World Dramas

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• the concept of drama as a composite and collaborative art form; a sense of a play-text as a blueprint for performance, a starting point for directors, actors, and designers

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Analyse plays for their visual, aural, performative and literary elements
• Evaluate how visual and aural components of performance combine to speak to their audiences and create emotional and cognitive impact
• Evaluate the efficacy of key theories and critical methods pertinent to analysis of dramatic texts

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• research a topic or issue independently
• construct a reasoned, well written argument based on research and analysis of text
• write in a range of registers appropriate for different purposes and readerships

This module seeks to show how the disciplines of performance studies, music, literature, theatre history and visual culture can all help us understand why theatre not only survives, but continues to thrive in the twenty-first century, both in the UK and the US and beyond. It introduces key methods of analysis of play texts and performances, encouraging you to think critically about the status of dramatic texts as literature and as scripts, i.e. parts of larger, composite works of art. At the end of the module you should have a broad understanding of the techniques of analysis appropriate for theatre, both on page and on stage.

Looking at a wide range of texts including, but not limited to, translations of ancient Greek drama, Shakespeare, Barker, Brecht, Beckett, and "world dramas" of the twenty first century, the module will explore a number of key dramatic concepts, each examined with reference to a particular play. These include: narrative; dramaturgy; character; mise en scène; visual structure; and sound and music. We will be asking how plays narrate or ‘tell’ stories, and how they achieve their emotional and cognitive effects. Aspects of theatre history, performance theory, and critical practice will be threaded through our work. Wherever possible the module will encourage you to explore drama first hand, most readily through plays put on by the Southampton theatres or put on locally, and there may be the opportunities for other, optional visits to the theatre in Stratford or London.

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include

• lectures
• seminars
• learning support hours
• Theatre visits: where participation in such a trip is a requirement for completion of the module, and in the event that you have an issue such as a disability or illness that may prevent you from attending, you should consult the Module Convenor. Wherever reasonably possible, efforts will be made to accommodate you on the trip, or to provide a suitable alternative study activity in substitute for the trip.
• Individual consultations

Learning activities include

• Independent study, including reading, viewing and researching
• Group blogging on blackboard
• Peer appraisal of writing
• Writing in different registers for different purposes

This module includes a Learning Support Hour. This is a flexible weekly contact hour, designed to support and respond to the particular cohort taking the module from year to year. This hour may include (but need not be limited to) activities such as language, theory and research skills classes; group work supervisions; assignment preparation and essay writing guidance; assignment consultations; feedback and feed-forward sessions.

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

Jonathan Culpeper, Mick Short, Peter Verdonk (eds.) (1998). Exploring the Language of drama: From Text to Context. Routledge.

Peter Meineck (2018). Theatrocracy. Routledge.

Paul Woodruff (2008). The Necessity of Theater. OUP.

Maria Delgado and Paul Heritage (1996). In Contact with the Gods? Directors Talk Theatre. Manchester University Press.

Bruce R. Smith (1999). The Acoustic World of Early Modern England. University of Chicago Press.

Susan Bennett (1990). Theatre Audiences, A Theory of production and Reception. Routledge.

Dennis Kennedy (1993). Shakespeare: a Visual History of Twentieth-Century Performance. CUP.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External