Module Content and Indicative Topics

Most plays were not written to be read but to be performed on stage by live actors and to be received by an audience. ‘From Page to Stage’ explores this distinctive feature of drama and develops the analytical skills needed to study dramatic texts, as literature and as one element in a collaborative theatrical event. The module gives students the opportunity to read plays that are drawn from a range of cultures and historical periods and that, vitally, continue to be performed. It introduces key theoretical approaches to drama and theatre as well as reflecting on questions of character, action and genre; on staging and theatrical spaces; and on the relationship between audience and performers.

The following seven plays are proposed for study, together with one further play that is being performed in London or is otherwise in the news whilst the module is being taught.  

Sophocles, Antigone

William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Molière, The Misanthrope

Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House

W. B. Yeats, Plays for Dancers (At the Hawk’s Well; The Dreaming of the Bones; The Only Jealousy of Emer)

Bertolt Brecht, The Caucasian Chalk Circle

Caryl Churchill, Top Girls

Teaching Delivery 

Teaching will comprise 10 hours of lectures and 10 hours of seminars. Lectures will contextualize and reflect on ways of approaching each play, while the seminars, which will take place in smaller groups, will focus on close reading and student-led discussion. Students will be expected to read each play in advance of the classes and to give one 10-minute presentation, in pairs. 

Having completed the module, students will: 


	Be able to reflect critically on the relationship between drama and theatre 
	

	Be able to read and analyse a play both as a work of literature and as a text to be performed 
	

	Be able to think comparatively about play texts 
	

	Be familiar with some key developments in theatre history and with a number of representative texts 
	

	Have developed their own powers of appreciation and be able to respond thoughtfully to both primary sources and scholarly materials. 
	
Recommended Reading 

In preparation for the module, students are advised to read the plays listed above. 

Background reading: 

Martin Meisel, How Plays Work. Reading and Performance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 

Simon Shepherd and Mick Wallis, Studying Plays, 4th edn (London: Bloomsbury, 2018). 

For plays that were not originally written in English, please read a recent scholarly translation of the original text, such as those in the Penguin Classics series, or in the ‘World’s Classics’ series published by Oxford University Press. Versions or adaptations produced for particular theatre productions should not be used. Please read Brecht in the Methuen Student Edition. In most cases the text is available electronically via the ‘Drama Online’ database, which can be accessed from the UCL Library website. 