3.0

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<p>The course employs lectures and readings in South Asian and East Asian theatre, both the performance styles and the dramatic literature of India, China, Japan – and other countries. We will read a play from each theatre tradition we examine. Thereafter we will look at the influence these Asian theatre forms have had on Western Theatre in its period of renewal in the 20th and 21st centuries. In some cases, we will view video to examine the performance styles used in these different theatre traditions. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p>We will begin with an exploration of the Sanskrit drama that flourished for a thousand years in India: including the classic The Dream of Vasavadatta, and short excerpts from the Natyashastra, an ancient text of theory and practice in theatre; the Yuan drama of China with reference to the Beijing Opera that sprang from these literary dramatic forms; the Noh Theatre of Japan; Bunraku puppet performance and the flamboyant Kabuki theatre. In the second part of the term, we will examine the impact these classical forms had on Bertolt Brecht (The Good Woman of Sezchuan and He Who Says Yes), WB Yeats (Purgatory), the work of Theatre Yugen in San Francisco and that of director Arianne Mnouchkine in Paris. The course will conclude with a close examination of world famous director Peter Brook’s landmark production of the Hindu epic The Mahabharata. After reading Part I of Jean-Claude Carrière's three-part script for that production, we will view a 3-hour TV version of the 10-hour production that toured the world for years with a multinational cast, changing modern theatre. (Live performance footage will be used where possible). <o:p></o:p></span></p>