BRST 194c: British Theatre Now: Texts and Performances Professor Brian Walsh
[email protected] Yale-in-London, Summer 2014, session 2 Office Hours: at the Mellon Centre, by arrangement Class Meetings: TU/TH 10-12 (except as noted below on the schedule) Performances: evenings as noted below on the schedule in bold The goal of this course is to come to some assessment of the state of British theatre today. We will attempt this unwieldy task through two forms of immersion: by reading a selection of British plays from the 1990s to the present and by attending a sampling of what is on offer on the London stages in Summer 2014 (including original works and revivals). Our work in class will alternate between textual analysis of the printed drama we read and performance-analysis of the live productions we see. Ideally, we will in the process explore some of the conceptual issues and problems implied by the distinction in these modes of critical engagement. What does it mean to read a play, something originally designed to be experienced in performance? And how do we effectively discuss the live, ephemeral event of a performance after the fact? We will take up these fascinating theoretical (but also practical) questions alongside consideration of the plays’ aesthetics and themes, as well as questions that the plays—printed and performed—convey to us about a range of enduring complex issues and problems, including: coming to terms with the past, dealing with revolution and political change, class consciousness and conflict, race and “Britishness,” the freedoms and dangers afforded by new technologies, the impact of almost unimaginable acts of violence on individuals and communities, the changing (or persistent) gender roles within families and within the halls of power, negotiating the perils of childhood, and, in a broader sense, gauging the presence or seeming absence of political and social commentary in current theatre.