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”[W]hile the writing of tragedy may have waned in recent times, readings of tragedy have proliferated,” writes Rita Felski in her introduction to the edited collection Rethinking Tragedy (1). The United States has at times been considered incompatible with the tragic art, be it because of the perceived foreignness of its ethos to the American culture of optimism, or because of its historically aristocratic characters and settings which allegedly make tragedy, as Arthur Miller puts it, ”fit only for the very high placed, the kings or the kingly” – a misconception that Miller laments in his essay ”Tragedy and the Common Man.” So what is American tragedy? This is the question that will be at the forefront of our minds in this class. In order to address it, we will go back to the tragic art of Ancient Greece, as well as consider some of the ways in which the genre has travelled through time and space as we engage with theories of tragedy. We will then concern ourselves with selected examples of American tragedy, such as Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, Ellen McLaughlin’s Helen, and Neil LaBute’s Wrecks, and attempt to discern the particulars of their tragic impulse and vision. The program of the seminar will include attendance of a production of Neil LaBute’s Wrecks by Peter Wälter and theatre2go followed by a conversation with the audience, as well as a theatre workshop with Peter Wälter focused on dramaturgical interpretations of LaBute’s play.
The performance of Wrecks will take place on January 16th, 7pm, in Schlosskeller. The workshop will take place on campus during our regular seminar time slot on January 17th.
Students will be expected to have read the respective texts in advance of the class and to come prepared to discuss their own ideas in relation to them.
You will need to purchase the following book for this class:
Arthur Miller, The Crucible. Penguin Books, 2015. ISBN 978-0-141-18255-1 |
