discussion-F2010

Daily Discussion Questions

toc As part of your preparations throughout this semester of ENGL 2720 -- Introduction to Literature; Drama -- we will be conducting an **ongoing online discussion** of our materials. Below, you can **link to the questions** I will post for each day of class and try to answer one or more prior to the class for which they are scheduled.

At the end of the semester, you will write a piece reflecting on your level of online and in-class theatrical presentation in which you make a case for your level of participation. For these online discussion questions, the **expectation** is that you will respond, thoughtfully, to ONE question prior to every SECOND class, on average. (You may, of course, post more often than that.) Since we are meeting roughly 40 times this semester, **“on average”** would mean posting 20 total responses over the course of the semester.

(click here for details of the reading, viewing, and other preparatory assignments to which these questions are linked)
 * CALENDAR OF DATES**

=Week 1= Wed Sep 1 | Fri Sep 3

=Week 2= Wed Sep 8 | Fri Sep 10

=Week 3= Mon Sep 13 | Wed Sep 15 | Fri Sep 17

=Week 4=

Mon Sep 20 | Wed Sep 22 | Fri Sep 24

=Week 5=

Mon Sep 27 | Wed Sep 29 | Fri Oct 1

=Week 6=

Mon Oct 4 | Wed Oct 6 | Fri Oct 8

=Week 7=

Mon Oct 11 | Wed Oct 13 | Fri Oct 15

=Week 8=

Mon Oct 18 | Wed Oct 20 | Fri Oct 22

=Week 9=

Mon Oct 25 | Wed Oct 27 | Fri Oct 29

=Week 10=

Mon Nov 1 | Wed Nov 3 | Fri Nov5

=Week 11=

MonNov8 | WedNov10 | FriNov12

=Week 12= MonNov15 | WedNov17 | FriNov19

=Week 13=

MonNov22

=Week 14=

MonNov29 | WedDec1 | FriDec3

=Week 15=

MonDec6 | WedDec8 | FriDec10

Fall 2010 Discussion Questions

READ: Anna Deavere Smith, Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992. This is one of the required course texts.

As with all plays this semester, I'm asking you to read the entire thing BEFORE the first day we are scheduled to discuss it. For this particular play, I strongly recommend that you start by giving yourself 10-15 minutes online to familiarize yourself with the basic facts about the 1992 riots in Los Angeles that are the subject of the play: who was Rodney King, why did the verdict in his case trigger riots in L.A., what shape did those riots take. That way, the sometimes indirect way that characters have of talking about the events will make more sense to you.

Discussion Questions for Wednesday, September 8 (go to the discussion board of this page to answer these questions)

Huizinga opens his foreword to Homo Ludens by noting that "a happier age than ours once made bold to call our species by the name of Homo Sapiens" (ix). Huizinga is writing in 1938, in German, his completed book to be published in Switzerland; a citizen of the Netherlands who would spend the last three years of his life as a prisoner of the Nazis. Why, given the times, might Huizinga be inclined to challenge the notion of human beings, at their core, as knowing, wise, and reasonable? And why, given the times and Huizinga's own situation, might it be difficult (but necessary?) to make a case for play as a central part of the human experience? (Be sure to quote from the text in support of your answer.)

On pages 8-13, Huizinga lays out what he considers the essential characteristics of human play -- in summation, writing that "we might call it a free activity standing quite consciously outside 'ordinary' life as being 'not serious,' but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. It is an activity connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained by it. It proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner. It promotes the formation of social groupings which tend to surround themselves with secrecy and to stress their difference from the common world by disguise or other means" (13). Being sure to quote from the text in support of your answer, how can you reconcile the co-existence of some of these very different, even opposed, characteristics: social but secretive, intense but "not serious," outside ordinary life but time-and-space limited, free but orderly and rule-bound?

What, for Huizinga, is the relationship between play, on the one hand, and the serious and sacred, on the other? Are they opposites? Identical? Are they overlapping but essentially unrelated categories? Is one a subcategory of the other? Are they connected spheres of experience? Or wholly separate? Be sure to quote from the text in support of your answer (you might especially look pp. 18-21).

Discussion Questions for Friday, September 10

NOTE: The day's reading assignment has been changed from what is listed on the original print calendar. See the daily calendar page for details; but basically, we'll be putting off our reading of Anna Deavere Smith's Twilight until next Monday, September 13. For today, I'm having you review the two pieces we've read about ordinary play by Anne Haas Dyson and J. Huizinga and think about them comparatively.

QUESTIONS

What sense would Anne Haas Dyson make of the kind of uploaded re-enactments on YouTube that we were looking at last week? Be sure to 1) quote directly from Dyson's writing in your answer and 2) to refer to specific YouTube (or other online site) videos.

What sense would J. Huizinga make of the kind of uploaded re-enactments on YouTube that we were looking at last week? Be sure to 1) quote directly from Huizinga's writing in your answer and 2) to refer to specific YouTube (or other online site) videos.

What sense would Dyson and Haas make of one another? One, of course, is writing about childhood play while the other writes about play as an even more fundamental part of human experience that defines adulthood as well. Are their theories mutually reinforcing? Complementary? Incommensurable? Opposed? Be sure to quote from their writing in your response.

Discussion questions for Friday, November 5

At this point, how well do you feel that Theodore Ward's 1938 play, Big White Fog, fits Aristotle's basic definition of tragedy: "Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative, through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions." If it doesn't fit exactly, are the differences superficial or fundamental in terms of thinking of Big White Fog as a modern tragedy?

Are the more tragic events that befall the characters of Big White Fog the result of what Aristotle calls "hamartia," the result of some imperfection in the character's actions or way of being? (Though the term is often translated as "tragic flaw," it might be worth remembering that Aristotle also used it to refer to particular offenses committed by a character, or even simple and often unwitting mistakes.) Which characters would Aristotle consider most tragic, and through what examples of "hamartia" is their tragedy caused?

Here's one that might be kind of fun. Can you give examples from current novels, plays, movies, or TV shows that would fit Aristotle's ideal of the tragic character, a person "who is not eminently good and just, yet whose misfortune is brought about not by vice or depravity, but by some error or frailty"? Walk us through an example of how tragic events are generated as a result of "error or frailty" on the part of the character.

Discussion questions for Monday, November 8

Choose one or two turning points in Big White Fog, and discuss them in Aristotle's terms of reversal (peripeteia) and/or recognition (anagnorisis). Be fairly detailed in picking these moments apart in terms of the change of fortune or situation that they might represent. What (and for whom) was that situation before the moment? What chain of events produces the reversal or recognition? And how (and for whom) is the situation different after?

Is Ward interested in entertaining his audience, educating them for the world outside the theater, helping them purge themselves of their pity and fear/anxieties, or some combination of the above? Be sure to cite particular moments or lines from the play in support of your answer.

Discussion questions for Wednesday, November 10

How well does Theodore Ward's 1938 play, Big White Fog, obey the unities of drama as outlined by Aristotle (time, place, action, structure)? Be specific. Would you argue that its departures from Aristotle's unities help or harm its attempt at creating drama?

Does Victor Mason come to a tragic end? Does his family? His race? His class? His nation? Be sure in your answer that you address your criteria for measuring tragedy.

Discussion questions for Friday, November 12

PEER REVIEW

Rather than have me present you with a question, I'm going to give you the opportunity to ask one another anything you'd like - you will get equal credit for starting a question thread or responding to someone else's.

Discussion questions for Monday, November 15

Now that you've finished your project, here's a chance to reflect on it. What do you think you learned from writing this essay: about tragedy, about dramatic structure (or even about writing, revising, or planning?)

Discussion questions for Wednesday, November 17

NOTE: As the daily calendar notes, in reading, concentrate on the following 8 scenes: Act I: Scene I and III; Act II: Scene II; Act III: Scene IV; Act IV: Scene I; Act V: Scenes I, V, and VIII.

QUESTIONS

Is Shakespeare's Macbeth a tragedy? Discuss in terms of one or more of the following concepts: catharsis, unity, hamartia, peripeteia, anagnorisis.

What evidence do you see in the scenes we are reading from Shakespeare's Macbeth -- in either the dialogue, the stage directions, or the choices of what to show or not show -- that Shakespeare, in writing, was keeping in mind the physical properties of the Globe stage or the conventions of Elizabethan theater? How mgiht such scenes have been written differently if he'd been working with the modern proscenium (or other style) stage in mind?

For reference, here are some of those properties and conventions as described in Ryan Jerving's in-class presentation:

3-story open air structure 100' diameter total Stage platform 43' wide x 28' deep Accommodated 3000 spectators The Pit: a 56' courtyard for “groundlings” who paid a penny The Gallery: 3 floors of seats surrounding thrust stage on three sides Open stage Small backstage “tiring area” under balcony Trap door in stage floor Overhead rigging for stage effects Conventional (in Gorelik’s sense) Limited props and scenery Setting indicated through dialogue Night indicated by carrying torch

Discussion questions for Friday, November 19

From what you've now read about their 1936 production of Macbeth, what kind of changes to the script or staging were made by the Negro Unit of the New York Federal Theatre Project under the direction of Orson Welles? And why?

Given what you know about the Federal Theatre Project and 1930s American theater more broadly -- the theater world that gave us Green Grow the Lilacs, Power, Big White Fog, and Oklahoma! -- how do you think the 1936 production of Macbeth fit into the theater world of its time? Was it typical or unusual in its style, staging, talent, and/or mode of production? How?

Given what you know about American history in the 1930s, what can you say about the issues and debates of the time to which the 1936 production of Macbeth may have been responding? Would audiences have picked up on this response as a commentary on the times? Or was it reflecting the times in ways that are only clear in retrospect?

Discussion questions for Monday, November 22

James Franco's piece offers a pretty useful brief overview to the history of performance art and to the kind of questions raised by its emphasis on the process of creation over the finished product. The most basic question raised by such work -- Jackson Pollock's action paintings, Yoko Ono inviting the audience to cut her clothes ("Cut Piece," 1965), or Marina Abramovic cutting her own fingers ("Rhythm 10," 1973) -- has been "is it art?" (as Franco himself asks at the beginning and end of this piece. But might it be a more productive question to ask "is it theater?" or "is it drama?"

Franco writes that his appearance on the soap opera General Hospital "disrupted the audience's suspension of disbelief, because no matter how far I got into the character, I was going to be perceived as something that doesn't belong to the incredibly stylized world of soap operas. Everyone watching would see an actor they recognized, a real person in a made-up world." Think not only "Franco" on this soap opera, but also "James Franco" in the Funny or Die "Acting with James Franco" series (or, in a parallel example, Joaquin Phoenix as an estranged version of himself as a guest on David Letterman). To what extent are such performances anti-illusionist in the ways Franco claims, and how important is context and the actual, physical performance space to this effect?

Discussion questions for Monday, November 29 Please note that on the Daily Calendar entry for this day's readings I've have provided some background information on the Trojan War that should help you in understanding The Trojan Women.

Euripides's The Trojan Women was staged in 415 B.C.E., 85 years before Aristotle completed his Poetics (in 330). The work of Euripides -- the last of the big three tragedians, Aeschylus and Sophocles having coming before him -- was part of the source material upon which Aristotle based his concepts of hamartia, anagnorisis, peripeteia, catharthis, etc. And yet, how well does The Trojan Women fulfill Aristotle's conception of tragic plotting, characterization, etc.?

As our edition of The Trojan Women notes, the play was staged in Athens during what would prove to be a disastrous year for the imperial spread of Athenian power. The Publisher's Note argues that "Aside from its unease at seeing heroic legends demystified" in the play's account of an earlier (mythical) war, "the Athenian audience would have been disturbed by the irony in the play's implicit commentary on current events" (p. iii). Read and respond to the rest of the Publisher's Note's argument about the contemporary uses to which the play put this familiar story.

Choose one key speech or exchange in the play that you'd like us to discuss in class. Why did you pick this scene, and what kind of discussion do you hope it will provoke?

Discussion questions for Wednesday, December 1

What play/productions are you planning to research, what (if any) is the current state of the research you have done, and what kind of research are you planning to do? Be as specific as you can possibly be - I'm hoping we can use your responses to help guide the Library Instruction session we will have on this date in Raynor 245.

Discussion questions for Wednesday, December 8

A 2004 New York Times piece by Margo Jefferson listed a number of 20th-century adaptations of The Trojan Women as part of its discussion of modern uses of ancient drama. (See "Renewing Their Vision by Mining Ancient Worlds," from NYTimes.com, November 6, 2004 at http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/06/arts/design/06jeff.html -- and thanks to Yisha Chen for this reference.) As Jefferson writes:

World War I was the turning point for theater: the emotional and political resonance of the plays won out over the thrill of masks and scanty costumes. The path for the rest of the 20th century was set. A 1917 production of "The Trojan Women" by Euripides made the play an antiwar classic. The Federal Theater Project turned it into "The Trojan Incident" in 1938; the captured women were European refugees. An all-male cast performed it during the Vietnam War. Just last year the Classical Theater of Harlem blended the original text with the documentary testimony of women who survived massacres in Bosnia and Rwanda.

...What do you think is the particular attraction of The Trojan Women for modern theater companies or directors? And do you think their use of the play is fair to Euripides's orginal vision for his drama?

What differences have you noted between the original 415 B.C.E. version of The Trojan Women and the FTP's 1938 C.E. adaptation? In what ways would you argue that those differences reflect historical differences (and not simply artistic choices)?

What differences have you noted between the original version of the play that you are researching and any subsequent productions of it? In what ways would you argue that those differences reflect historical differences (and not simply artistic choices)?

Discussion questions for Friday, December 10

PEER REVIEW

Rather than have me present you with a question, I'm going to give you the opportunity to ask one another anything you'd like - you will get equal credit for starting a question thread or responding to someone else's.

Discussion Questions for Monday, September 13

Looking back to Huizinga, why do we call a play a "play"? Is Anna Deavere Smith's Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 a play?

What method does Smith use to create her characters and her drama? Is she a playwright? A journalist? Something else?

Twilight is an example of non-narrative drama. It does not tell a story in the traditional sense: a central protagonist working toward a well-defined goal against the obstructions of an antagonist, or a framework defined by an initial situation and disturbance, action rising to a climax, and the revelation of a changed situation. Or does it? And if it doesn't tell a story, is it simply a collection of interchangeable monologues by unrelated characters, or does it develop according to some other non-narrative principle?

If you were producing Twilight, how would you stage it? Who would you cast and how? What would the settings, costumes, and scene design look like? Would you use music, and if so, what? What kind of performance space would you choose?

Discussion Questions for Wednesday, September 15

What connections can you find between Huizinga's concept of "play" and Goffman's concept of "performance"? Do they overlap in significant ways? Or are they unrelated or even opposed concepts?

We saw Huizinga arguing that "play" and "serious" aren't opposites: that players take their play quite seriously, and that the most sacred and serious aspects of our lives also involve deep play. How does Goffman reconcile the seemingly opposite concepts of our authentic selves vs. the self we perform for others?

Goffman outlines a number of conceptual tools for analyzing the ways we present ourselves in everyday life as we "perform" for those around us. Discuss one or more of these analytical categories in relation to the question of how Anna Deavere Smith's subjects presented themselves to her when when she was interviewing them?

Discussion Questions for Friday, September 17

Consider Goffman's analysis of how we present ourselves to others in our everyday lives and relate this analysis to one or two characters in Twilight. How do the subjects of Smith's interviews present themselves to her (sincerely or cynically), and in what ways do they manipulate their "front," work to maintain expressive control over their performance, and/or take on pre-existing roles?

If you were in a production of Anna Deavere Smith's Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, how would you go about preparing your performance of your assigned role? What kind of research and study -- of historical events, of your character's social class or profession, of Smith's descriptions, of your character's way of speaking -- would you concentrate on to further your understanding of your character? And what techniques would you use to rehearse and then perform your re-enactment of that character's original performance in his or her interview(s) with Smith?

Discussion questions for Monday, September 22

For students comparing Goffman and Huzinga in relation to Smith:

Looking at how Anna Deavere Smith creates her performances and stages her play, would you say that Goffman's ideas on performance and Huizinga's ideas on play reinforce one another, contradict one another, complement one another, or have nothing to do with one another?

For students relating either Goffman or Huizinga to both Smith and YouTube re-enactments:

In terms of their approach to either play or performance, would you say that the kind of re-enactments that Smith does and the kind of re-enactments that people do on YouTube are basically identical, completely opposed, or intersect in some ways but not others?

Discussion questions for Wednesday, September 22

Rather than have me present you with a question, I'm going to give you the opportunity to ask one another anything you'd like - you will get equal credit for starting a question thread or responding to someone else's.

Discussion questions for Friday, September 24

Now that you've finished your essay, here's a chance to reflect on it. What do you think you learned from writing this essay: about play, about performance, about theater? (Or even about writing, revising, or planning?)

Discussion questions for Monday, September 27

In Lynn Riggs depiction of it, what kind of a place is Oklahoma in 1900, and what kind of people live there? How might this Oklahoma compare to the Oklahoma as people would have known it at the time of Green Grow the Lilacs writing, thirty years later? And why might the differences matter. Be sure to quote from the play in your response.

Using the theoretical tools you worked with in essay assignment that you turned in last Friday, what might you say about Green Grow the Lilacs? Be sure to quote from the play in your response.

What role does music play in Green Grow the Lilacs? Be specific, and be sure to quote from the play in your response.

Discussion questions for Wednesday, September 29 NOTE: Class in Helfaer Theater (see daily calendar for details)

What do you expect a standard theatrical/dramatic performance space to look like? Be as specific as possible. If you have ever seen a theatrical/dramatic performance in something other than a standard performance space, describe the differences and the impact that those differences had on the performance.

What would be the ideal performance space in which to stage Lynn Riggs's Green Grow the Lilacs?

Any space for staging a live theatrical/dramatic performance is obviously more limited than the nearly infinite locations available, shot-to-shot, to a filmmaker. But what advantages might be provided by those very limitations? (In other words, why would anyone ever choose to make a play rather than a movie, and not despite the limitations, but because of them?)

Discussion questions for Friday, October 4

NOTE: Each of these questions has previously appeared, in form or another, for another day's discussion questions. This is a chance to think comparatively about how what you are seeing in Lynn Riggs's Green Grow the Lilacs relates to what you saw earlier in Goffman, Huizinga, and/or Smith.

If you were producing Green Grow the Lilacs, how would you stage it? Who would you cast and how? What would the settings, costumes, and scene design look like? Would you use music, and if so, what? What kind of performance space would you choose?

If you were in a production of Green Grow the Lilacs, how would you go about preparing your performance of your assigned role? What kind of research and study -- of historical events, of your character's social class or profession, of Riggs's descriptions, of your character's way of speaking -- would you concentrate on to further your understanding of your character? And what techniques would you use to rehearse and then perform your character's lines, actions, or songs?

Using the theoretical tools derived from Goffman and/or Huizinga that you worked with in the first essay assignment, what might you say about Green Grow the Lilacs? How do Goffman and/or Huizinga's ideas relate to this play? Be sure to quote from the play in your response.

Discussion questions for Monday, October 4

What problem(s) does Mordecai Gorelik have with the common notion that the written playscript is the foundation of theatrical practice, and that the main job of stage production -- scenic design, costume, choreography, acting, directing, etc. -- "consists in transferring a story to the stage without 'hurting' it" (22)? Be sure to quote from New Theatres for Old in your answer.

Mordecai Gorelik begins his "Pictures and Platforms" chapter of New Theatres for Old by describing two very different types of stage productions. First, he shows us a familiar type of Broadway social problem play in which a run-down New York tenement is recreated (down to its mudstained curbs) through a stage set that is rich in its exact, accurate, and comprehensive detail. Then, just down the street, he shows us a performance of a traditional Chinese opera in which almost no attention is paid to the stage set, and in which make-up, costume, and props mean what they mean through accepted conventions rather than through illusion ("a fantastic richness unrelated to historic accuracy or reality" (49)). And he asks: "What becomes of our accepted beliefs about stage production as we watch this performance?" (50). Well? We're waiting?

Gorelik builds his argument around a key distinction between what he calls "illusory" and "conventional" approaches to the theater. Where, in these terms (be sure to define each, briefly), would you categorize the two plays we've looked at so far: Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 and Green Grow the Lilacs? (It might help to keep in mind, as Gorelik does, that "in practice it is not possible to sort out these two methods so easily" (56))?

Discussion questions for Wednesday, October 6

How close is Oklahoma! to Green Grow the Lilacs? Are there important differences in plot, characterization, style, or tone? Cite specific similarities or differences in your answer.

What role does music play in Oklahoma!? How is this role similar or dissimilar to the role it played in Green Grow the Lilacs? Cite specific songs or performances, if you can.

In Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's 1943 musical adaptation of Lynn Riggs's 1931 play Green Grow the Lilacs (and in director Fred Zinneman's 1955 film version), what kind of a place is the Indian Territory in 1900, and what kind of people live there? How might the way audiences would have thought about this place and its people changed between the time of its setting and the time of its viewing in 1931? 1943? 1955? Do you see any evidence of history's impact on this story in the differences between the Riggs version and the Rodgers/Hammerstein & Zinneman version?

Discussion questions for Friday, October 8

NOTE: Our reading and discussion of Power: A Living Newspaper has been pushed back to Monday, October 11, to give us more time today to discuss Oklahoma!

Compare the opening scenes of Green Grow the Lilacs and Oklahoma! in terms of things like setting and scenic design, when and how characters are introduced, the style of music and dialogue, etc. What differences do he differences make in terms of setting up our expectations, not only of plot and character, but especially of broader matters of tone, mood, and theatrical style?

What is the point of the "Egyptian smellin' salts"-inspired dream ballet thrown into the middle of Oklahoma! (something that has no real equivalent in Green Grow the Lilacs)? What is it trying to express? And does does it try to express it?

What aspects of Oklahoma! would lead you to describe it as expressionist? Are there any elements that might also suggest competing elements of either realism or anti-illusionism?

Discussion questions for Monday, October 11

In a history of the Federal Theatre Project of the New Deal 1930s, the authors Lorraine Brown and John O'Connor describe the popular Living Newspaper form as a type of play "that informed the audience of the size, nature, and origin of a social problem, and then called for specific action to solve it." How far would you say that this description holds true for Arthur Arent's Power: A Living Newspaper? How does this approach resemble or differ from that of other plays we've looked at so far?

The Federal Theatre Project was conceived, first and foremost, as a New Deal jobs program, a way to stimulate the economy and provide jobs for actors, musicians, carpenters, painters, etc. who had been hit hard by the Great Depression. The Living Newspaper plays, in specific, also employed journalists and other writers and researchers. What evidence do you see of this emphasis in Power? How, for example, does the style of the play seem to be impacted by the decision to devote the biggest share of the budget to wages rather than, say, sets? In your answer, be sure to point to specific scenes or moments in Power.

Among many theatrical techniques pioneered by the Living Newspaper form were two uniquely anti-illusionist character types: the offstage Voice of the Living Newspaper character who narrates and explains (in Power, this character is known as the Loudspeaker) and the onstage Little Man character - in some plays, actually planted in the audience - who struggles to understand the issue at hand (in Power, the character is known as the Consumer, Angus K. Buttonkooper). What do you see as the function(s) of such characters in this kind of play, or in Power specifically? Be sure to quote from the play in your answer.

Discussion questions for Wednesday, October 13

Describe a particular scene or moment of Power that would fit the definition of anti-illusionist style. In what ways does the scene break with the conventions of realist drama, and to what effect? (It might help to review my presentation on theatrical styles, available under the content section of the course D2L page.)

In the essay from the New Deal Network materials on Power, "Electricity in the Limelight: The Federal Theatre Project Takes on the Power Industry" (at http://newdeal.feri.org/power/essay01.htm), the claim is made that the "Living Newspapers were not interested in creating psychological portraits but, rather, meant to examine Americans in their social roles." Does this seem true of Power? Explain, using specific examples.

What kind of truth is Power after, if not the anthropological truths of realism or the pyschological truths of expressionism? Cite specific examples and scenes from the play in support of your answer.

Discussion questions for Friday, October 15

In her introduction to a contemporary collection of plays produced for the Federal Theatre Project, project director Hallie Flanagan described the Living Newspaper style as "flexible technique and only in its beginning," a style that "still has much to learn from the [Broadway revue] chorus, the camera, the cartoon. Although it has occasional reference to the [the European art theater of] Volksbuhne and the Blue Blouses, to Bragaglia and Meierhold and Eisenstein, it is as American as Walt Disney, the March of Time [newsreels] and the Congressional Record, to all of which American institutions it is indebted." What evidence do you see that the theatrical style of Power: A Living Newspaper has been influenced by American popular media forms like the movies, comic strips, political cartoons, animated cartoons, jazz, vaudeville, or radio drama?

Each of the plays we've read so far - Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992; Green Grow the Lilacs; Oklahoma!; and Power: A Living Newspaper - is a specific product of the time and place for which it was written and produced. But are some more specific than others? List these 4 plays in order of most likely to least likely to be revived in 2010 as a play that would make sense for our time. Explain your reasoning. How much of it has to do with the content of the play, and how much of it has to do with the style? And for the play that you ranked as least likely, can you imagine a context in which a new production of would make sense?

The Library of Congress, as part of their amazing online American Memory collection, has made available the complete production notes for Power, as directed by Brett Warren at the Ritz Theatre in New York, February-August 1937. This is a valuable primary source. I've asked you to poke around in this at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fedtp/ftpwr1.html and to find, print, and bring at least one page that you find interesting. So what did you find? And why is it interesting?

Discussion questions for Monday, October 18

These are all designed to help you think about how you are rewriting your scene for the second essay project.

The Scene Why did you choose the scene that you chose to rewrite? What function do you think this scene, as originally written, has in the play of which it is a part (in other words, what is the point of the scene)? Would it serve the same function in your rewriting (will it make the same point)? If so, how? If not, how not?

Staging How did you go about coming up with a new way to stage your scene? To what degree were your decisions shaped by practical concerns (i.e., did you think in terms of budget, actual performance spaces, actors, etc., or not)? Is there a pattern to the decisions you have made about costume, set, or props? Casting or acting? Music or other kinds of sound? How to use the theatrical space?

Approach Is your scene as originally written best described as realist, expressionist, or anti-illusionist? Does it have elements of a second or even third style? Is your scene as you've rewritten it best described as realist, expressionist, or anti-illusionist? Does it have elements of a second or even third style? What, overall, are you hoping to accomplish in changing the style in terms of artistic effect or impacting an audience?

Discussion question for: Wednesday, October 20 Friday, October 22 OR Monday, October 25

PEER REVIEW (rescheduled from Wednesday, October 20 to Monday, October 25)

Rather than have me present you with a question, I'm going to give you the opportunity to ask one another anything you'd like - you will get equal credit for starting a question thread or responding to someone else's.

Discussion question for Wednesday, October 27

Now that you've finished your project, here's a chance to reflect on it. What do you think you learned from writing this essay: about how form relates to content, style to meaning, how a scene is put together (Or even about writing, revising, or planning?)

Discussion questions for Friday, October 29

Would you describe Theodore Ward's Big White Fog as a) realist, b) expressionist, c) anti-illusionist, d) none of the above, or e) all of the above. Explain why, pointing to specific lines of dialogue or stage directions from the play.

In his program note for a 1980 staged reading of Big White Fog (reprinted in our book, pp. xiv-xv) Ward named the "big white fog" in question as the "pack of lies" in which he suddenly felt engulfed as a young man riding as a hobo on a train going through the Rocky Mountains, the thought coming to him as he joyfully sings "American the Beautiful" that the "purple mountains majesty" and "fruited plains" didn't fully belong to him the way they belonged to others. What "pack of lies" is he talking about? The wonders described in "America the Beautiful"? Or the despairing things he tells himself after crawling back into the darkened corner of the boxcar, "convinced that my life would be that of a 'floater', sans hope, sans purpose"?

Given Theodore Ward's clear interest in the politics of the present -- for example, the hopes he expresses in his 1940 essay "Our Conception of Theatre and its Function" (excerpted in our book, pp. xi-xii) for a theater "that boldly and honestly deals with the major problems of the world" and for a theater "at the core of which is the living community finding some vital part of itself reflected in the creations of dramatist and actor" -- why do you suppose that in Big White Fog he has written a play about a period 10 and 20 years in the past? How would you compare his possible motivations to those of Lynn Riggs (or Rodgers & Hammerstein) who similarly set Green Grow the Lilacs (and Oklahoma!) in a world that no longer existed?

Discussion questions for Monday, November 1

Since this question only had one taker on Friday, I'll ask it again. In his program note for a 1980 staged reading of Big White Fog (reprinted in our book, pp. xiv-xv) Theodore Ward named the "big white fog" in question as the "pack of lies" in which he suddenly felt engulfed as a young man riding as a hobo on a train going through the Rocky Mountains, the thought coming to him as he joyfully sings "American the Beautiful" that the "purple mountains majesty" and "fruited plains" didn't fully belong to him the way they belonged to others. What "pack of lies" is he talking about? And is the "big white fog" here the same as the "big white fog" that he has his character, Les, talk about on p. 30 and again on p. 93 of the play?

The main characters of Big White Fog first appear in the following order.

Ella & Juanita on p. 3 (the first page of the play). Caroline & Phillip (the small children) and Martha (Ella's mother) on p. 6 Les (son) on p. 8 and Wanda (daughter) on p. 9 Victor (father) on p. 14, Percy (his brother) on p. 16, and Dan (his brother-in-law) on p.18

This is not the order in which the characters are listed - presumably in order of importance - on p. 2. Why do you think the characters are introduced in the order they are? What effect does the order of their appearance have on our first impressions of the play and on how those impressions develop? In particular, what is the effect of introduce the play's main character, Victor Mason, so late in the game?

What is the purpose of the 10-year gap between Acts II & III? What kind of work are we, as an audience, asked to do in filling it? How do the details of setting and the first appearance of characters in this Act help us fill in the gap? Quote from the play in your answer.

Discussion questions for Wednesday, November 3

In his ranking of the six most important elements of Tragedy, Aristotle puts spectacle dead last (after plot, character, thought, diction, and song). What he means by "spectacle" is what we might call stagecraft -- the means by which action is made visible on stage -- and is what you just spent your last essay project thinking about. While Aristotle concedes that spectacle has "an emotional attraction," he seems to regard it as a kind of selling out, a sop to the masses, arguing that "of all the parts, it is the least artistic, and connected least with the art of poetry" (13). What would scenic designer Mordecai Gorelik think of this low ranking and this critique of stagecraft? What would you think? Are these fightin' words? Or does Aristotle have a point?

According to Aristotle, the best drama exhibits a unity of time, place, action, and structure. But, pointedly, that unity does not, "as some persons think, consist in the unity of the hero" (16). Indeed, Aristotle seems to see a drama's characters as simply a vehicle for the action, not themselves the point of the action. He writes: "For Tragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of an action and of life, and life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a quality.[...] Dramatic action, therefore, is not with a view to the representation of character: character comes in as subsidiary to the actions.[...] Again, without action there cannot be a tragedy; there may be without character" (12). What would playwrights Lynn Riggs or Anna Deavere Smith think of Aristotle's lack of interest in character for its own sake? What would you think? Are these fightin' words? Or does Aristotle have a point?

As is noted on the back cover blurb of your copy of Aristotle's Poetics, "catharsis" is one of this essay's most influential concepts: as the blurb describes it, "the depiction of a heroic action that arouses pity and fear in the spectators and brings about a catharsis of those emotions" -- or, in Aristotle's own words, "through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions" (10). I can't explain the idea behind catharsis; but perhaps you can. How might this process work: how would spectators "purge" such emotions through seeing them evoked on a stage? And why would we want them to?