The Bedford Introduction to Drama
by Jacobus, Lee A.Edition: 6th
Format: Paperback
Pub. Date: 2008-09-05
Publisher(s): Bedford/St. Martin's
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Summary
The Bedford Anthology of Dramais the most comprehensive introductory drama resource available. Its 54 chronologically arranged plays represent every major period from classic times to the present. With in-depth treatment of 3 major playwrights, the strongest representation of plays by women and American multicultural plays, and an exciting contemporary section loaded with prize winners,The Bedford Anthology of Dramahas the plays you want to teach and features designed to help students think critically about all aspects of a play as a work of literature and as a performance.Giving students a rich understanding of the plays and the contexts from which they emerge the anthology offers 57 commentaries, 4 Casebooks, the most extensive collection of theater photographs available in a text of this kind, coverage of writing about drama, and a robust companion web site with help for students and instructors.
Author Biography
LEE A. JACOBUS is professor emeritus of English at the University of Connecticut and the author/editor of popular English textbooks, among them A World of Ideas: Essential Readings for College Writers, Seventh Edition (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2006); and The Longman Anthology of American Drama. Professor Jacobus has written scholarly books on Paradise Lost, on the works of John Cleveland, and on the works of Shakespeare, including Shakespeare and the Dialectic of Certainty. He is also a playwright; two of his plays — Fair Warning and Long Division — were produced in New York by the American Theater of Actors; Dance Therapy , three one-act plays, was produced in New York at Where Eagles Dare Theatre. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America. Volcanic Jesus, his book of short stories, is set in Hawaii.
Table of Contents
Preface for Instructors
Introduction: Thinking about Drama
What Is Drama?
Drama and Ritual
Drama: The Illusion of Reality
Seeing a Play Onstage
Theaters and Their Effect
Reading a Play
The Great Ages of Drama
Greek Drama
Roman Drama
Medieval Drama
Renaissance Drama
Late Seventeenth-and Eighteenth-Century Drama
Nineteenth-Century Drama through the Turn of the Twentieth Century
Drama in the Early and Mid-Twentieth Century
Contemporary Drama
Genres of Drama
Tragedy
Comedy
Tragicomedy
Elements of Drama
Plot
Characterization
Setting
Dialogue
Music
Movement
Theme
Lady Gregory, The Rising of the Moon
Greek Drama
Origins of Greek Drama
The Greeks and Their Gods
The Greek Stage
*The Greek Actor
Genres of Greek Drama
Tragedy
Satyr Plays
Comedy
The Great Age of Greek Drama
Greek Drama Timeline
Aeschylus, Agamemnon (Translated by David Greene and Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty)
Agamemnon in Performance
Commentaries on Aeschylus
Lois Spatz, Oresteia: Trilogy Preserved
Sophocles, Oedipus Rex (Translated by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald)
Oedipus Rex in Performance
Commentaries on Oedipus Rex
Aristotle, Poetics: Comedy and Epic and Tragedy
Sigmund Freud, The Oedipus Complex
Claude Lévi-Strauss, From The Structural Study of Myth
Sophocles, Antigone (Translated by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald)
Antigone in Performance
Commentaries on Antigone
Oliver Taplin, Emotion and Meaning in Greek Tragedy
Jean Anouilh, From Antigone
Euripides, Medea (Translated by Paul Roche)
Medea in Performance
Commentaries on Euripides
Ben Brantley, Review of Medea
Aristophanes, Lysistrata (Translated by Dudley Fitts)
Lysistrata in Performance
Roman Drama
Indigenous Sources
The Greek Influence
The Roman Stage
*The Roman Actor
Roman Drama Timeline
Roman Dramatists
Plautus, Excerpt from The Twin Menaechmi (Act III)
Terence, Excerpt from The Brothers (Act V)
Seneca, Excerpt from Thyestes (Act V, Scene ii)
Medieval Drama
The Role of the Church
Miracle Plays
Mystery Plays
Morality Plays
The Medieval Stage
*The Medieval Actor
Medieval Drama Timeline
Hrosvitha, Dulcitius (Translated by K.M. Wilson)
Dulcitius in Performance
Commentary on Hrosvitha
Sue-Ellen Case, Re-viewing Hrotsvitha
Anonymous, The Second Shepherd’s Pageant (Edited by A.C. Cawley)
The Second Shepherd’s Pageant in Performance
Anonymous, Everyman (Edited by A.C. Cawley)
Everyman in Performance
Renaissance Drama
Italian Drama
The Italian Theater
Commedia dell’Arte
Elizabethan Drama
The Elizabethan Theater
* The Elizabethan Actor
The Elizabethan Audience
Female Characters on the English Stage
The Masque
Spanish Drama
Renaissance Drama Timeline
Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus (Edited by Irving Ribner)
Doctor Faustus in Performance
William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Performance
Commentaries on A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Linda Bamber, On A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Peter Brook, The Play is a Message…
Clive Barnes, Review of A Midsummer Night’s Dream
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Hamlet in Performance
Commentaries on Hamlet
* E.K. Chambers, On Hamlet’s Madness
Sigmund Freud, Hamlet’s Scruples
T.S. Eliot, Hamlet and His Problems
William Shakespeare, Othello
Othello in Performance
Commentaries on Othello
Virginia Mason Vaughan, Macready’s Othello
Margaret Webster, Shakespeare without Tears
Ben Jonson, The Masque of Blackness
The Masque of Blackness in Performance
Commentary on Jonson
Eldred Jones, Africa in English Masque and Pageantry
Pedro Calderon de la Barca, Life Is a Dream (Translated by Michael Kidd)
Life Is a Dream in Performance
Commentaries on Calderon
Ed Morales, Review of Jose Rivera’s Production of Sueno
Matt Wolf, The Hamlet of Spain, in a Fevered Staging
Late Seventeenth-and-Eighteenth Century Drama
The Restoration: Rebirth of Drama
Theater on the Continent: Neoclassicism
French Comedy: Moliere
*Theater in England: The Restoration
Restoration Comedy in England
Eighteenth-Century Drama
* The Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Actor
Drama in Japan
Late Seventeenth-and Eighteenth-Century Drama Timeline
* Moliere, Tartuffe (Translated by Richard Wilbur)
Tartuffe in Performance
Commentary on Moliere
* Mel Gussow, Review of ‘Tartuffe’
* Aphra Behn, The Rover; Or, The Banished Cavaliers
The Rover; or, The Banished Cavaliers in Performance
Commentaries on Behn
* Elaine Hobby, Courtship and Marriage in The Rover
Chikamatsu Monzaemon, The Love Suicides at Sonezaki
The Love Suicides at Sonezaki in Performance
Commentary on Chikamatsu Monzaemon
Donald H. Shiveley, The Development of Theater Buildings
* William Congreve, The Way of the World
The Way of the World in Performance
Commentary on Congreve
* Harriet Taubman, Review of The Way of the World
* Arnold Aronson, Comedy, Manners, and Brickbats
Nineteenth-Century Drama through the Turn of the Twentieth Century
The Nineteenth Century Theater
* The Nineteenth-Century Actor
Romantic Drama
Melodrama
The Well-Made Play
The Rise of Realism
Nineteenth-Century Drama Timeline
Henrik Ibsen, A Doll House (Translated by Rolf Fjelde)
A Doll House in Performance
Commentaries on A Doll House
Henrik Ibsen, Notes for the Modern Tragedy
Muriel C. Bradbrook, A Doll’s House: Ibsen the Moralist
August Strindberg, Miss Julie (Translated by Harry G. Carlson)
Miss Julie in Performance
Commentary on Strindberg
August Strindberg, From the Preface to Miss Julie
* A STYLISTIC CASEBOOK
American Melodrama
Anna Cora Mowatt, Fashion (Act V)
George L. Aiken, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Act VI)
Bronson Howard, Shenandoah (Act III)
Dion Boucicault, Notes on Acting
Gary A. Richardson, Melodrama as National History
Michael R. Booth, A Defense of Nineteenth-Century Drama
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People
The Importance of Being Earnest in Performance
Commentary on Wilde
* Joseph Donohue, Interview with Sir Peter Hall, director of The Importance of Being Earnest
Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard in Performance
Commentaries on Chekhov
Anton Chekhov, From Letters of Anton Chekhov
Peter Brook, On Chekhov
Bernard Shaw, Mrs. Warren’s Profession
Mrs. Warren’s Profession in Performance
Commentaries on Shaw
Bernard Shaw, Plays Unpleasant: Mrs. Warren’s Profession
Bernard Shaw, From the Preface to Mrs. Warren’s Profession
A CULTURAL CASEBOOK
The "Woman Question" in the Late Nineteenth Century
John Stuart Mill, On the Subjection of Women
August Strindberg, The Woman Question: Women’s Rights
Johan Thorsten Sellin, Marriage and Divorce in Sweden
Richard Panofsky, A Nineteenth-Century Husband’s Letter to His Wife
Helen Watterson Moody, What It Means to Be a Wife
Flora Tristan, London Journal: Prostitutes in London…All the Streets Are Full of Them
A letter to the Times (London) from a Prostitute
Barbara Meil Hobson, Successful Madams
Drama in the Early and Mid-Twentieth Century
The Heritage of Realism
Realism and Myth
Myth and Culture
Poetic Realism
Social Realism
Realism and Expressionism
Antirealism
Epic Theater
Absurdist Drama
* The Early and Mid-Twentieth Century Stage
* The Early and Mid-Twentieth Century Actor
Early and Mid-Twentieth Century Drama Timeline
John Millington Synge, Riders to the Sea
Riders to the Sea in Performance
Commentary on Synge
John Millington Synge, From The Aran Islands
Susan Glaspell, Trifles
Trifles in Performance
Commentary on Glaspell
Christine Dymkowski, On the Edge: The Plays of Susan Glaspell
Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author (Translated by Edward Storer)
Six Characters in Search of an Author in Performance
Federico Garcia Lorca, The House of Bernada Alba: A Drama About Women in the Villages of Spain (Translated by James Graham-Lujan and Richard L. O’Connell)
The House of Bernarda Alba in Performance
Eugene O’Neill, Desire Under the Elms
Desire Under the Elms in Performance
Commentary on O’Neill
* Louise Kennedy, "‘He knows that it's OK not to know’: Director János Szász approaches ‘Desire’ with an open mind"
Bertolt Brecht, Mother Courage and Her Children: A Chronicle of the Thirty Years’ War (Translated by John Willett)
Mother Courage in Performance
Commentaries on Brecht
Bertolt Brecht, The Alienation Effect
Bertolt Brecht, Notes for Mother Courage, Scene 12
Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie in Performance
Commentaries on The Glass Menagerie
Lewis Nichols, Review of The Glass Menagerie
Donald Spoto, Laurette Taylor in The Glass Menagerie
Benjamin Nelson, Problems in The Glass Menagerie
Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman: Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem
Death of a Salesman in Performance
Commentaries on Miller
Arthur Miller, In Memoriam
Arthur Miller, Tragedy and the Common Man
*A PRODUCTION CASEBOOK
Death of a Salesman
Jo Mielziner, Designing a Play: Death of a Salesman
Brenda Murphy, Death of a Salesman: The Design Process
Brenda Murphy, Racial Consciousness in Casting Death of a Salesman
Elia Kazan, Directing Death of a Salesman
Arthur Miller, Casting Death of a Salesman
June Schlueter and James K. Flanagan, Memorable Willy
Catherine Diamond, Death of a Salesman in Taipei
* Eugène Ionesco, The Bald Soprano (Translated by Donald M. Allen)
The Bald Soprano in Performance
Commentary on Ionesco
* Eugène Ionesco, The Tragedy of Language: How and English Primer Became My First Play
* Samuel Beckett, Krapp’s Last Tape
Krapp’s Last Tape in Performance
Commentaries on Beckett
* Martin Esslin, The Theater of the Absurd
* Ruby Cohn, Beckett Directing
Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun
A Raisin in the Sun in Performance
Wole Soyinka, The Strong Breed
The Strong Breed in Production
Commentary on Soyinka
Lewis Nkosi, Interview with Wole Soyinka
Contemporary Drama
Experimentation
Theater of Cruelty
Environmental Theater
"Poor Theater"
Theater of Images
Gay and Lesbian Theater and Other * Ensembles
Experiments with Theater Space
Experimentation within the Tradition
* The Contemporary Theater
* The Contemporary Actor
Contemporary Drama Timeline
Luis Valdez, Zoot Suit
Zoot Suit in Performance
* Harold Pinter, The Homecoming
The Homecoming in Performance
Commentary on Pinter
* Ronald Knowles, The Homecoming
Edward Albee, The Zoo Story
The Zoo Story in Performance
Commentary on Albee
* Robert B. Bennet, Tragic Vision in The Zoo Story
* Sam Shephard, Buried Child
Buried Child in Performance
* Brian Friel, Faith Healer
Faith Healer in Performance
Athol Fugard, "Master Harold" … and the boys
Master Harold …and the boys in Performance
Commentaries on Fugard
Heinrich von Staden, Interview with Athol Fugard
Athol Fugard, From Notebooks 1960-1977
David Mamet, Glengary Glen Ross
Glengary Glen Ross in Performance
Commentaries on Mamet
Anne Dean, Glengarry Glen Ross
* August Wilson, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom in Performance
Commentary on Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
* Joan Herrington, The Development of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
August Wilson, Fences
Fences in Performance
Commentary on Fences
* Joan Herrington, The Development of Fences
* A CASEBOOK ON AUGUST WILSON
Mark William Rocha, August Wilson and the Four B’s: Influences
Harry J. Elam, Jr., August Wilson
Romare Bearden, Mill Hand’s Lunch Bucket (1978) and Piano Lesson (1983)
Amiri Baraka, Ka’Ba
Ma Rainey and Lovie Austin, Bad Luck Blues
Ma Rainey, Don’t Fish in My Sea
Elisabeth J. Heard, An Interview with August Wilson on Playwriting
Peter Wolfe, August Wilson: Conclusion
* Tony Kushner, Angels in America: Millennium Approaches
Angels in America: Millennium Approaches in Performance
Commentary on Kushner
*Andrea Bernstein, Interview with Tony Kushner
Paula Vogel, How I Learned to Drive
How I Learned to Drive in Performance
Commentaries on Vogel
Christopher Bigsby, Paula Vogel
David Savran, Paula Vogel
*Caryl Churchill, Far Away
Far Away in Performance
* Moisés Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project, The Laramie Project
The Laramie Project in Performance
* Lynn Nottage, Intimate Apparel
Intimate Apparel in Performance
* Doug Wright, I Am My Own Wife
I Am My Own Wife in Performance
Commentary on Wright
* Doug Wright, Portrait of an Enigma
* Conor McPherson, Shining City
Shining City in Performance
* Sarah Ruhl, The Clean House
The Clean House in Performance
* Suzan-Lori Parks, selections from 365 Days/365 Plays
365 Days in Performance
Appendices
Writing about Drama
Why Write about Drama?
Conventions in Writing Criticism about Drama
Approaches to Criticism
Reader Response
Close Reading
From Prewriting to Final Draft: A Sample Essay on The Rising of the Moon
How to Write a Review
What Is the Purpose of a Review?
What You Need to Write a Good Review
Preparing to Review a Classic Play
Preparing to Review a New Play
Guidelines for Writing Reviews
Sample Review
Glossary of Dramatic Terms
* new to this edition
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