A Dramatic Journey through Western Culture

(DRA 203)

Throughout the centuries, theater has both mirrored the culture from which it emerged and helped shape its values and ideals. In this course, we will read six masterpieces of theater, appreciate their aesthetic dimensions, and see what they tell us about six defining moments in Western culture. The plays will include Sophocles’ Antigone (5th-century BCE Greece), Shakespeare’s The Tempest (Elizabethan/Jacobean England), Moliere’s Tartuffe (Louis XIV’s France), Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest (Victorian England), Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard (Czarist Russia), and Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire (post World War II America).

Some of the themes that will be discussed are public and private duty, religious hypocrisy, sexuality, rural vs. urban, the illusion of power and giving up power, mixed identities, class and status, brutality, and societal and cultural changes. Since theater is ultimately meant to be seen in performance, we will look at selected examples of scenes from films of the plays. These will be complemented by slide images of theaters and theatrical performances taken from past cultures.

William Eddelman, Associate Professor of Drama, Emeritus

William Eddelman has taught theater history, musical theater, cultural history, theater aesthetics, scenic and costume design, the psychology of clothes, and dramatic literature. A board member of the Museum of Performance and Design in San Francisco, he currently is building an international design collection in scenery and costumes for the Museum, where he recently co-curated the Design for San Francisco Ballet exhibition.