Katy Ryan
Together we organize the world for ourselves, or at least we organize our understanding of it; we reflect it, refract it, criticize it, grieve over its savagery; and we help each other to discern, amidst the gathering dark, paths of resistance, pockets of peace, and places from whence hope may be plausibly expected. Marx was right: The smallest indivisible human unit is two people, not one; one is a fiction. From such nets of souls societies, the social world, human life springs. And also plays.
–Tony Kushner, afterword to Angels in America: Perestroika
In a recent New Republic Online review (7.13.05), theatre critic Lee Siegel wrote, “In truth, there’s little that theatre can do, even in the most extreme times, to achieve that golden chimera of the activist’s imagination.” And in a Wall Street Journal editorial (6.6.05), Terry Teachout, after observing that conservatives just don’t write plays, commented, “Any work of art that seeks to persuade an audience to take some specific form of external action, political or otherwise, tends to be bad. But the line is not a bright one, and it is possible to make good, even great art that is intended to serve as the persuasive instrument of an exterior purpose.”
This semester we will pursue a specific question: How successful have twentieth-century performances been at achieving desired political effects on local or national levels? Obviously, this is a difficult question to answer empirically. As Baz Kershaw notes in the introduction to The Politics of Performance (1992), “Any attempt to prove that this kind of performance efficacy is possible, let alone probable, is plagued by analytical difficulties and dangers.” Yet, we will see what kinds of measure are available as we read, discuss, and perform twentieth-century radical performances. With the word “radical,” I aim to describe performances that attempt to get at the “roots” of social practices and ideologies in order to effect progressive social change.
We will begin with a brief introduction to performance studies, a complex, emerging field that incorporates the methods and insights of many disciplines, including anthropology, history, visual art, textual studies, philosophy, and drama. At a time when, in certain academic circles, the possibility of meaningful action is questioned and notions of subjectivity have been deeply troubled, performance has proven an enabling device for theorizing some kind of needed agency. Next, we will consider Bertolt Brecht’s epic theatre (predicated on not only the possibility but the necessity of action) and the impact of his theories on twentieth-century theatre, primarily but not exclusively American performances focused on liberation struggles—for people living under foreign occupation, workers, women, Chicano/as, and African Americans. We will study a range of international theatre collectives, concentrating on the developments of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, as well as expressionistic theatre, documentary theatre, and performance art.
In other words, we will be reading a lot of plays and encountering a wide-range of theatre practices—diverse in form, content, philosophy—that will allow us to think broadly about space and silence, experience and aesthetics, play and politics.
Classroom Atmosphere
The English classroom can be a site of engagement with the world—in all its complexity, beauty, pain. It is a place where words and our interaction with words compel us to rethink what we think we know. It should not be easy, nor should it always comfortable. Because I am interested in how literature can change, not simply reflect, realities, my classes move back and forth between texts and worlds, theories and practices. I try to select literature that is formally sophisticated, socially meaningful, and politically charged. My hope is that our discussions will not be narrowly focused or limited in any way, that we will pursue vibrant, respectful, and sincere questions about, to speak in the old style, the human condition.
REQUIREMENTS
Listserve
On our listserve, everyone will post at least six responses (approximately 500 words each, approximately every other week) to our readings in a particular week. In any given response, you obviously do not need to touch on everything you have read. Choose one idea or question to focus on. Pace your responses throughout the semester and try to post by at least 4PM on Tuesday, so we all have a chance to read the responses before we meet. Our listserve can also serve for follow-up discussions and announcements.
Essays
There will be two 10-page essays. One will be a critical or theoretical argument of the traditional sort. The other can be the same, or it can be an original performance, a performative essay (Peggy Phelan provides one model for this kind of writing). Or, if there is enough communal interest, you can opt to participate in a staged production. I will collect brief proposals for each essay/performance about two weeks before the due date.
Performances
Everyone will be in two performance groups. Each group will collaborate on a ten-minute performance that engages with our week’s reading. Performances are ungraded, informal, and great fun. Feel free to rearrange the classroom, incorporate the audience, bring in props, costumes, music, etc. You do not need to memorize anything (though we’ll all be impressed if you do). Most importantly, your performance should provide us with a certain take on a play, performance, or theory. I encourage groups to think of a critical question that you want to pose through the performance. Usually groups meet at least once outside of class to prepare.
Discussion
This class will strengthen your ability to think—to question, analyze, reflect, dispute, and reason. Dialogue is essential to this process. There will be a variety of ways to participate: providing feedback to performers, asking questions of one another, reading from your written responses, and responding to our texts. It will not be possible to receive an A in this class if you never speak in class. If you truly have difficulty doing this, please make an appointment early in the semester to speak with me, and we will come up with an alternate arrangement.
Grade Breakdown
Two Essays 60%
Participation/Performances 20%
Six Responses 20%
Required Texts (available at WVU Bookstore and online bookstores)
Augusto Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed
Amiri Baraka, Dutchman and The Slave Ship
Tony Kushner, Homebody / Kabul
Bertolt Brecht, Mother Courage
Clifford Odets, Waiting for Lefty
Adam P. Kennedy and Adrienne Kennedy, Sleep Deprivation Chamber
Tim Miller, Body Blows
August Wilson, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Luis Valdez, Zoot Suit and Other Plays
Sophie Treadwell, Machinal
Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, The Exonerated
Maria Irene Fornes, Fefu and Her Friends
Samuel Beckett, Happy Days
Suzan-Lori Parks, Venus
Recommended Plays and Performances:
Karen Finley, Shock Treatment
Philip Kan Gotanda, Yankee Dawg You Die
Moses Kaufman, The Laramie Project
Suzan-Lori Parks, The America Play; TopDog/Underdog; Imperceptible
Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom
Anna Deavere Smith, Twilight and Fires in the Mirror
Guillermo Verdecchia and Daniel Brooks, The Noam Chomsky Lectures
Howard Zinn, Emma (available at the WVU bookstore)
Available on E-Reserve (http://ereserves.lib.wvu.edu; username: ryan2; password
580) Note: Articles are listed alphabetically online by author’s or editor’s
last name
W.B. Worthen, “Disciplines of the Text: Sites of Performance.” Performance Studies
Reader. Ed. Henry Bial. London: Routledge, 2004. 10-24.
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, “Performance Studies.” Performance Studies Reader.
43-55.
Dwight Conquergood. “Performance Studies: Interventions and Radical Research.”
Performance Studies Reader. 311-322.
Baz Kershaw, introduction to The Politics of Performance: Radical Theatre as
Cultural Intervention. London: Routledge, 1992
Selections from Brecht on Theatre. Ed. and trans. John Willett. New York: Hill
and Wang, 1964.
Tony Kushner. Interview with David Savran, Speaking on Stage: Interviews with
Contemporary American Playwrights. Ed. Philip Kolin. 291-313.
Maria Irene Fornes. Interview with Una Chauduri. Speaking On Stage. 98-114.
Selections from Playing Boal: Theatre, Therapy, and Activism. Eds. Mady Schutzman
and Jan Cohen-Cruz. London: Routledge, 1994. Introduction 1-7
Selections from Staging Resistance: Essays on Political Theatre. Eds. Jeanne Colleran
and Jenny Spencer. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1998.
Richard Schechner, “Invasions Friendly and Unfriendly: The Dramaturgy of Direct
Theatre.” Critical Theory and Performance. Eds. Janelle Reinelt and Joseph Roach. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1992: 88-106
Douglas McDermott, “The Workers’ Laboratory Theatre: Archetype and Example.”
Theatre for Working-Class Audiences in the United States, 1830-1930.
Eds. Bruce McConachie and Daniel Friedman. Wesport, CN: Greenwood P,
1985. 121-142.
Henry J. Elam, Jr., chapter from Taking It to the Streets: the Social Protest Theatre of
Luis Valdez and Amiri Baraka. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1997.
Yolanda Broyles-Gonzalez, Introduction and chapter from Teatro Campesino: Theatre in
the Chicano Movement. Austin: U of Texas P, 1994.
Peggy Phelan, chapter from Unmarked: The Politics of Performance. London:
Routledge, 1993. (“The ontology of performance: representation without
reproduction”)
Recommended Theory and Criticism:
J.L. Austin. How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1962.
Herbert Blau. Take Up the Bodies: Theatre at the Vanishing Point. Urbana: U of Illinois
P, 1982.
Herbert Blau. “Universals of Performance; or amortizing play” in By Means of
Performance: Intercultural Studies of Theatre and Ritual. Eds. Richard
Schechner and Willa Appel. Cambridge UP, 1990. 250-272.
Elaine Brousseau. “Personalizing the Political in The Noam Chomsky Lectures” in
Staging Resistance.
Marvin Carlson. Performance: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge, 1996
[Review by Shannon Jackson in Theatre Journal 49.3 (1997), available on
Project Muse]
Sue-Ellen Case. Performing Feminisms: Feminist Critical Theory and Theatre.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1990.
Michel de Certeau. The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. Steven Randall. Berkely: U of
California P, 1984.
Kate Davy, “From Lady Dick to Ladylike: The Work of Holly Hughes.” Acting Out:
Feminist Performances. Eds. Lynda Hart and Peggy Phelan. Ann Arbor:
U of Michigan P, 1993. 55-84.
Elin Diamond. “The Violence of “We”: Politicizing Identification.” Critical
Theory and Performance. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1992.
Jill Dolan. Feminist Spectator as Critic. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1988/91.
Guerrilla Girls. The Guerrilla Girls’ Bedside Companion to the History of
Western Art. New York: Penguin 1998.
Michael Hatt. “Race, Ritual, and Responsibility: Performativity and the Southern
lynching” Performing the Body / Performing the Text. Eds. Amelia Jones
and Andrew Stephenson. London: Routledge, 1999.
Jose Esteban Muňoz. “Ephemera as Evidence: Introductory Notes to Queer Acts.”
Women and Performance 8.2 (1996) 5-16.
Alan Reed. Theatre and Everyday Life: An Ethics of Performance. London:
Routledge, 1993.
Janelle G. Reinelt and Joseph R. Roach, eds. Critical Theory and Performance.
Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1992.
Joseph Roach. Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance. New York: Columbia
UP, 1996.
Richard Schechner. Performance Theory. London: Routledge, 1988.
Recommended Websites and Links
Lydia Sargeant, “Humor, Theatre, and Social Change”
Political art and critical commentary, including reviews of recent plays
Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School
Optional Video Viewings at the Downtown Library Media Center: 7PM
Mon., Sept. 19: Zoot Suit
Mon., Oct. 3: The Dutchman
Mon., Oct 24: Samuel Beckett Documentary
Schedule
***Texts available on e-reserve
August 24
Introductions
Lee Siegel, The New Republic
Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal
Introduction to Performance Studies
August 31
Sign Up for Performance Groups
***W.B. Worthen, “Disciplines of the Text: Sites of Performance.” [under “Bial” on
ereserves]
***Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, “Performance Studies.”
***Dwight Conquergood. “Performance Studies: Interventions and Radical Research.”
***Baz Kershaw, introduction to The Politics of Performance: Radical Theatre as
Cultural Intervention
Rec: Peter Brooks, “On Difficulty, the Avante-Garde, and Critical Moribundity.” Just
Being Difficult: Academic Writing in the Public Arena. Eds. Jonathan Culler and
Kevin Lamb. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2003. 129-138.
Epic Theatre and the Spect-actor
September 7
Bertolt Brecht, Mother Courage
***Selections from Brecht on Theatre. (“The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre”;
“Alienation Effects in Chinese Acting”; “Interview with an Exile,” “Theatre for
Pleasure, or Theatre for Instruction”; “The Street Scene”; “From the Mother
Courage Model)
***Baz Kershaw, Introduction, The Politics of Performance
Chapter from Joseph Chaikin, Presence of the Actor. New York: Atheneum Press, 1972.
[handout]
Rec Video: From Brecht to Beckett
September 14
Tony Kushner, Homebody / Kabul
***Kushner, Interview with David Savran, Speaking On Stage
Available on Project Muse
Julia A. Walker, “Why Performance? Why Now? Textuality and the
Rearticulation of Human Presence.” Yale Journal of Criticism 16.1
(2003): 149-175.
Kushner Interview at Salon, “Coming Out as a Socialist”
http://www.salon.com/weekly/interview960610.html
Video Option at the Downtown Library: Mon., Sept. 19 at 7PM: Zoot Suit
September 21
Valdez, Zoot Suit
Available on EBSCO Host
Mark Pizzato, “Brechtian and Aztec Violence in Valdez’s Zoot Suit.” Journal of Popular
Film & Television 26.2 (1998).
***Henry J. Elam, Jr., chapter from Taking It to the Streets
***Yolanda Broyles-Gonzalez, introduction and chapter from Teatro Campesino
September 28
Proposal for First Essay/Performance Due
Maria Irene Fornes, Fefu and Her Friends
Clifford Odets, Waiting for Lefty
***Douglas McDermott, “The Workers’ Laboratory Theatre: Archetype and Example.”
***Josephine Lee, “Pity and Terror as Public Acts: Reading Feminist Politics in the Plays
of Maria Irene Fornes.”
***Fornes, Interview with Una Chauduri. Speaking On Stage.
Elin Diamond, “Brechtian Theory / Feminist Theory: Toward a Gestic Feminist
Criticism.” Drama Review 32.1 (1988): 82-94. [handout]
Rec: Daniel Friedman, “A Brief Description of the Workers’ Theatre Movement of the
Thirties.” Theatre for Working-Class Audiences in the United States, 1830-1930.
Eds. McConachie and Friedman. Westport, CN: Greenwood P, 1985. 111-120.
Theatre Collectives and Direct Action: Rehearsal for Revolution
Video Option at the Downtown Library: Mon., Oct 3 at 7PM: Dutchman
October 5
August Wilson, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Amiri Baraka, The Dutchman
Baraka, “Revolutionary Theatre” [handout]
Available on Project Muse:
Wilson, “The Ground On Which I Stand.” Callaloo 20.3 (1998): 493-503.
Available on EBSCO Host
Lloyd Richards, “Lloyd Richards: Reflections from the Playwrights’ Champion.”
Interview with Caroline R. Raymond. The Drama Review 47.2 (2003).
October 12
First Essay Due
Augusto Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed, Foreword, Introduction, 83-190. Look at page
38 and handout on Aristotle
***Playing Boal: Theatre, Therapy, and Activism. Introduction 1-7
***Michael Taussig and Richard Schechner, “Boal in Brazil, France, the USA: An
Interview with Augusto Boal.” Playing Boal. 17-32
***Jan Cohen-Cruz, “Mainstream or Margin?: US Activist Performance and the
Theatre of the Oppressed.” Playing Boal. 110-123.
***Philip Auslander. “Boal, Blau, and Brecht: The Body.” Playing Boal. 124-133.
October 19
***John Bell, “Beyond the Cold War: Bread and Puppet Theatre and the New
World Order.” Staging Resistance. 31-53.
Maria de Cenzo and Susan Bennett. “Women, Popular Theatre, and Social
Action: Interviews with Cynthia Grant and the Sistren Theatre Collective.”
Melus 23.1 (1992): 72-94. [handout]
Max Stafford-Clark, “Against Pessimism.” Theatre in Crisis? Performance
Manifestos for a New Century. Eds. Maria M. Delgado and Caridad Svich.
Manchester: Manchester UP, 2002. 82-88. [handout]
Michael Rohd, selections from Theatre for Community, Conflict and Dialogue: The Hope
is Vital Training Manuel. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1998. [Preface xv-xiv; 97-111; 138-140] [handout]
***Richard Schechner, “Invasions Friendly and Unfriendly: The Dramaturgy of Direct
Theatre.”
Expressionistic / Imagistic / Experimental / or, PragmaticTheatre
Video Option at the Downtown Library: Mon., Oct. 24 at 7PM: Beckett Documentary
October 26
Sophie Treadwell, Machinal
Samuel Beckett, Happy Days
Carey Perloff, “Three Women and a Mound: directing Happy Days.” Directing
Beckett. Ed. Lois Oppenheim. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1994. 161-169.
Ilan Ronen, “Waiting for Godot as Political Theatre.” Directing Beckett. 239-249.
[handouts]
November 2
Adam Kennedy and Adrienne Kennedy, Sleep Deprivation Chamber
Suzan-Lori Parks, Venus
Available on EBSCO Host
Jean Young, “The Re-Objectification and Re-Commodification of Saartjie Baartman in
Suzan-Lori Parks’s Venus. African American Review 31.4 (1997): 699-708.
Available on EBSCO Host
Kushner, “The Art of the Difficult.” Civilization 4.4 1997
Rec: Greg Miller, “The Bottom of Desire in Suzan-Lori Parks’s Venus.” Modern Drama
45.1 (2002): 125-137.
Documentary Theatre
November 9
Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, The Exonerated
Available on Project Muse
Dwight Conquergood, “Lethal Theatre: Performance, Punishment, and the Death
Penalty.” Theatre Journal 54.3 (2002): 339-367.
Performance Art
November 16
Second Proposal Due
Gomez-Peňa, New World Border: Introduction i-iii and Biographical Note;
“Freefalling” 1-3; New World Border, 20-48; Chronicle 80-107. (handout)
Tim Miller, Body Blows [Foreword, Introduction, Golden States, My Queer Body, Glory
Box]
***Janelle Reinelt, “Notes for a Radical Democratic Theatre: Productive Crises
and the Challenge of Indeterminacy” Staging Resistance: 283-300.
“Canon and Curriculum: An Interview with Paul Lauter.” Critics at Work:
Interviews 1993-2003. Ed. Jeffrey J. Williams. New York: New York UP, 2004. [handout]
Thanksgiving Break
November 30
Hughes, Introduction to Clit Notes and “Clit Notes” [handout]
***Peggy Phelan, chapter from Unmarked: The Politics of Performance.
Judith Butler, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in
Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Performance Studies Reader. 154-165.
[handout]
Concluding Thoughts and Performances
December 7: Second Essay due December 9 by noon
Local Theatre Announcements
MAC Theatre: Edward Albee, The American Dream and Zoo Story
Aug 25, 26, 27 at 8PM
Aug 28 at 2PM
A Practical Policy 