THEA 406
Senior Seminar: 20th Century Struggle Theatre Spring 2015
Division I
This is not the current course catalog

For Spring 2015, the seminar will explore the nature of the impact that theatre exerts on communities in general, and on societies existing under specific, circumscribed sociopolitical systems. The seminar will investigate the power of theatre to influence, enlighten and transform its audiences within a commonly lived political system. In many societies in the 20th and 21st centuries, the theatre has been a space where, within that famed “two hour traffic of our stage”, struggle has been a major theme, and opposition can, somehow, be voiced. The theatre is a place of parable and of storytelling, a place where comedy and satire as well as tragedy find within their audiences a recognition and an identification. Put this way, theatre can be and has been a powerful, sometimes even dangerous tool. The Seminar will look at “Struggle Theatre” in the 20th Century. Anti-apartheid South African protest theatre of the 1950’s though the 1980’s will be highlighted next to theatre movements in Eastern Europe during the Cold War; the United States during the Depression, and the Viet Nam war years; Brazil, Chile, Argentina and other South American countries during their periods of military dictatorships. Readings will include theorists from literary studies, anthropology, cultural studies, and related fields, as well as primary texts from drama and other arts.