Preface. I. THE THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THEATER.
1. Stories, Rituals, and Theater: A Foundation for the Theatrical Arts. The Theatrical Impulse.
The Story Teller.
The Barong or Trance Dance of Bali.
Forum:
The Theatre as It Was and as It Is by Robert Edmund Jones.
A Broadway Musical.
Rituals Versus Theater.
An Autumnal Ritual in America.
Forum:
Acting in Everyday Life and Everyday Life in Acting by Victor Turner.
The Origins of Theater.
Common Ground for Uncommon Cultures.
Center Stage: The Abydos Passion Play.
Reading a Play.
Anonymous,
Master Pierre Pathelin.
2. From Theater to Drama. The Dramatic Impulse.
The Poetics of Aristotle.
Forum: from
The Poetics by Aristotle.
The Elements of Drama.
Forum:
General Considerations of Theatrical Entertainment in China by Tao Ching Hsu.
The Principal Genres of Drama.
Spotlight: Melodrama and Farce
Forum:
The Mythos of Spring: Comedy by Northrup Frye.
Styles and Conventions.
3. From the Page to the Stage: Theater Artists at Work. Choices.
The Actor.
Forum:
When Writing Is Art by Constantin Stanislavsky.
The Playwright.
Forum:
Some Thoughts on Playwriting by Thornton Wilder.
The Director.
Forum: Julie Taymor on Directing
The Lion King.
The Designers.
Forum:
Designing a Play: Death of A Salesman by Jo Mielziner.
The Critic.
II. AN ANTHOLOGY OF THE WORLD'S DRAMA.
4. The Theater of Greece and Rome Greece. Greece.
The Origins of the Theater in Greece.
Spotlight: The Hellenistic Theater.
The Greek Mind.
Playwrights and Acting.
Spotlight: The Conventions of Greek Theater.
Aeshylus,
Prometheus Bound.
Sophocles,
Oedipus the King.
Spotlight: The Curse on the House of Thebes.
Center Stage: The First Performance of Oedipus the King.
Center Stage: Oedipus the King at the Teatro Olympico, 1585.
Forums:
Ode to Oedipus by Tyrone Guthrie.
Guthrie Directs 'Ritual' Performance of Oedipus Rex at Edinburgh Fete by Patrick Gibbs.
Euripides,
Medea.
Aristophanes,
Lysistrata.
Spotlight: Greek Old Comedy.
Rome.
The Development of Roman Theater.
Playwrights and Popular Entertainments.
Theaters and Acting.
The Fall of Rome.
Terence,
Brothers.
Forum:
The Art of Poetry (Ars Poetica) by Horace.
5. The Theater of India, China, and Japan.India.
The Origins of Indian Drama.
Forum: from
The Natyasastra by Bharata.
The Types of Indian Drama.
The Conventions of Classical Indian Theater.
Dance and Folk Drama in India.
The Modern Theater of India.
Kalidasa,
The Recognition of Sakuntala.
Rabindranath Tagore, The Post Office.
Forum:
The Formal Characteristics of [Indian] Folk Theatre by Jacob Srampickal.
China.
The History of Chinese Theatre.
Center Stage: A Night at the Chinese Opera: The Hua-Gu Opera of Hunan.
The Conventions of Chinese Theater.
Ma Chih-yuan,
Autumn in the Palace of Han.
Anonymous,
The Qing Ding Pearl.
Forum:
The World of Chinese Drama by Tao-Ching Hsu.
Japan.
The Noh Theater.
Forum:
Style and the Flower from
The Kadensho by Zeami.
Forum:
House and Family [Suzuki on the Noh Theater] by Tadashi Suzuki.
The Kabuki Theater.
The Contemporary Japanese Theater: Shingeki.
Zeami,
Komachi at Sekidira.
Center Stage: The Tanabata Festival of Japan.
Namiki Gohei III,
Kanjincho.
Kobo Abe,
The Man Who Turned into a Stick.
6. The Early Modern Theater.The Middle Ages.
Rites and Folk Drama.
Religious Drama.
Performance Conventions.
Anonymous,
The Brome Play of Abraham and Isaac .
Three Morality Plays.
Anonymous,
Everyman.
Anonymous,
Mankind.
Anonymous,
The Apple Tree.
The European Renaissance.
The Renaissance Mind.
Center Stage: The Commedia dell'arte.
Center Stage: Native American Performance.
The Need for Order.
Center Stage: The Masque.
Hierarchies On Stage and Off.
The Role of Tragedy.
Playhouses and Scenery.
Acting.
Playwriting: The Neoclassicists Versus The Romantics.
England.
William Shakespeare,
A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Spotlight: Making Shakespeare's Language User-Friendly.
Center Stage: The Midsummer Festivals of Europe.
Center Stage:
A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Globe Theatre.
Forum [Four Reviews]:
A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1853.
A Review of
A Midsummer Nights's Dream by Robert Speight.
Moonbeams and Menaces by William A. Henry III.
Shakespeare as Carnival in Amazonean 'Dream'by Mel Gussow.
William Shakespeare,
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
Spotlight: Shakespeare's Two Theaters.
Spain and the Americas.
Pedro Calderon de la Barca,
Life's a Dream.
Spotlight: The Spanish Theater: The Corrales.
Center Stage: Theater in Mesoamerica.
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz,
The Divine Narcissus.
Center Stage: The Yaqui Easter of the Southwest United States.
France.
Moliere
Tartuffe.
Center Stage: The French Theater.
Center Stage: The (Third) Opening Night of
Tartuffe.
Tartuffe at the Theater du Soleil, 1995.
Spotlight: The Secret Life of a Con Man: Antony Sher on Playing
Tartuffe (An Interview by Francesca Simon).
The Late Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.
Spotlight: The Comedy of Manners.
The Conventions of the Restoration Theater.
Sentimental Comedy.
Forum:
A Comparison Between Sentimental and Laughing Comedy by Oliver Goldsmith.
Laughing Comedy.
Bourgeois Tragedy.
Forum:
Dedication to The London Merchant by George Lillo.
Aphra Behn,
The Rover.
Oliver Goldsmith,
She Stoops to Conquer.
7. The Modern Theater.Romanticism.
The Melodrama.
The Romantic Revolution and
Hernani.
Victor Hugo,
Hernani.
George Aikin (adapted from the novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe),
Uncle Tom's Cabin).
Spotlight: The Minstrel Show.
Forum: A Critique of
Uncle Tom's Cabinby James Gordon Bennet.
'Prologue' to
The World's Greatest Hit by Harry Birdoff.
Realism and Naturalism.
The Well-Made Play.
Influences on Realism.
The Problem Play.
The Rise of the Director.
Forum:
The Sociology of Modern Drama by George Lukacs.
Naturalism.
The Fathers of Realism: Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov.
Intimate Theaters.
The Second Generation of Realists.
Social Drama in Asia and Latin America.
Forum:
The Theatre of Revolt by Robert Brustein.
Henrik Ibsen,
A Doll's House.
Henrik Ibsen,
Hedda Gabler.
August Strindberg,
Miss Julie.
Anton Chekhov,
The Cherry Orchard.
John Millington Synge,
Riders to the Sea.
Center Stage: The Dingle Boys of Kerry.
Oscar Wilder,
The Importance of Being Earnest.
[George] Bernard Shaw,
Major Barbara.
Susan Glaspell,
Trifles.
Tennessee Williams,
The Glass Menagerie.
Forum:
Production Notes by Tennessee Williams.
Expressionism.
The Epic Theater.
Eugene O'Neill,
The Hairy Ape.
Spotlight: Theater in the Industrial Age.
Bertolt Brecht,
The Good Woman of Setzuan.
Forum:
Alienation Effects in Chinese Acting by Bertolt Brecht.
Arthur Miller,
Death of a Salesman.
Forum:
Tragedy and the Common Man by Arthur Miller.
Forums [Three Reviews]: Death of a Salesman: Powerful Tragedy by William Hawkins.
Even as You and I by John Mason Brown.
Willy Loman Gets China Territory by Christopher Wren.
Absurdism.
Spotlight:
Waiting for Godot: The Modern Masterpiece.
Edward Albee,
The American Dream.
Forum:
The Significance of the Absurd by Martin Esslin.
Samuel Beckett,
Rockaby.
Osvaldo Dragun,
The Man Who Turned into a Dog.
Spotlight: Popular Theater in Latin America.
8. The Theater of Africa and the African Diaspora.Africa.
The Roots of African Theater.
Post-Colonial Drama in Africa.
The Conventions of African Theater.
Percy Mtwa, Mbongeni Ngema, Barney Simon,
WOZA ALBERT!.
Center Stage: South African Township Theater.
Athol Fugard,
MASTER HAROLD... and the boys. Spotlight: South Africa's Market Theater and the Independent Theater. Phenomenon.
Wole Soyinka,
Death and the King's Horseman.
Center Stage: Yoruban Obatala Festival in Ede, Nigeria, West Africa.
Forum:
The Fourth Stage: Through the Mysteries of Ogun to the Origin Of Yoruba Tragedy by Wole Soyinka.
African-American Theater.
Lorraine Hansberry,
A Raisin in the Sun.
George C. Wolfe,
The Last Mama-on-the-Couch Play from
The Colored Museum.
Amiri Baraka (Everett LeRoi Jones),
My Slave Ship.
Forum:
The Revolutionary Theatre by Amiri Baraka.
August Wilson,
Fences.
The Caribbean.
Cuba.
Puerto Rico.
Haiti and Jamaica.
Trinidad-Tobago.
Derek Walcott,
Ti-Jean and His Brothers.
Center Stage: The Trinidad Carnival.
9. The Contemporary Theater.
Influences on Contemporary Thought.
Postmodernism and the Theater.
Artaud and the Theater of Cruelty.
Theater Collectives and Alternative Theater.
Contemporary Playwriting.
Acting in Contemporary Plays.
Contemporary Dramatic Criticism: Deconstructionism and Others.
The Contemporary Western World.
Luigi Pirandello,
Six Characters in Search of an Author.
Elena Garro,
A Solid Home.
Center Stage: Dia de los Muertos in Mexico.
Luis Valdez,
No saco nada de la escuela.
Forum: from
Theatre of the Oppressed by Augusto Boal.
Egon Wolff,
Paper Flowers.
Forum:
The Popular Theatre: Historical and Ideological Considerations by Domingo Piga T.
Heiner Muller,
Medeaplay.
Forum: from
The Theatre of Images by Bonnie Marranca.
Sam Shepard,
Buried Child.
David Henry Hwang,
The Dance and the Railroad.
Caryl Churchill,
Top Girls.
Sue Townsend,
The Great Celestial Cow.
Harold Pinter,
One for the Road.
Maria Irene Fornes,
Mud.
Forum: from
Acting Out: Feminist Performances by Linda Hart and Peggy Phelan.
Griselda Gambaro,
Personal Effects.
Tony Kushner,
Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches.
Anna Deavere Smith,
Twilight, Los Angeles, 1992.
Forum:
The Boys Don't Count: Or Why Won't Shakespeare Put His Men in Dresses? by Lynn M. Thompson.
Appendix A: The Student as Critic.
The Production Review.
Critical Essays.
A Few Technical Notes.
General Questions About a Play and Its Performance.
A Sample Outline for a Critical Essay on
Ti-Jean and His Brothers.
Appendix B: Glossary of Terms.Appendix C: Bibliography.Text Credits.Photo Credits.Index.
