Great Drama on Video
California State University, Sacramento
SYLLABUS
Course Description
190V: Great Drama on Video: Technology has made the world's greatest plays and performances available to everyone.This course will use videos of classic dramatic performances readily available at commercial retail outlets like Blockbuster, Hollywood Video and Tower; occasionally a play must be viewed on campus in the library.
Written texts of the plays are available in most libraries and many bookstores and of course at amazon.com.
Prerequisites: Passing score on the Writing Proficiency Exam (WPE).
Successful Student Characteristics
Students must possess (1) the discipline to view videos and complete E-Mail assignments by deadlines; (2) the desire to see plays which are more demanding than basic entertainment; and (3) the motivation to improve in analytical writing since this is approved for Advanced Study.
- Students will understand "drama" as a literary form .
- Students will know how the illusion of dramatic "realism" differs from other kinds of theatrical illusion.
- Students will understand the differences between tragedy and comedy, both classical and modern.
- Students will gain an appreciation of drama as an art form.
- Students will improve their writing through their written responses as well as through several formal papers.
- Students will improve their abilities to critique literature analytically.
A) View the following Videos:
A Raisin in the Sun (Poitier or Glover)
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Taylor/Burton)
Hamlet (Gibson or Branaugh)
A Streetcar Named Desire (Brando/Leigh)
Death of a Salesman (Hoffman or Cobb)A Midsummer Night's Dream (Flockart)
Cyrano (Depardieu or Ferrer)
Pygmalion (Howard/Hiller)Glass Menagerie (Woodward, Malkovich)
Master Harold and the Boys (Boderick)
B) Write Responses to each video from a list of Questions specifically designed as a study guile for each play -- These guides are called NOTES. Each student responds to a different question. Responses should be the equivalent of 1 page, typed and single-spaced.
C) Questions: As you view each play questions will arise concerning plot, character, theme, structure, historical background, etc. Jot these down as you view. Select one of these questions to post with your response. This will encourage others in the class to engage in a dialog online.
D) Write 4 Papers, 2 - 3 pages each, double - spaced, reasonable margins and font. Each paper must be 2 pages and no more than 3. This course has four units. There are 2 - 3 plays per unit. You will write on any one play in each unit. Select paper topics from list of Directed NOTES. See calendar for due dates.
E) Web Search. If this class were meeting in real time, I would lecture on the background of the play, the author's life, production history , adaptations, etc. etc. But with the advent of the Inter-net, all this is available on various sites. For each play spend at least 1/2 hour finding provocative and engaging information about the play you've just seen. At the end of each unit, you will write a one page summary of what you learned from ONE Web-site for ONE play in each unit. There are 4 papers and thus 4 Web-site reports. The Web report does not have to correspond to the play you write your paper on.
Grading percentages are as follows:
Responses and Questions: 25%Web-site Reports 25%
Papers 25%
Partcipation in online discussion 25%
No Exams
Class Meetings in Real Time
We will meet the first week of class and then on March 4, April 1 and May 6.
The first week in real time will be devoted to understanding the technology. The other 3 meetings are writing workshops. The last meeting will also include a class evaluation
CRITERIA FOR PAPER EVALUATIONCRITERIA FOR RESPONSE EVALUATION
There are no text for this class, just videos, as well as what is discovered on the Web. Since not all the videos will be available at every Blockbuster or Hollywood, consider purchasing one or two to avoid a last minute drive all over town. Do this the first week and this class will be hassle free.
Course Unit 1A Way of assessing theatrical Illusion .The first two videos (A Raisin in the Sun and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) can both be labelled Domestic Realism. Both Raisin and Woolf? recreate the REALISTIC illusion that we are actually watching real people in a real room in real time. In both plays the time is progressive; there are no fashbacks. In Woolf? all the action is confined to one night, thereby satisfying Aristotle's UNITIES.
Course Unit 2Tragedy. In this unit we will see three of the greatest tragedies ever written: One from Shakespeare -- Hamlet -- and two from the modern American stage -- A Streetcar Named Desire and Death of a Salesman. Hamlet presents a "classic" tragic hero -- one high-born and fatefully flawed. In Streetcar and Salesman, Williams and Miller adapt the classical model for the modern stage.
Course Unit 3Comedy: The second basic dramatic genre. The comic mode includes lots of laughs, but its real concern is with the renewal of the self in a social context At the end of a comedy both the individual and the community are morally improved. The recent video of Shakespeare's immortal A Misummer Night's Dream presents a texbook example of all a comedy should be and more! Cyrano de Bergerac from the France of the Three Musketeers is comic as well as slightly tragic and Pygmalion by G.B.Shaw -- the source for the great musical My Fair Lady -- ends is a way that both delights and frustrates.
Course Unit 4Director's Choice. The two plays in this last unit will vary from term to term. Usually there's an old chestnut along with a new version of a great classic.
DEPARTMENT / CSUS
Page updated: Jan 7, 2002