Modern Theories of Drama A Selection of Writings on Drama and Theatre, 1850-1990

by Brandt, George W.

• ISBN13: 9780198711407
• ISBN10: 0198711409
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-02-18
• Publisher: Clarendon Press

Summary

This anthology concentrates on the developments in dramatic theory over the last 150 years, examining its striking instability, the new concepts which have arisen in this century, and the seemingly outdated ones which have been resurected. Including excerpts from a number of significant figures from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this book also makes available new and highly accurate translations of some of the better-known pieces from such writers as Emile Zola, Richard Wagner, and Yvan Goll. The anthology is accompanied by an extremely full bibliography of relevant works in English.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	ix	(4)
Introduction	xiii
PART I General Theory	3	(68)
The Work of Art of the Future (1849)	3	(9)
Richard Wagner
The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations (1895)	12	(7)
Georges Polti
The Law of the Drama (1894)	19	(6)
Ferdinand Brunetiere
The Comic in Situations (1900)	25	(10)
Henri Bergson
Melodrama (1966)	35	(7)
Eric Bentley
For a Theatre of Situations (1947)	42	(3)
Jean-Paul Sartre
Theatre Problems (1954-5)	45	(10)
Friedrich Durrenmatt
Theatre without a Conscience (1990)	55	(7)
Howard Barker
Are There Universals of Performance in Myth, Ritual, and Drama? (1989)	62	(9)
Victor Turner
PART II Varieties of Realism	71	(44)
The Relationship of Dramatic Art to its Age and Allied Matters: The Preface of Mary Magdalene (1844)	71	(9)
Friedrich Hebbel
Naturalism (1881)	80	(9)
Emile Zola
Author's Preface to Miss Julie (1888)	89	(10)
August Strindberg
Against the Well-Made Play (1911)	99	(7)
George Bernard Shaw
Death of a Salesman: A Modern Tragedy? (1958)	106	(9)
Arthur Miller
PART III. Anti-Naturalism	115	(102)
The Tragical in Daily Life (1894)	115	(7)
Maurice Maeterlinck
The Theatre (1899)	122	(4)
William Butler Yeats
Certain Noble Plays of Japan (1917)	126	(6)
William Butler Yeats
On the Theatre: The Fairground Booth (1913)	132	(6)
Vsevolod Emilievich Meyerhold
On the Art of the Theatre: The First Dialogue (1905)	138	(7)
Edward Gordon Craig
Organic Unity (1921)	145	(8)
Adolphe Appia
Memoranda on Masks (1932)	153	(3)
Eugene O'Neill
A Dramatist's Notebook (1933)	156	(2)
Eugene O'Neill
Author's Note to A Dream Play (1901)	158	(2)
August Strindberg
On the Futility of the `Theatrical' in the Theatre (1896)	160	(5)
Alfred Jarry
Preface and Prologue to The Breasts of Tiresias (1903)	165	(6)
Guillaume Apollinaire
Preface to The Immortals (1920)	171	(3)
Yvan Goll
Preface to Methusalem, the Eternal Bourgeois (1922)	174	(2)
Yvan Goll
The Futurist Synthetic Theatre (1915)	176	(6)
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
On a New Type of Play (1920)	182	(6)
Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz
The Theatre of Cruelty: First Manifesto (1932)	188	(7)
Antonin Artaud
An End to Masterpieces (1933)	195	(5)
Antonin Artaud
The Theatre's New Testament (1964)	200	(5)
Jerzy Grotowski
The Holy Theatre: Happenings (1968)	205	(3)
Peter Brook
The London Controversy: Tynan v. Ionesco (1958)	208	(9)
PART IV. Political Theatre	217	(52)
Letter to a Creative Collaborator (1922)	217	(3)
Ernst Toller
The Programme of the Proletarian Theatre (1920)	220	(4)
Erwin Piscator
The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre: Notes to the Opera Rise and Fall of the Town of Mahagonny (1930)	224	(8)
Bertolt Brecht
A Short Organum for the Theatre (1948)	232	(15)
Bertolt Brecht
The Material and the Models: Notes Towards a Definition of Documentary Theatre (1968)	247	(7)
Peter Weiss
Poetics of the Oppressed (1974)	254	(7)
Augusto Boal
Political Dynamics: The Feminisms (1986)	261	(8)
Michelene Wandor
PART V. Semiotics	269	(48)
Dynamics of the Sign in the Theatre (1940)	269	(10)
Jindrich Honzl
Semiotics of Theatrical Performance (1977)	279	(9)
Umberto Eco
Psychic Polyphony (1986)	288	(11)
Marvin Carlson
The Signs of Stage and Screen (1987)	299	(8)
Martin Esslin
Avant-Garde Theatre and Semiology: A Few Practices and the Theory Behind Them (1982)	307	(10)
Patrice Pavis
Select Bibliography	317	(12)
Index	329