2008 --

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* chekhov pages index
Fall 2003: Modern Drama: Selected Plays from 1879 to the Present Walter Levy, Pace University ISBN: 0-13-226721-7 Prentice Hall Paper; 985 pp Published: 10/21/1998

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"D. PAGES" -- DRAMATURGY AND QUESTIONING: "The reluctance to accept dramaturgy and dramaturg as English words reflects a deeper resistance to thinking about the theatrical process as a whole. . . .
The main job of a dramaturg is to keep asking why. Why are we doing this play? Why this season? Why here? Why does our theatre exist? Why do we exist?
[E]verybody ... concentrates on the mechanics of how to get it done, hoping that the why will take care of itself. Yet, as Dr. Victor Frankl has pointed out it works exactly the other way around. He observed that only those survived the Nazi concentration camps who knew why they wanted to live; those who could not find meaning in their life died faster than those from whom they stole bread. In order to find the "how," we must first know the "why."
Meaning is central to human existence and art." Peter Hay. "American Dramaturgy: A Critical Reappraisal." Performing Arts Journal 7.3 (1983): 13-14; Dr. Victor Frankl. Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logoherapy. Boston: Beacon Press, 1959.

DRAMATURGY AND PHYSICS: "To talk about a dramaturg and dramaturgy, perhaps we ought to resort to physics. A dramaturg can be a particle or a wave. When we expect one, we always get the other. In recent history, he, she or it tends to be a 'particle' because the wide spectrum of functions rests in one person or one identifiable group of people who call themselves dramaturgs. This is a fairly recent phenomenon.
Dramaturgy is also a wave because it's always been there as a force in the theatre. It's not an innovation. It's not an interloper. The function, the impulse, the need, the action has always been there. In other words, we know perfectly well that this critical function is necessary in the theatre and that it has to get accomplished. How it gets accomplished is perhaps our subject. "Dramaturgy and Physics: panel discussion moderated by James Leverett with James C. Nicola, Richard Dresser, Morgan Jenness, and Tim Sanford." Journal of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation 5.1 (1991): 4.

Pages in Russian? Only the quotes.

intro

This page is new and Links, Notes, Intro, Wilde

New images by Gustav Klimt, high modernity

See THEMES directory! Playscript Analysis pages will be developed there. I am to keep this directory for DramLit.

Every time I teach DramLit of Playcript Analysis, this directory doubles in size. Chelhov got 5 webpages now and the "3 Sisters" subdirectory.

Trying to manage all those pages, I reorganize them into webBoooks with the Title pages, Preface, Appendix and so on.

New Pages

2005: Farces by Chekhov

Chekhov - Love Letters

Beckett Pages
Beckett plays:
Godot
Catastrophe

Absurd
Beckett

Godot UAF


2005: questia.com [quotes from online Full-text books and articles ]

Related Resources

links + appendix

Search

subject categories

Research Topics

My Courses

Bibliography

Books

list

new: Backwards and Forwards: A Technical Manual for Reading Plays by David Ball; Southern Illinois University Press, 1983 : - Part One: Shape - 1: What Happens That Makes Something Else Happen? - 2: And What Happens Next? - 3: But Do It Backwards - 4: Stasis and Intrusion - 5: Obstacle, Conflict - 6: Ignorance is Bliss (or: the Very Cause of Everyone's Lunacy About Hamlet) - 7: Things Theatrical - Part Two: Methods - 8: Exposition - 9: Forwards: Hungry for Next - 10: Missing Persons (character) - 11: Image - 15: Families - 16: Generalities: Mood, Atmosphere - 17: The Unique Factor - 18: Changing Eras - 19: Climax - 20: Beginnings/Endings - 21: Rereading - 22: What Next?

Summer 2003: THR215 Dramatic Literature and THR413 Playscript Analysis have their own subdirectories with the new vertical structure (another level subdirectories -- 1, 2, 3 and so on). I needed to separate two classes (first is an intro to "Grammar of Drama") and I can't make more pages in main (root) directory.

It will take me a while to develop this new vertical heirharchy.

Also, the Themes directory; I try to organize the topical linkage between writers and plays. "Death" -- of course, you can find this subject in many dramas. And this why you can see at the top the motto "Script Analysis of the Last Century" (20th -- my main interest; the transition from modernity to postmodernity).

I don't know if I will time to plug in the "Philosophers" (ideas from Aristotle, Marx and Foucault), but nevertheless I want to place paintings, literature of the periods relavent to each playwright...

Oh, sweet dreams!


2001 Updates: THR413 Playscript Analysis class with Oscar Wilde in focus: crisis of high modernity and new comedy.

Self-irony and self-parody, transition to the postmodern.

Directing "The Important of Being Earnest" (double irony in the title).

BioMechanics as a STYLE. Style as substance: style (form) as meaning -- and the school of formalism. (Structuralism and Deconstruction).

NEW Themes & Topics directory for THR413 Playscript Analysis (I still debate the title -- "Playscript Analysis of the Century," "Playscript Analysis of History." Or "Play Analysis of Humanity"?)

The Acting directory is devoted to the Method Acting ("System of the Method").

Subscribe to one of the open forums; the most recent is WWWilde (Fall Y2K main stage UAF production.

ChekhovPages

Themes

The SPECTATOR directory will be combined with the new VIRTUAL THEATRE and the new pages will be at http://etheatre.tripod.com

There are two new websites I have no time work on -- www.anatoly.tv and http://antohin.tripod.com

All my old pages are updated! (You can see the date next to the counters, right top table) Also, new directory Links in every directory.

You see many HTMLgear features on my pages; you can add your link, if it's the subject related (I check all links before approving them). You can add your quotations too.

Please, take a moment to answer online poll "Visitors" (I have to have some idea what is the main interests of the readers).

New extended Spectator directory. Read and see for yourself why I consider this field as the most important for all theatre profession.

Important: maybe I should make it more specific -- "Dramatic Literature for Actors" and "Playscript Analysis for Directors"? (If I am to work on thextbooks).

NB

Теория драмы на двух языках? Чехов по-русски и Шекспир по-английски.
Next: Classes Directory
NEW: Part IV. Writing (you write your own monologue in THR215 and a scene in THR413).
scriptsample-writer
Homo Novus -- theatre as a method of transformation (social through artistic?)

Devised and Collaborative Theatre offers detailed advice on every aspect of the devising process and valuable insights into the process of making theatre collectively. It is written for all companies who are interested in non-text based theatre and designed to solve the technical problems that occur when starting work without a clear idea of the finished product. Softcover, 160 pp. $41.95.

http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=fbcfb8ef87795f4e44b061f5adfffeed47bf0bc5 King Lear -- Royal Academy in NYC Playwrighting -- THE AUTEUR ATHE April 2005 (calls)

vtheatre-new