Παρουσίαση/Προβολή

(63ΛΕ168) -  Αθανάσιος Δημάκης

Περιγραφή Μαθήματος

Primary Sources (Plays):

Salomé: A Tragedy in One Act (1894), Oscar Wilde

The Children's Hour (1934), Lillian Hellman

Betrayal (1978), Harold Pinter

Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes:

Part I, “Millennium Approaches” (1993), Tony Kushner

Fur (1995), Migdalia Cruz

The Inheritance (2018), Matthew López*

 

* Matthew López’s The Inheritance (2018) is staged for the first time in Greece by The Greek National Theatre, 2025:

https://n-t.gr/en/events/klironomia/ (performances with English surtitles)

 

We will schedule a visit to attend the performance and also meet the director and cast involved in the very first Greek production of the play (Date TBD).

 

This course explores identity and sexuality in 20^th and 21^st-century Anglophone Theatre, examining the ways in which theatre engages with, deconstructs, challenges, and resists normative gender and sexuality. We will adopt an intersectional approach to the subject and analyze the theatrical, literary and aesthetic means by which plays confront issues of identity, in the context of power relations, race, and politics. The course surveys theoretical and critical approaches to identity and sexuality (Gender Studies, Feminist Criticism, Queer Theory) and charts how different theories and methodologies work in practice engaging with a variety of theatrical texts and performances. It explores the queering of the stage and the performance of gender identity and sexuality, starting with the fin de siècle decadent erotica of Oscar Wilde, proceeding with Lillian Hellman as representative of the politically aware body of important women playwrights and the “Marriage Play” of Harold Pinter. The course also explores the explicitly homosexual agenda of Tony Kushner’s “angelology” and the queer eternity of the contemporary Latino theatre of Matthew López in its reworking of the canon. The final stop is an exploration of Migdalia Cruz’s contemporary experimentation and daring heights. The course thus aims at developing a complex critical approach to plays from the 20th-century Anglophone scene. Clips from film adaptations of the plays and performances will help explore ways of “reading” identity and sexuality on stage (West End, Broadway or bohemian club theatres, Off-Broadway, fringe).

 

Ημερομηνία δημιουργίας

Τρίτη 5 Μαρτίου 2024