9/5 Questions for EN 190/190 HM

[The picture above is of a rehearsal of Theatre of Blood.  Here Michael Simkins considers the new practice of opening rehearsals to audiences:  http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2008/jan/17/rehearsalsareforactorsnot ]

Good evening :)

I hope that everyone enjoyed Christopher Goodrich's visit--including and especially the exercise at the end of class!  He mentioned to me how much he enjoyed meeting and working with you.  

On Tuesday we will be meeting in front of the library on the first floor of Macklin Tower.  We will be going to MT 205 to attend librarian Abi Sogunro's presentation on research in literature.  It is so important to know what is and what isn't a good source for our upcoming paper.  Moreover, research in literature is a little different from research in EN 102, so it's essential to attend Ms. Sogunro's presentation even if you have been to the library before.

Then, on Thursday, we will finish up Trifles and begin Fences (959-1019).  I will also discuss our upcoming assignment a little more.  Since I have been reading a number of your journal entries, I am confident in your ability to handle the extended response.

To finish up this email, here are a few questions for your journal.

-- How did today's class help you understand Trifles better?  How did it help you understand the theater better?

-- How did Mr. Goodrich's emphasis on plot help you understand Trifles better?  How did it help you understand drama?  the theater?

-- Using the terminology for plot that he mentioned (initial incident/rising action/climax/falling action/resolution), chart the plot of A Doll House, Fences, or one of the other plays in chapters 22 and 23.  How does this help you understand these plays more fully?

-- Many murder mysteries or police procedurals have more than one suspect.  Trifles does not.  How does this affect your response to Glaispell's play?

-- What do you think happens to Mrs. Wright after this play ends?  Why?

-- If you have taken Women's Studies or are familiar with feminist thought, how does it apply to A Doll House and/or Trifles?

-- Are we being fair to Nora in A Doll House?  Why?  Why not?

-- Why do you think that Trifles is not staged as often as it is read?  

-- Compare Sherlock Holmes' detective methods with those of Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters.

-- Discuss the women as characters.  Discuss the men.  Is Glaispell fair to them?  Why?  Why not?

-- Discuss the impact of the setting in Trifles.

-- If you were to ask Mr. Goodrich another question, what would it be?

-- What would you like to write about for your first paper?  Why?

See you at Macklin on Tuesday!

Dr. Szlyk

9/3 Questions for En 190/190 HM

[Above is a scene from North Central College's production of Trifles.]


 Good afternoon & welcome to our new students :)

I hope that you enjoyed watching the conclusion of the 1973 film of A Doll House and that you are looking forward to Christopher Goodrich's talk on the Unexpected Stage Company's 2012 production of Trifles.

Have you had a chance to look over the journal entry on Trifles?

http://en202.blogspot.com/2013_09_01_archive.html

Here is our homework for Thursday.  Please read chapters 21 through 23 in our textbook.  If you are short on time, focus on chapter 21 and Trifles (935-945).

These are the questions for your journal.  Before responding to them, skim over the list.  Then choose the one to four questions that intrigue you most.  One of them may be the one that inspires your extended response.

-- What would you like to ask Mr. Goodrich about staging a play?  Why?

-- What would you like to ask him about the play itself?  Or about the theater?

-- How did A Doll House prepare you for reading Trifles?

-- How do the stage directions of Trifles prepare you to read the play?

-- Discuss Glaispell's use of dialogue in her play.  (Again, I don't think that her play contains a soliloquoy!)

-- Discuss her use of suspense.  (If you enjoy watching police procedural shows or movies, compare Trifles to one of your favorite shows.)

-- Discuss her use of character.

-- Consider that we do not see Mrs. Wright in Trifles.  How does that affect our understanding of her character and actions?  the performance of the play? 

-- Do you think that Mrs. Wright would have gotten a "fair shake" from a female detective or lawyer?  Why?  Why not?

I'd like to close with a few more questions about A Doll House:

-- How did you respond to the conclusion of the play?  Do you think that Claire Bloom's Nora and Anthony Hopkins' Torvald will reunite?  Why?  Why not?

-- What surprises you about Torvald's response to Krogstad's letter?  What does not surprise you?  Why?

-- Why doesn't Nora remind Torvald that her borrowing money saved his life?  

-- Apply Kohlberg and/or Gilligan's theories of moral development to A Doll House:

http://faculty.plts.edu/gpence/html/kohlberg.htm

http://collegestudentdeveltheory.blogspot.com/2010/09/gilligans-theory-of-womens-moral.html

I'm looking forward to seeing what you have to say!

Dr. Szlyk

From the Archives: Trifles

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Trifles

With Susan Glaspell's Trifles, we are examining women in modern drama with the following twist: the play was written by a woman (see the picture of the playwright above).

Here is a brief biography of Ms. Glaspell:

http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap8/glaspell.html#bio

For more information about her early 20th c. milieu, see this web site:

http://www.provincetownplayhouse.com/history.html

Minneapolis' Theater Unbound staged Trifles in 2005.  A scene from that production is pictured below:

A NYC theater company d'mosielles has staged this play more recently and even videotaped it for YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1LGwPFeSz8

Here is a little bit of information about the production:

http://www.dmoiselles.com/trifles.html

John G. Bilotta and John F. McGrew have created an opera based on Glaspell's play:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTIZ5TL1vaQ

Here are excerpts from film versions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpNuw0vFU5E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9EPnf1WXSE&feature=related

This picture is from a version staged at NYC's Ontological-Hysterical Theater:

Woo-hoo!  Here are some more videos:

http://www.twoheadedcalf.org/shows/trifles/trifles.html

Let's look for a few reviews.  Unfortunately, many of the videos available are school projects.

Ah, here is Matthew A. Everett's review of Theater Unbound's production:

http://www.matthewaeverett.com/columns/detail.php?articleID=483

Alexis Soloski of The Village Voice reviews The Ontological-Hysteric Theater production:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-02-09/theater/on-the-creepy-feminist-drama-trifles/

Ken Jaworowski of the NY Times weighs in here:

http://theater.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/theater/reviews/02trifles.html?emc=e

A student-directed performance at Illinois' North Central College is discussed here:

 http://web.archive.org/web/20110105200602/http://northcentralcollege.edu/x46996.xml

For more reviews of other plays by Glaspell, see this site from Seton Hall:

http://academic.shu.edu/glaspell/Performances/performances.htm

Here is a review of the Unexpected Stage Company's production of (Dumb Waiter) and Trifles:

http://www.dcmetrotheaterarts.com/2012/07/23/the-dumb-waiter-and-trifles-at-unexpected-stage-company-by-kim-moeller/

This article is about the Unexpected Stage Company:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/performing-arts/the-dumb-waiter-and-trifles,1234630/critic-review.html

I can't find the video of their rehearsal, but here is a pictures of actors from the company's production.

We'll conclude with a picture of the original 1916 production in NYC:

 

8/29 Questions in EN 190

[Recently Gillian Anderson played Nora in a British production set in 1909.  There Torvald and Krogstad were politicians!]


Good evening & welcome to our new students :)

I hope that you are enjoying watching the 1973 version of A Doll House.  If you have a chance, feel free to read the play (1242-1297) or the online version:  

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/i/ibsen/henrik/dolls/index.html

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2542/2542-h/2542-h.htm

Feel free to take a look at the new (or not-so-new) entries on the blog as well:

http://en202.blogspot.com/2013/08/from-archives-pictures-and-more-of-doll.html

http://en202.blogspot.com/2013/08/theater-and-filmvideo.html

Here are a few more questions for you based on our discussion, the parts of A Doll House that we have seen, and the blog entries.  Skim over the questions to see which ones intrigue you the most.

-- What did today's scenes add to your understanding of A Doll House?  performance?  theater?

-- How did today's scenes complicate your understanding of A Doll House?  Nora?  the characters' relationships?  the actors' performances?

-- Discuss A Doll House as a film.  How do the extra scenes (the opening credits, the scenes outside of the house, especially Krogstad's scene with his sons) add to your understanding of the play?

-- We've been focusing on characters' psychology and actors' performances.  How do other elements (set design, camera angles, composition of shots, sound, costumes) add to your understanding of the play?

-- If you've had a chance to read the play in our anthology or online, how do the stage directions add to your understanding of the play?  How do they limit it?

-- What do you make of the coincidence that Mrs. Linde and Krogstad used to know each other?  Why?

-- Try out this website:  http://www.pbs.org/manorhouse/1905/

What would your life have been like in 1905?  How does this knowledge help you understand A Doll House a little better?  Why?  Below are some pictures from 1905.

-- Consider the developmental theories of Kohlberg and Gilligan:

http://faculty.plts.edu/gpence/html/kohlberg.htm

http://collegestudentdeveltheory.blogspot.com/2010/09/gilligans-theory-of-womens-moral.html

How would you apply them to Nora, Torvald, and Krogstad's comments and actions?

-- Choose a link, observation, or photo from the blog entries.  How does it deepen your understanding of A Doll House?

-- Should more plays be available on film or video?  Why?  Why not?

-- How would A Doll House work as an immersive play (see information about Punchdrunk Theater Company)?

(Here is a blog entry on Punchdrunk's Sleep No More, an adaptation of Macbeth:  http://www.unwinnable.com/2011/05/06/sleep-no-more-get-a-sloppy-kiss/ )

http://entertainmentdesigner.com/news/experiences/mingle-with-murderers-in-punchdrunks-immersive-production-of-macbeth/

Have a great weekend, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you have to say!

Dr. Szlyk

Theater and Film/Video

While I'm waiting for the washer to finish, I thought I'd post some links on theater, performance, and film/video.  Some may consider film/video to be, at best, a necessary evil for classrooms as theater is intended to be performed LIVE.  Others, though, may see film/video as an opportunity to see the best possible actors, directors, stage design, and costumes.  And, as you will see in this link about a 2003 modern-dress performance of Henry V, videos are sometimes part of the performance:

http://www.stagework.org.uk/webdav/harmonise@Page%252F@id=6007&Section%252F@id=372.html

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2003/may/14/theatre.artsfeatures2

I have also seen a production of Current Nobody that used video as well:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/05/AR2007110502017.html

http://www.theatermania.com/washington-dc-theater/reviews/11-2007/current-nobody_11995.html

Ah, but let's go back to the question of how one may watch theater!  Here are some articles from The Guardian's Theatre blog:

Lois Peary reports on the UK's National Video Archive of Perfomance.

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2012/apr/02/taped-theatre-live-recorded-jerusalem?guni=Article:in%20body%20link

Here is a link to the archive itself:
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/nvap/

Matt Trueman discusses a video of a specific play based on a historical incident:

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2012/aug/01/kursk-filmed-theatre-performance

Lyn Gardner discusses digital technology in general:
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2013/aug/19/digital-technology-help-theatre

I wonder if the UK's Punchdrunk Theatre Company was inspired by the need to be worth the trip to the theater.  (This company presents "immersive" theater where you explore the play as you would explore a haunted house come Halloween.)
http://punchdrunk.com/current-shows

http://theater.nytimes.com/2013/08/08/theater/in-london-punchdrunks-drowned-man-has-audiences-roaming.html?_r=0

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2013/jul/19/punchrunk-hype-drowned-man-lyn-gardner

This is not about technology, but I thought that you might find this entry on whether the playwright should have the final say on a play to be interesting:

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2013/jul/25/playwright-final-say-theatre-production

I wonder what Ibsen would have said about Mabou Mines' production of A Doll House as he was very much interested in realism.

From the Archives: Pictures and More of A Doll House

Friday, January 11, 2008

A Doll's House (More Pictures!!!)

T

The picture above is from a California modern-dress production of A Doll's House.  I looked a little bit for a picture from a local production, but I wasn't able to find one quickly.  Below is another period production from the University of California at Riverside.  The scene depicted is Nora's rehearsal of the tarantella.

On the other hand, I did find this essay that explains the importance of Ibsen and his approach to modern drama.

 http://web.archive.org/web/20110713001331/http://www.ibsenvoyages.com/e-texts/four_plays_intro.html

The author of this essay is not only a literary scholar but also the former Resident Dramaturg for the American Ibsen Theater in Pittsburgh.

Here is a link to a biography of Ibsen.  As you'll see, he lived a long life, and this long life was lived during an eventful period of history--the 19th century.

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ibsen.htm

Ibsen caused quite a sensation in England, as this essay from 1893 details, and poet/critic/language reformer George Bernard Shaw coined the term "Ibsenism."

http://ibsen.net/index.gan?id=35363&subid=0

Ibsen caused this stir because of his approach to psychological and social realism.

http://ibsen.net/index.gan?id=108034&subid=0
This article, also from the Norwegian site Ibsen.net, covers the playwright's approach to the performance of his plays, especially their casting:

http://ibsen.net/index.gan?id=1927&subid=0

I am trying to find some of the 19th c. and early 20th c. performances of A Doll's House online.  I wanted to find a picture of Elizabeth Robins (one of Ibsen's early advocates) as Nora, but all I could find was one of her portraying Hedda Gabler, another of Ibsen's heroines.

Northern State University in Aberdeen, SD has a very informative and complete site on A Doll's House.  The production is from the 2003-04 season.  Unfortunately, the web site is a little wonky.

 http://web.archive.org/web/20090711091731/http://www.northern.edu/wild/0304Season/DollsHouse/Doll_Nts.htm

Below are links to a variety of productions of A Doll's House.  The first link actually brings you to a site where you may download the scanned version of a review from 1918!  Alla Nazimova (pictured below) played Nora.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B0DEFD81F3FE433A25753C3A9629C946996D6CFThe picture below is from Nazimova's 1922 silent film version of Ibsen's play.



This review is even older.  It describes a benefit performance held in 1894:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C02EFDC1F39E033A25755C1A9649C94659ED7CF

Here is a review of the 2007 production pictured at the top of this entry:

http://www.metroactive.com/metro/01.24.07/dolls-house-0704.html

Another recent production in New Hampshire took a very eccentric approach, casting very tall women and very short men.  The play was staged at Dartmouth by the Mabou Mines, an outside, experimental theater group from New York.

 http://web.archive.org/web/20070423160120/http://hop.dartmouth.edu/2005-06/46-dollhouse.html


Here is a link to a video of the Mabou Mines' production:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHn2FxLJOoI

This 2008 production from Chesapeake Shakespeare takes a more traditional approach.  http://www.broadwayworld.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=25048

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021303167.html

A theater in Nepal has staged A Doll House in Norway (Ibsen's home country):





http://www.aarohantheatre.org/onstage.php

And, in class, we saw the video from a South Korean theater company:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbgsD7K9qCc

http://www.probationarytheatre.com/Press/Groove-2012-11.html

The version from LA (with Calista Flockhart as Nora) is actually a radio play!
http://www.theatermania.com/los-angeles-theater/news/09-2011/calista-flockhart-plays-house_40988.html

http://www.latw.org/Audio/titles/Doll-house.html


Here is a review of a recent production in NYC:

http://www.villagevoice.com/theater/0446,feingold,58483,11.html

When will one of our DC theaters stage A Doll House?

Here are reviews of films from the 1970s.  The first starred Claire Bloom and Anthony Hopkins, and the second starred Jane Fonda.  We are watching the version starring Ms. Bloom and Hopkins.
The link below is to a review of the version starring Ms. Fonda.

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/133372/A-Doll-s-House/overview

I'll conclude with Prof. Ian Johnston's lecture on A Doll's House:

http://web.archive.org/web/20090322090712/http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/introser/ibsen.htm

Ah, here is a picture of Jane Fonda's Nora.

First Set of Questions for EN 190/190HM

[The picture above is from a 2012 production of A Doll House.]


Good afternoon :)

It's wonderful to meet everyone, and I am looking forward to our exploration of literature this semester.  I hope that you will enjoy it as well.

Although I do hope that you will be able to buy (or rent) your book, we will not have a reading specifically for Thursday.  You may choose to start A Doll House, if you like.  If you don't have your book yet, here are links to online versions of this play:

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/i/ibsen/henrik/dolls/index.html

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2542/2542-h/2542-h.htm

In addition, I've changed the settings at my blog for EN 190/190HM, so here is a link for you:  

http://en202.blogspot.com/

Next these are the links to the videos we saw:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uqomb814Qk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbgsD7K9qCc

I am trying to find a modern dress version--and here is one!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb3CIsynKa4

Finally, here are a few questions for your journal:

-- What comes to your mind when you think of literature?

-- Have you ever been to a play or musical?  If so, what was it like?

-- Compare/contrast a play and a movie.  

-- What jumped out at you as you watched the movie version of A Doll House?  Or the videos of the theater versions?

-- If you had a chance to read A Doll House, how did the DVD help you understand it better?  How did reading the play help you to understand it better?

-- Should A Doll House be done in modern dress or in more historically accurate dress?  Why?

-- Discuss Nora and Torvald's marriage as Claire Bloom and the young Anthony Hopkins enact it.

I'm looking forward to seeing and hearing what you have to say!

Dr. Szlyk