Satisfies AHLA requirement.	
				

The focus for this semester's study of dramatic literature will be
conceptions and creations of character.  We will be reading a wide
range of plays from Europe, Africa, Asia and America to examine the
ways in which different cultures in different times have constructed
human beings for the stage. These conceptions of character will be
considered in the context of contemporaneous ideas regarding human
"identity," the nature and function of theatrical performance, and the
requirements of different dramatic genres. A fundamental problem we
will be discussing is the relationship of dramatic texts and
performance to the world of reality. Included in the types of plays we
will be reading are classical Greek tragedy, Japanese n   plays,
commedia dell'arte, 17th-century French comedy, 19th-century romantic
drama and melodrama, European modern drama, American contemporary
drama, postcolonial African drama, and 20th-century intercultural
performance pieces. Among the authors will be Sophocles, Shakespeare,
Molière, Schiller, Strindberg, Chekhov, Brecht, Genet, Beckett, Kobo
Abe, Soyinka, Mamet and Breuer.  Graduate students will have
additional critical and theoretical reading assignments.

There will be two 7-8 page papers, a final exam and a group project
which includes a staged reading from one of the plays for
undergraduates.   Written work for graduate students to be negotiated.