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Stages of Theatre
Aims
The aim of this course is to introduce students to some of the major periods in the development of theatre from the classical period and to show how specific theatrical practices came to shape different dramatic forms. After a general introduction, lectures on successive theatrical periods will alternate with lectures on individual plays.
Course outline
General introduction
Greek tragic theatre
Sophocles, Oedipus the King
The evolution of early modern theatre
Marlowe, Dr Faustus
Society comedy: from the Restoration to the nineteenth century
Reading week
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Wycherley, The Country Wife
The theatre of naturalism
10. Ibsen, Ghosts
11. Breaking the illusionist frame
12. Beckett, Waiting for Godot
Supplementary reading
In addition to the primary focus plays, it is recommended that you read supplementary texts that will also be referred to in the lectures:
Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus
Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy
R.B. Sheridan, The School for Scandal
August Strindberg, Miss Julie
Bertolt Brecht, Mother Courage and her Children
Recommended primary texts
Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays , trans. Robert Fagles (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003)
Christopher Marlowe, Dr Faustus and other plays ed. David Bevington and Eric
Rasmussen (Oxford: Oxford Paperbacks, 2008)
William Wycherley, The Country Wife , New Mermaids, ed. James Ogden (London:
Methuen, 2003)

Henrik Ibsen, Four Major Plays , trans. James McFarlane and Jens Arup (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2008)
Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (London: Faber, 2006)
Supplementary texts
Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996)
R.B. Sheridan, The School for Scandal and other plays (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2008)
August Strindberg, Miss Julie and other plays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008)
Bertolt Brecht, Mother Courage and her Children (London: Methuen Drama, 1983)
Learning outcomes
By the end of the course, students will:
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Be able to recognize the main features of five periods of theatre from fifth-century
Athens to the twentieth century
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Be aware of the ways the structure of theatre buildings and the composition of audiences have shaped plays and playing styles
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Be alert to the varying conventions of drama in different periods
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Have the capacity to read plays as potential texts for performance
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Be prepared to apply their knowledge to the analysis of other forms of theatre.
Nicholas Grene