54
Performing Arts
UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI NAPOLI "L'ORIENTALE"
Overview
Date/time interval
Syllabus
Course Objectives
EXPECTED LEARNING OUTCOMES
The course aims to provide the tools to learn the basic elements of theatrical language and the specific investigations of theatrical historiography. At the end of the training course, the student must demonstrate:
- have understood the salient aspects of theatrical language: knowing how to frame the genesis and compositional structure of dramatic works (acts, scenes, stage directions, characters, setting, succession and development of scenic actions); knowing how to identify the operational solutions adopted for the staging, with regard to the theatrical practices examined;
- be able to identify the peculiar traits of the different theatrical aesthetics examined, placing them in their cultural and historical context;
- be able to relate the dramatic text and its spectacular realization.
The course has a suitable place in the educational offering of the three-year degree courses in Languages, Literatures and Cultures of Europe and the Americas (EA) and in Comparative Languages and Cultures (CP), because the History of Theatre is a field of study that offers a broad and varied range of works and artistic productions, of different cultural connotations, to be analyzed from an interdisciplinary perspective.
ABILITY TO APPLY KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
The educational path of the teaching is aimed at providing the student with the methodological tools to recognize the basic elements of theatrical language and its performative declinations. Starting from the topics illustrated, and the knowledge acquired, the student will have to demonstrate that he knows how to apply reading strategies and critical approach to the analysis of theatrical texts and to the understanding of their transposition into scenic action.
FURTHER EXPECTED LEARNING OUTCOMES
Autonomy of judgment:
The student must demonstrate that he or she is able to independently articulate a discourse on the aspects characterizing the structure of the different theatrical texts analyzed. He or she must also be able to identify some significant spectacular solutions adopted in the relative stage or film transpositions examined.
Communication skills:
The student must be able to identify and illustrate the information contained in the critical essays, in the theatrical texts and in the examples of related stage or film transpositions, demonstrating a mastery of language and an argumentative ability that are adequate to the level of university study.
Learning ability:
At the end of the course, the student must be able to recognize how the language of theater intersects and differentiates itself in relation to other forms of artistic and spectacular expression. Achieving an adequate critical understanding of the texts studied is a priority objective to stimulate, at a higher level, the autonomous argumentative skills of the students.
Course Prerequisites
No specific prerequisites are required. However, to better understand the contents of the course, it is preferable that the student possesses:
- basic knowledge of the temporal periodizations that concern the history, geographical areas and cultural aspects of Europe from the 16th century to today (important);
- aptitude for critical reasoning (important);
- predisposition to the study of artistic languages (useful).
PREREQUISITES
None
Teaching Methods
The course includes frontal and interactive lessons by the teacher, aimed at stimulating students to learn the topics covered. The presentations of the lessons, carried out with the support of audiovisuals and teaching materials organized with the use of multimedia tools, will be made available to students in a Teams Class of the course created specifically for this purpose.
Assessment Methods
The exam consists of an oral interview.
Evaluation criteria: the final evaluation, expressed in thirtieths, is aimed at ascertaining the acquisition of the correct knowledge on the topics covered in the lessons of the course.
The evaluation criteria with which the knowledge and skills acquired will be verified are: completeness of information, coherence and correctness in the expository argumentation, ability to apply the knowledge acquired.
During the academic year, in order to take the exam, the student is required to attend at least two live shows that can be freely chosen according to individual taste and possibilities. The student must be able to briefly report on the shows chosen at the beginning of the exam interview.
Language in which the exam is held: Italian.
The program is valid for the exam sessions of two academic years (2025-2026 and 2026-2027).
Texts
- Franco Perrelli, I maestri della ricerca teatrale. Il Living, Grotowski, Barba e Brook, Roma-Bari, Laterza, II edizione 2007, pp. 227.
- Anton Cechov, Teatro. Il gabbiano, Il giardino dei ciliegi, Zio Vania, Tre sorelle, a cura di Gerardo Guerrieri, Milano, Mondadori, 2019, pp. 392 (o altra edizione).
- Bertolt Brecht, Madre Courage e i suoi figli, Torino, Einaudi, 2017, pp. XXIV-200 (o altra edizione).
- Sofocle, Edipo re-Edipo a Colono-Antigone, testo greco a fronte, Milano, Oscar classici Mondadori, 2016, pp. 370 (o altra edizione).
- Lorenzo Mango, Il Principe costante di Calderón de la Barca - Slowacki per Jerzy Grotowski, Edizioni ETS, 2008, pp. 200.
Further textual indications and references to teaching or audiovisual materials, provided by the teacher or available online, will be given during the lessons.
The course program does not make any difference between attending and non-attending students.
Contents
Course Title: The great theatrical reformers of the twentieth century: from Konstantin Stanislavskij to Peter Brook.
The educational path of the teaching is aimed at providing students with the methodological tools to recognize the basic elements of theatrical language. The declinations of this language will therefore be illustrated in the experiments of the main architects of the First and Second Theatrical Reform of the twentieth century, from Konstantin Stanislavskij to Peter Brook. Starting from the topics covered, and the knowledge acquired, the student will have to demonstrate that he knows how to apply reading strategies and critical approach to the analysis of theatrical texts and to the understanding of their transposition into scenic action.
Topic list:
1. Presentation of the course and teaching organization.
2. Technical innovations and developments in scenic practices between the 19th and 20th centuries.
3. Konstantin Stanislavskij, from external realism to the birth of the System: for an embodied acting of the creative actor.
4. Bertolt Brecht's Epic Theatre: Dramaturgy and Alienated Acting in the Performance of Mother Courage and Her Children.
5. Antonin Artaud's visions of theatrical thought and its impact on twentieth-century theatre.
6. Birth and development of the New Theatre in the second half of the twentieth century.
7. The Utopia of Living Theatre: Julian Beck and Judit Malina’s Living Theatre.
8. “Poor theatre” and the holy actor in Jerzy Grotowski’s theatrical research.
9. Myths, symbolic figures and improvised actions in Eugenio Barba’s Odin Teatret.
10. Peter Brook's theatre of simple forms and the poetic force of the staging of The Tragedy of Hamlet.
Course Language
ITALIAN
More information
During the academic year, in order to take the exam, the student is required to attend at least two live shows that can be freely chosen according to individual taste and possibilities. The student must be able to briefly report on the shows chosen at the beginning of the exam interview.