course. The access date, hour and day of the week are all reported for the selected item and [students]." In this case study the researcher will correlate aggregate data about students' visits to numerous content items in a course and their final grade in the course. The instructor will also correlate aggregate data from a study log created to track the number of hours …

La Dame Aux Camelias’ Effect On Society’S View Of The “Fallen Woman”, Christiana Johnson

The Kabod

Alexandre Dumas’ play, La Dame aux Camelias presents Marguerite Gautier, a “fallen woman,” as having redeemable qualities which challenged both society’s condemnation of the “fallen woman” and led to a more realistic portrayal of life on the stage and in literature as a whole.

Autobiographical Poetry To Plays: Taking Memoir To A Theatrical Level, Ryan P. Tofil

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Pulitzer prize winning playwright John Patrick Shanley wrote, “Theatre is a safe place to do the unsafe things that need to be done.” For my Capstone Project, I have compiled my autobiographical poetry, prose, and performance monologues into a theatrical manuscript to be used as the basis for a play. The final Capstone Project is a manuscript of an anticipated theatrical production based on the grieving process surrounding my brother's suicide, as well as an exploration of my sexuality and the relationships I developed during the years surrounding his death.

The Capstone Project’s theatrical manuscript is also accompanied by a …

El Metro En El Teatro Y El Teatro En El Metro: Un Escenario Laberíntico De Múltiples Velocidades, Polly J. Hodge

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"En esta investigación se explora el metro como un espacio teatral único y laberíntico. El metro se revela como un espacio ambiguo: es un lugar brindado con la capacidad de fomentar relaciones amorosas y transformativas entre los seres humanos; a la vez se concibe como un sitio condenado a destruir lazos personales al fomentar comportamientos de decepción y violencia aplastando cualquier esperanza para el espíritu humano. El metro, como espacio urbano recóndito y específicamente localizado bajo la tierra, con sus connotaciones que giran alrededor de la oscuridad, la clandestinidad, el secreto, el misterio y el crimen, es el escenario laberíntico …

Plotting The “Female Wits” Controversy: Gender, Genre, And Printed Plays, 1670–1699, Mattie Burket

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Staging (Within) Violence: A Conversation With Frank Wilderson And Jaye Austin Williams, Jaye Austin Williams

Faculty Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

It Will Turn Vicious: An Exploration Of The Cycle Of Audience Ridicule In French Drama, Stephanie C. Elfont

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The intent of this thesis is to investigate the prominence of audience ridicule in the French theatre from the medieval sottie to Ionescan Absurdism of the mid-twentieth century. Throughout the history of French drama, playwrights have exploited this tactic with either the purpose of invoking an emotional or intellectual response or inciting a social or political call to action. This exploration takes particular interest in shaming theatrical audiences during periods of political unrest, analyzing the ways in which playwrights employed language, studies of characters, and plot-related content to highlight the prevalent and pervasive ills of society and of humanity. The …

Devising Performance & Queer Futurity, Brendan F. Leonard

Honors Theses

This project argues that devising performance is an inherently queer and utopian form. In response to recent political movements, such as Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter, which seek to stage dissatisfaction with the systems of late capitalism, I turn to devising performance as a site. Informed by the queer and performance theories of Jose Esteban Munoz, Lee Edelman, and Jill Dolan, I argue that devised theater allows us to process disillusionment, rehearse collectivity, and stage futurity. In conversation with Munoz, I define futurity as an imaginative site that considers what will follow what some scholars suggest will be …

In Pursuit Of Women Scientists: Using Science Plays To Promote Women Entering Stem Disciplines, Danielle Hartman

Theses and Dissertations

Higher education currently seeks to increase female enrollment in STEM. Women face many challenges attempting to breach this male dominated arena with misconceptions, gender stereotypes, and few female role models. With the recent trend in higher education to encourage more women to enter the STEM disciplines and K-12 schools cutting funding for arts programs, theatre may be losing its value in the education system. The value of interdisciplinary studies is beginning to be forgotten during the grade school years as school boards battle budget cuts, but we can remind society of it through science plays. Theatre artists use other disciplines …

A Dramaturgical Analysis Of The Miracle Worker, Abby Butzer

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This document is a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the Master of Arts degree in theatre. It is a dramaturgical analysis for William Gibson's play The Miracle Worker, providing a reference for directors and actors. The thesis explores the play's medical and pedagogical history in six chapters: the physiology and psychology of language acquisition as it pertains to sight and/or hearing impaired children, a pedagogical comparison of Samuel G. Howe and Annie Sullivan, a modern diagnosis of the fever that destroyed Helen Keller's vision and hearing, the 19th century pathology and treatment options for the disease of the eye …

Maria Rosa, Adaptada Al Cinema Per Cecil B. Demille, Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

En l'época actual, en la qual l'éxit teatral s'acostuma a mesurar en funció del reconeixement internacional, molts dramaturgs contemporanis han somniat un muntatge a Nova York o, fins i tot, un triomf a Hollywood. Potser els sorprendria saber que fa aproximadament cent anys, Ángel Guimerá, sens dubte el dramaturg catalá més prominent del seu temps, ja havia complert aquest somni gairebé impossible quan dues de les seves obres teatrals més famoses, Maria Rosa (1894) i Terra baixa (1896), es van estrenar en versió anglesa sota els focus de Broadway. De fet, entre els anys 1903 i 1914, les obres de …

A Patra Lovitura De Gong, Teatru Scurt, Florentin Smarandache

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

Volumul de față reia, grupate sub un titlu provocator, A PATRA LOVITURĂ DE GONG, piesele de teatru scurt ale lui Florentin Smarandache, cuprinse inițial în volumul DESTIN (Craiova: Aius, 2000), un volum de texte-amalgam (nuvele, povești, eseuri, proză memorialistică, interviuri, versuri experimentale, culegeri de folclor, teatru scurt), astfel:

No exit! evocă alegoric atmosfera de închistare a perioadei de dictatură comunistă.

Destin și Conversația sunt două miniaturi experimental-sugestive, fără actori.

Aventurile dragostei e “un spectacol de versuri în versuri“, un dialog parapoetic și transtextual între câțiva dintre poeții români în vogă în anii 80.

Tragedie antică este o meditație generală asupra …

A Translation And Analysis Of Spring's Bride By Mohammed Dib: Creating A Space For Indigenous North African Drama, Jordan Talbot

All Master's Theses

The Ubu Repertory Theatre Script Collection, which is located in the archives at New York University, contains numerous manuscripts in the French language from dramatists all over the world. One of those manuscripts, La fiancée du printemps by Mohammed Dib, is my own translation of the text from French into English, now titled Spring’s Bride. The text operates as a plea for postcolonial solidarity in the face of an increasingly fragmented community. The characters of the play must confront their deeply held beliefs and their possible destructive power. The translation of this text presents the postcolonial perspective to an …

A Patriot For Men: The Politics Of Masculinity In John Osborne's "A Patriot For Me", Joshua Kelly

All Master's Theses

By applying David Savran’s scholarship on the politics of masculinity to John Osborne’s play A Patriot for Me (1965), I demonstrate that Osborne exemplified contradictory sexual politics in the play, and was criticized as homophobic and praised as revolutionary in similarly contradictory original reviews. I argue that play very much typifies the heteronormative politics of masculinity by placing a dominant homosexual (Redl) as protagonist, and inverts the positions of the period woman and the staged effeminate man. Redl is historically represented as a heroic homosexual, but is actually a heteronormative object. I provide evidence for this interpretation by employing Savran …

The Performance Of Melancholy: Understanding The Humours Through Burton, Jonson, And Shakespeare, Lindsey N. Betts

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis aims to explore the relationships between dramatic texts and the Elizabethan topic of the humours. It covers Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Jonson's plays Every Man Out of His Humour and Every Man in His Humour, and Shakespeare's plays Hamlet and As You Like It. Each of these works provides a glimpse into society and its opinions specifically on melancholy, from its most basic and complex definitions to how it is perceived and addressed.

The Filial Dagger: The Case Of Hal And Henry Iv In 1 & 2 Henry Iv And The Famovs Victories, Kristin M.S. Bezio

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

English culture and politics in the last decade of the sixteenth century were both patriarchal and patrilineal, in spite of— or, perhaps, in part, because of—the so-called bastard queen sitting on the throne. The prevailing political questions of the day concerned Elizabeth’s successor and the fate of the nation that, so many believed, hung precariously in the balance. Questions of legality, legitimacy, and fitness formed the crux of these debates, but almost all claimants attempted to justify their right by tracing their bloodlines back to either Henry VII or Edward III, the respective patriarchs of the Tudor dynasty and the …

Decayed Drama, Increased Inclusivity: Beckett’S Theater In The 1960s, Ryan Diller

The Expositor: A Journal of Undergraduate Research in the Humanities

No abstract provided.

The Choreopolitics Of Liberation And Decolonization, Harrison M. Goodall Iii

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis examines dance as a means of social and political revolt in the AIDS epidemic. The course of the AIDS epidemic within the United States was inexorably shaped by the way dancers and choreographers used their art form to rebel against concepts of masculinity, sexuality and disease transmission. Through confronting their audiences with the reality of their loss and humanizing themselves and their loved ones that passed away, dancers were able to change the image of the epidemic and push for necessary political and social reform. This paper also analyzes the ways that norms of masculinity and the stigma …

The Naïve Ingénue, The Plucky Everyman's Hero, And The Ingénue Gone Awry: The Satirical Deconstruction Of Theatrical Character Tropes In Urinetown: The Musical, Victoria Montecillo

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis looks to explore Urinetown: The Musical through a critical and theoretical framework, analyzing the show's presentation and deconstruction of theatrical character tropes through musical satire. Using the theories of theatre theorists such as Bertolt Brecht, Peter Brook, and Augusto Boal, this thesis discusses the use of theatre as a device for political and social commentary. Additionally, this thesis focuses more specifically on the show's character of Penelope Pennywise as a new kind of character in the theatre: an "ingénue gone awry," within the context of approaching a performance of the character in a performance of the musical.

"Can We Do A Happy Musical Next Time?": Navigating Brechtian Tradition And Satirical Comedy Through Hope's Eyes In Urinetown: The Musical, Katherine B. Marcus Reker

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis proposes a critical study of the theoretical framework of Urinetown, asking the question of whether or not the show is truly a “Brechtian musical,” utilizing the tenets and beliefs of Bertolt Brecht. Set in a quirky, Gotham-like town where you have “to pay to pee” due to a severe drought, Urinetown follows a cast of absurdist characters as they navigate a society plagued by the perils of big business, ecological devastation, and the inequalities of capitalism. While the show appears to make a relevant social commentary, supporting a righteous rebellion to overthrow the evil Urine Good Company, in …