PMA 3756 - Theatre on the Edge: The History of Experimental Performance

(crosslisted)
(also ENGL 3350, VISST 3735) (LA-AS)

Fall. 4 credits.

A. Watkins-Fisher.

The history of performance has been characterized by a persistent testing of the limits of theater and the constraints imposed by the conventions of stage, script and audience. This course introduces students to a wide array of theatre and performance forms that developed in Europe and North America over the long 20th century. We will start with realism and naturalism and work through the birth of the avant-garde, futurism, dada and surrealism, and myriad other “isms.” We’ll study Artaud and Brecht, Beckett and Stein, and work our way to Happenings and performance art, Theatre of the Oppressed, The Wooster Group, Critical Art Ensemble, among other recent experimental forms, reflecting throughout on the critical, political, and aesthetic problematics attending the 20th century’s thrall to the new. (HTC)