Theater and Gender
Theater and Class Conflict
Theater and Race or Ethnic Culture
The Activist or Political Theater
Images of Religious Culture
Theater and the American Character
Performing Ritual
Alternative Performance
The Playwright and the Historical Event
Theater and Community
The (Social) Uses of Comedy
Images of Sexuality

Theater and Gender

Antigone (Sophocles)
Medea (Euripides)
Lysistrata (Aristophanes)
Fuente Ovejuna (Lope)
Tartuffe (Molire)
A Doll's House (Ibsen)
Miss Julie (Strindberg)
Gypsy (Laurents/Sondheim/Styne)

Compare, for instance, the role or objectification of women and the transgressive sexuality of Fuente Ovejuna and The Conduct of Life.

Trifles (Glaspell)
Votes for Women (Robins)
Machinal (Treadwell)
The Mother of Us All (Stein)
Funnyhouse of a Negro (Kennedy)
Top Girls (Churchill)
The Conduct of Life (Fornes)
In the Blood (Parks)

Compare, for instance, the depiction of female characters by an early female playwright Aphra Behn in The Rover and by late twentieth-century female playwrights.

Hamlet (Shakespeare)
Fuente Ovejuna (Lope)
El Cid (Corneille)
The Importance of Being Earnest (Wilde)
Death of a Salesman (Miller)
True West (Shepard)
Glengarry Glen Ross (Mamet)
The Conduct of Life (Fornes)
Angels in America, Part I (Kushner)

Compare, for instance, the ways that socioeconomic status determines masculinity in Hamlet, Death of a Salesman, and Glengarry Glen Ross.

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Theater and Class Conflict

How does class determine the conflicts of, for instance, Fuente Ovejuna, Major Barbara, and The Good Woman of Setzuan?

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Theater and Race or Ethnic Culture

What is the difference between hegemonic representation (O'Neill's The Empower Jones) and counter-hegemonic representation (Parks' In the Blood)?

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The Activist or Political Theater

By what means do political plays "reach" their audience? How are Lysistrata, The Good Woman of Setzuan, and We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay! different in this regard? How are they similar?

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Images of Religious Culture

Compare, for instance, the depiction of religious practices in Tartuffe and Angels in America, Part I, each of which drew criticism from religious and political powers.

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Theater and the American Character

Critics have suggested that plays like Death of a Salesman, True West, and Angels in America have endeavored to encapsulate the American character. What kind(s) of America do Miller, Shepard, and Kushner portray?

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Performing Ritual

How are Dojoji and Purgatory both Noh plays? How do Soyinka, Yeats, and the anonymous writers employ religious or cultural ritual to make theater?

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Alternative Performance

My Brazil (Rosenthal)
Krapp's Last Tape (Beckett)
Fires in the Mirror (Deavere Smith)

2. Multiple Voices

"The Insane Asylum" (anon.)
Terminal (Yankowitz/Chaikin)
Fires in the Mirror (Deavere Smith)

How are these pieces "plays"? In what ways do multiple perspectives (or, alternately, solo performers) affect the ways an audience might understand theater?

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The Playwright and the Historical Event

What utility has the dramatization of historical events for Lope de Vega or Anna Deavere Smith? Why do playwrights like Caryl Churchill and Tony Kushner employ characters based on historical figures?

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Theater and Community

Compare, for instance, The Cherry Orchard and Fires in the Mirror. How are they expressions of the dynamics of community? How do plays that focus on colonialism (Yeats' Purgatory or Walcott's Pantomime) explore the negative potential of community?

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The (Social) Uses of Comedy

Molire wrote comedies as "social correctives." How is the substance of comedy useful for social comment in plays like Tartuffe and We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay!?

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Images of Sexuality

Compare, for instance, the differing representations of homosexuality in Suddenly Last Summer and Angels in America.

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