UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

SLA 1605 F 2006

CLOWNS, POETS, AND

OTHER CREATURES IN MODERN CZECH DRAMA AND THEATRE

Mo 2-4 CR 106

Office Hours: Monday 1-2 Alumni Hall 405

Phone: 416 – 926 1300, ext. 3200

Instructor: V. Ambros

e-mail: veronika.ambros@utoronto.ca

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

Czech theatre has long played a key role in Czech culture and politics. As the Czech playwright Daniela Fischerová stated: "Our drama was political, it was proclamatory. It substituted the roles of other mass media, culture and moral education". The events of November 1989 and the election of playwright Václav Havel as a president of Czechoslovakia confirmed the function of Czech theatre as a public forum. Modern Czech theatre has also served as a ‘laboratory’ of dramatic and staging experiments. Finally it has stimulated a number of practitioners and theorists, whose articles have given rise to modern semiotics of theatre and drama.

 

This course will focus on the most important modern Czech plays as well as on the concepts of the modern Czech theatre as represented by directors such as E.F. Burian, Jindřich Honzl, O. Krejča or A. Radok. Some of the major theoretical approaches will be examined as well.

 Readings in Czech and English. (Offered every three years)

Requirements: A paper (20 pages/ undergraduates 10 pages) on a topic chosen in consultation with the instructor (50%) should be handed in a week before the end of classes. Students have to present an oral report (20/10 minutes 15% each) on an aspect of a play or on a theoretical problem as well as write a critical book review (5/3 pages; 15%). A regular attendance (10%) and active participation (10%) are expected.

 

SUGGESTED TOPICS

CLOWNS

  1. INTRODUCTION
  2. ČAPEK, KAREL and JOSEF The Faithful Game of Love. Trans. Norma Comrada. unpublished ms.

    3. TOPICS: Commedia dell’ arte, history

    Kimball, Stanley Buchholz. Czech Nationalism: A Study of the National Theatre Movement, 1845-83. 1-25. Jan RYBAR, "PERSONALITIES AND INFLUENCES BEHIND SUCCESS OF CZECH AVANT-GARDE DRAMA IN PERIOD BETWEEN WARS."193-210.

  3. HAVEL, VÁCLAV. The Garden Party and other plays. New York : Grove Press, c1993.

    4. TOPICS: Theatre of the Absurd

    VH "The Anatomy of the Gag." Modern Drama XXIII.1 (1984): 13-24. Michal Schonberg,. "A Biographical Note on Václav Havel." Modern Drama XXIII.1 (1984): 1-5. Mukařovský." An Attempt at a Structural Analysis of a Dramatic Figure. 171-177.

  4. TOPOL, Josef. The End of Carnival in Dilia, 1968.

    5. TOPICS: Masks and Rituals

    Stehlíková, Eva: "The Encounter between Greek Tragedy and Two Czech Playwrights in the Sixties" 229-233; SMITH, Susan. Masks in modern drama.

  5. KUNDERA, MILAN Jacques and his Master Trans. Michael Heim, New York, Harper & Row, 1985

    6. TOPICS: ; Adaptations Hutcheon 1-, Lisa Low Interview with Susan Sontag, CC, 8, 1989,185-193,

    POETS

  6. ČAPEK KAREL and JOSEF. From the Life of Insects In: Capek, Karel Four plays Methuen Drama, 1999.

    7. TOPICS: Expressionism, dramatic world

    Elam, Keir. "Dramatic Logic" The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. 98-134.

  7. FISCHEROVÁ, DANIELA. The Hour between the Dog and the Wolf.

    8. TOPICS: Dramatic communication, Brecht’s Epic Theatre

    Pfister "Drama and the dramatic"1-27; Veltruský 1-4, 1-47

  8. HAVEL Largo Desolato New York: Grove Press, 1987.

    9. TOPICS: Stage directions

    Issacharoff "Reading Stage Directions" "The discourse of the Avant-garde spectacle" 1989, 16-27. 121-126; Carol Rocamora Acts of Courage: Vaclav Havel’s Life in the Theater,’64, Hanover, NH, Smith and Kraus, 2004.

    OTHER CREATURES

  9. ČAPEK KAREL Mother In Toward the Radical Centre: Highland Park, N.J. : Catbird Press, c1990.

    10. TOPICS: Space and Time

    Pfister: Structures of time and space, 246- 267 Veltruský "Theatre in the Corridor" in The Drama Review, 1979, 4 (T84) 65-80.

  10. LANGER, FRANTIŠEK. Periphery. Xerox DU, Prague

    11. TOPICS: Dramatic Figures

    Pfister : Dramatis Personae and Dramatic Figure: 160-196 ; Quinn, M. "The Prague School Concept of Stage Figure." 75-85 ;

  11. TOPOL, Josef Cat on the Rails.

    12. TOPICS: Theatricality Eli Rozik Acting: The Quintessence of Theatricality SubStance # 98/99, Vol. 31, nos. 2 & 3, 2002, 110-124 on line

  12. GOLDFLAM, ARNOŠT. The Ticket Girl. Dilia HAVEL Audience 1993.

    13. TOPICS: Dialogue Jiří Veltruský Drama as Literature 48-89, Lordi, Karen E.'Leave Me Alone!'-Chekhovian Echoes in. 86-90

  13. Review

TOPICS Prague Linguistic Circle Veltruský ."The Prague School Theory of Theater." Poetics Today. vol 2:3 (1981), 225-235.

 

Selected Readings

ALTER, Jean. A Sociosemiotic Theory of Theatre. Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990.

ASTON, E & SAVONA, G. Theatre as Sign-System: a Semiotics of Text and Performance, London: Routledge, 1991

BENNETT, S. Theatre Audiences, London: Routledge, 1990

BENSON, Timothy O./Król, Monika (Hg.): Central European avant-gardes. Exchange and Transformation, 1910–1930. Cambridge, Mass. 2002.

---. O./Forgács, Eva (Hg.) Between worlds. A sourcebook of Central European avant-gardes, 1910–1930. Cambridge, Mass. 2002.

BENTLEY, E. The Theory of the Modern Stage, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972

BIRCH, D. The Language of Drama, London: MacMillan, 1991

BRUŠÁK, Karel. "Imaginary Action Space in Drama." Herta and Hedwig Král Schmid. Drama und Theater. Theorie - Methode-Geschichte. München: Otto Sagner, 1991. 144-62. (orig. French in Travaux 6, 1936 20-32).

CARLSON, M. Performance: a Critical Introduction, London: Routledge, 1996

CLAYTON, D. "From Gozzi to Hoffman: German Sources for commedia dell’arte in Russian Avant-Garde Theatre" in Domenico Pitropaolo. The science of Buffoonery: Theory and History of the Commedia dell’ arte.Ottawa: Dovehouse, 1989.

DEÁK, František. "Structuralism in Theatre: The Prague School Contribution." The Drama Review 20.4 (1976): 83-94.

DOLEŽEL, Lubomír. “Possible Worlds of Fiction and History” in New Literary History, Autumn 1998, 29, Number 4: 785- 809

---. Occidental Poetics. Lincoln and London:University of Nebraska Press, 1990.

DRAIN, R (ed). Twentieth Century Theatre: A Sourcebook, London: Routledge, 1995

ECO, Umberto "Semiotics of Theatrical Performance," in The Drama Review, 1977, 21, pp. 107-17.

ELAM, Keir. The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. London and New York: Methuen, 1980.

---. The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama 2nd ed. London ; New York : Routledge, 2002.

ESSLIN, M. The Theatre of the Absurd, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968

GARVIN, Paul, ed. A Prague School Reader on Esthetics, Literary Structure and Style. Washington: Georgetown U. P., 1964.

GOLDBERG, R. Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present, London: Thames and Hudson, 1988

HONZL, Jindřich. "Dynamics of Sign in the Theater." Semiotics of Art. Eds --Ladislav and Titunik Matejka, Irwin R. Cambridge: MIT P, 1976. 75-94.

---. "The Hierarchy of Dramatic Devices." Semiotics of Art. Eds Ladislav and Titunik Matejka, Irwin R. Cambridge: MIT P, 1976. 118-27.

---. "Ritual and Theater" . The Prague School. Selected Writings, 1929 - 1946. Transl. By John Burbank, Olga Hasty et al. Austin: University of Austin Press, 1982,135-173.

HUTCHEON, Linda , A Theory of Adaptation Chapman & Hall: Routledge .2006

INGARDEN, Roman. The Literary Work of Art. Evanston: Northwestern U.P., 1958

INNES, C. Avant Garde Theatre: 1892-1992, London: Routledge, 1993

ISSACHAROFF, Michael. Discourse as Performance. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1989.

---. "Drama and the Reader." Poetics Today 2 (1981): 255-63.

---. "Stage Codes." Performing Texts. Michael Issacharoff and Robin F. Jones, Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, ,1988.

JAKOBSON, Roman. Studies in Verbal Art (Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Contributions No. 4.) 1971

JESTROVIČ, Silvija Theatre of Estrangement: Theory, Practice, Ideology, U of Toronto Press, 2006 forthcoming

LOW, L "Interview with Susan Sontag", CrossCurrents, 8, 1989,185-193

MUKAŘOVSKÝ, Jan. Kapitoly z české poetiky. Praha: Svoboda, 1948.

---. "Two Studies of Dialogue" The Word and Verbal Art. Ed. Burbank J, Steiner P. Yale University Press: New Haven, 1977.

---. "Dialog a Monolog" Studie z estetiky. Odeon, Praha, 1982.

---. "On the Current State of the Theory of Theater" in Steiner, Peter, ed. The Prague School. Selected Writings 1929-1946. Austin, University of Texas Press, 1982.

OSOLSOBĚ, Ivo. “On the Frontiers of Theatrical Freedom. The Liberated Theatre of Voskovec & Werich.” Dramatissche und Theatralische Kommunikation. Eds Herta and Jurij Striedter Schmid. Tübingen: Narr, 1992. 238-52.

PAGE, A (ed). The Death of the Playwright?London: MacMillan, 1992

PAVIS, Patrice Languages of the Stage, New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1982

---. (ed.) The Intercultural Performance Reader. London: Routledge, 1996, 140-143.

PFISTER, M. The Theory and Analysis of Drama, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988

QUINN, M. "The Prague School Concept of Stage Figure." Gerald F. Carr Irmengard Rauch. The Semiotic Bridge. Trends from California. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1989. 75-85.

---. "The Prague School Concept of Stage Figure." In: Gerald F. Carr Irmengard Rauch. The Semiotic Bridge. Trends from California. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1989. 75-85.

---. "Jakobson and the Liberated Theatre." Stanford Slavic Studies 1 (1987): 153-55.

---. The Semiotic Stage. New York: Peter Lang, 1995.

SMITH, Susan. Masks in modern drama. Berkeley : University of California Press, 1984.

STEINER, P. "Production Versus Reception: The Esthetic Axiologies of Otakar Zich and Jan Mukařovský." Language and Literary Theory. In Honor of L. Matejka. Ann Arbor: , 1984.

SUS, Oleg. "On the Origin of the Czech Semantics of Art: The Theory of Music and Poetry in the Psychological Semantics of Otakar Zich." Semiotica 9 (1973): 117-39.

SZONDI, P. Theory of the Modern Drama, London: Polity Press, 1987

UBERSFELD, Anne. Reading Theatre. Toronto: Uof T, 1999.

VELTRUSKÝ, Jiří. Příspěvky k teorii divadla. Praha: Divadelní ústav, 1994.

---. “Sémiologie a avantgardní divadlo, Příspěvky k teorii divadla,” Praha , Divadelní ústav, 25-33, 1994: 27.

---."Semiotics and Avant-Garde Theatre." Theatre Survey 36.1 (May 1995): 87-95.

---."The Prague School Theory of Theater." Poetics Today. vol 2:3 (1981), 225-235.

WINNER, Thomas G. "Otakar Zich as a Precursor of Prague Literary Structuralism and Semiotics With Special Reference to Dramaturgy." 227-42 IN Eimermacher-Karl-ed.; Grzybek-Peter-ed.; Witte-Georg-ed. Issues in Slavic Literary and Cultural Theory/Studien zur Literatur- und Kulturtheorie in Osteuropa. Bochum : Brockmeyer, 1989.

ZICH, Otakar. Estetika dramatického umění. Praha: Panorama, 1986. Alter, Jean. A Sociosemiotic Theory

History of Czech Drama and Theatre

About Theatre. Texts from the Samizdat Periodical with the Same Name. Trans. A.G.Brain. Voices from Czechoslovakia No. 3-4. Stockholm: The Charta 77 Foundation, 1989.

AMBROS, Veronika. Prague’s Experimental Stage:Laboratory of Theatre and Semiotics, in Semiotica, 2006 (forthcoming)

---. “Proměny expresionistických prvků a postupů od Čapka po Havla” [ Transformations of expressionistic elements from Čapek to Havel] in Hledání expresionistických poetik, České Budějovice, Ústav Bohemistiky, 131-140.

---. "Prague: Magnetic Fields or Staging of the Avant-Garde" In: History of the Literary Cultures in East-Central Europe. Marcel Cornis-Pope and John Neubauer (Editors) Virginia Commonwealth University / University of Amsterdam, 2006 forthcoming

---.“Fuzzy Borderlines – Čapeks’ Robots, Insects, Women and Men” In: History of the Literary Cultures in East-Central Europe. Marcel Cornis-Pope and John Neubauer (Editors) Virginia Commonwealth University / University of Amsterdam, 2006 forthcoming

---."Creating a Space of One's Own: The German Theatre in Prague Between the Wars" In: Deutsschsprachiges Theater in Prag, Praha, Divadelní ústav, 264-272.

---. “Výměny symbolů aneb německé divadlo v Praze mezi válkami, národy a kulturami.” [Exchange of symbols or the German theatre in Prague between the wars, nations and cultures] Q6.Sborník Prací filozofické fakulty brněnské university, 2002 139-151

---. " O klaunech, vědcích, gestech a jiných znacích “ [Of clowns, scholars, gestures and other signs] In “Od struktury k fikčnímu světu” Lubomíru Doleželovi, Aluze (special issue), Brno, 2004, 53-86

---."The Great War as a monstrous carnival: Jaroslav Hašek’s Švejk" History of the Literary Cultures in East-Central Europe. Marcel Cornis-Pope and John Neubauer (Editors), Amsterdam, Bejnamins, 2004, 28-36

---. "Czech Performance Theory", The Performance Text. Domenico Pietropaolo (ed.) New York, Ottawa, 1999:113-125

---."On the Waves of Avant-Garde. From Hašek to Nezval. "Avantgardistische Literatur aus dem Raum der (ehemaligen) Donaumonarchie. Eva Reichmann (Hrsg.), St. Ingbert: Rőhrig Universitäts Verlag, 1997: 46-62

---."A Tribute to a Very Small Stage, or an Eulogy for the Balustrade" Slavic and Easteuropean Performance Journal. Spring, 1995, 27-34.

---. "‘Vest Pocket Revue’ Reviewed." Zeitschrift Für Slawistik (1993): 457- 63.

---. "Jevištní řeč v avantgardním divadle, v "Zahradní slavnosti" a "Largu desolatu." [Stage language in Avant-garde Theatre in the "Garden Party" and "Largo Desolato"] Česká literatura, 1992. 286-290.

---. "Fictional World and Dramatic Text: Václav Havel's Descent and Ascent." Style. Vol. 25, No. 2, Summer 1991. 310-319.

---."Daniela Fischerová's New Palimpsest.Between ‘Living in Truth' and ‘The Battle for an Island of Trust’" CSP Nos. 1994, 3-4: 363-376.

---. "The Drama of Czech Socialist Realism." in Nina Kolesnikoff ed. Socialist Realism Revisited. Hamilton: Mc Master University Press, 1994: 85-97.

BURIAN, E. F. "Příspěvek k problému jevištní mluvy." Slovo a Slovesnost 5 (1939): 24-32.

BURIAN, Jarka. "The Liberated Theatre" Cross Currents, 1982, 315-338.

---. Leading creators of twentieth-century Czech theatre C London ; New York: Routledge, 2002.

---. Modern Czech Theatre : Reflector and Conscience of a Nation Iowa City, University of Iowa Press, 2000.

---. "High Points of Theatre in the First Czechoslovak Republic." Modern Drama XXVII.1 (1984): 98-111.

---. "Post-War Czech Drama." Educational Theatre Journal XXV (1973): 299-317.

---. "The Small Theatres of Prague." Educational Theatre Journal Oct. 1971, 229-57.

---. "Theatre in Czechoslovakia." Drama Survey 6 (1967): 92-104.

---. "E.F. Burian." The Drama Review 20.4 (1976): 95-116.

---. "Prague Theatre Four Years After the Velvet Revolution: The Veterans Remain." Slavic and East European Performance. Drama, Theatre and Film. 15.1: 14-26.

ČERNÝ, Jindřich. Otomar Krejča. Prague: Orbis, 1968.

DAY, Barbara, Ed. Czech Plays. London: Nick Hern Books, 1994

DAM-HAVELKOVÁ van, E. M. "In Between a Play and a Story: Smoček's Piknik." M. Červenka and R. Vroon, P.Steiner (eds.). The Structure of the Literary Process. Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Felix Vodička. Vol. 8. Linguistic & Literary Studies in Eastern Europe (LLSEE). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 1982. 63-93.

DEN, Peter. "Notes on Czechoslovakia's Young Theatre of the Absurd." Books Abroad XLI (1967): 157-63.

FRENCH, Alfred. Czech Writers and Politics 1945-1969. Canberra: Australian National UP, 1982.

GALAN, František. Historic Structures: The Prague School Project, 1928-1946. Austin: U of Texas, 1984.

GOETZ-STANKIEWICZ, Marketa. "The Czech `Dissident Writer' as Dramatic Character High Points of Theatre in the First Czechoslovak Republic." Modern Drama XXVII.1 (1984): 112-23.

---. The Silenced Theatre: Czech Playwrights Without a Stage. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1979.

---. "A Revealing Encounter: The Theatre of the Absurd in Czechoslovakia." Survey XXI (1975): 85-100.

---. Good-bye, Samizdat: Twenty Years of Czechoslovak Underground. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1992.

---. (ed. and introd.); Carey-Phyllis (ed.). Critical Essays on Vaclav Havel. New York, NY : G. K. Hall, 1999.

HARKINS, Wiliam. Karel Čapek. New York: Columbia Press, 1962.

HAVEL, Václav. "The Anatomy of the Gag." Modern Drama XXIII.1 (1984): 13-24.

---. "On Dialectical Metaphysics." Modern Drama XXIII.1 (1984): 6-12.

---. "An Anatomy of Reticence." Trans. E. Kohák. Václav Havel or Living in Truth. Ed. Jan Vladislav. London: Faber and Faber, 1986. 164-196.

---. "Cards on the Table." Civic Freedom in Central Europe: Voices from Czechoslovakia. Ed. H. Gordon Skilling and Paul Wilson. London: Macmillan, 1991. 131-134.

---. "Letter to Dr. Gustáv Husák, General Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party." Trans. Paul Wilson. Václav Havel or Living in Truth. Ed. Jan Vladislav. London: Faber and Faber, 1986. 3-35.

---. "The Power of the Powerless." Trans. Paul Wilson. Václav Havel or Living in Truth. Ed. Jan Vladislav. London: Faber and Faber, 1986. 36-122.

JOHNSON, Stephen. "The Integration of Theatre History and Theatre Practice in the University: A Case Study Using `Ze života Hmyzu' (From the Life of the Insects) by Karel and Josef Čapek." Theatre and Topics 4.2 (1994): 189-204.

KIMBALL, Stanley Buchholz. Czech Nationalism: A Study of the National Theatre Movement, 1845-83. Illinois Studies in the Social sciences, 54. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1964.1-25

LIEHM, A. J. "Theatre in Czechoslovakia." Theatre Quarterly 2 (Apr.-June 1972: 72-79.

LORDI, Karen E."'Leave Me Alone!'-Chekhovian Echoes in Havel "Theater, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 86-90, Summer 1991

RYBAR, Jan "PERSONALITIES AND INFLUENCES BEHIND SUCCESS OF CZECH AVANT-GARDE DRAMA IN PERIOD BETWEEN WARS", EUROPEAN STUDIES REVIEW, vol.8,no.2,pp.193-210,1978

TRENSKÝ, Pavel. Czech Drama Since World War II. With an Introduction by William E. Harkins. White Plains, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1978.