Theatricality and Reality in Modern French Drama

FAIN: FV-50240-10

North Carolina State University (Raleigh, NC 27695-0001)
Mary Ann F. Witt (Project Director: March 2010 to April 2012)

A four-week seminar for sixteen school teachers on modern French drama, to be held in Avignon, France, during an annual theater festival.

This is an intensive study of some major French plays of the twentieth century with special attention to the ways in which the self-conscious theatricality of modern drama has portrayed modern reality. Primary readings and discussion will be in French. Texts to be studied are: Jean-Paul Satre, Huis Clos; Jean Genet, Les Bonnes and Les Negres; Eugene Ionesco, Rhinoceros; Samuel Beckett, En Attendant Godot, and Yasmina Reza, Une Piece espagnole. The seminar will be held in Avignon, France during the summer theater festival. There will be one required performance for all participants, and individuals will choose others to attend. Seminar meetings will be based on discussion of texts, oral reports and theater reviews, explication de texte, and staging of scenes by participants. There will be one written paper and one written review required.