Modern Drama: 1940-2000

Spring 2026

Professor Doug Jones

Tuesdays, Thursdays 10:05 am - 11:20 am

Page 106 (West Campus) 

“You’re being performative!” How often have you heard this clapback – or even hurled it yourself? When we accuse someone of being “performative,” we are saying that that person is acting in a way that is disingenuous, insincere, or showy for attention. We have come to associate the truth with behavior that is calm and composed, behavior that matches a set of bodily and emotional expectations which most often demand restraint. Why? This course will investigate how we came to develop these listening, watching, and reading habits through an investigation of the rise of realism in the 1870s and its legacies over the next century. As a literary and theatrical movement, realism aims to render everyday life as it is lived, with a particular emphasis on our psychological motivations and the social problems we endure. Early realism effected a revolution in writing forms and styles that was quickly matched by a revolution in theatrical practice (acting, director, scenography, spectatorship), which was then taken up in other realms of cultural production, including film, television, advertising, music, and more. This course begins with pioneering European realists such as Henrik Ibsen, Anton Chekhov, George Bernard Shaw, then moves to later American realists such as Susan Glaspell, Tennessee Williams, and Lorraine Hansberry. We will also focus on realism’s acting counterpart, what we now call “The Method,” which was pioneered by Konstantin Stanislavski then embraced with cult-like zeal in midcentury America by actors such as Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, and Marilyn Monroe. Realism’s dominance in the arts and popular culture lead to several major critiques and counter-movements. Among the major anti-realists we will study are Luigi Pirandello, Bertolt Brecht, Samuel Beckett, and Adrienne Kennedy. As part of the course, we will attend several plays locally; there is also the possibility that we will travel to NYC to see August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone on Broadway.

As we examine developments in realism and anti-realism, we will chart the political and social contexts (e.g., the twin triumphs of industrialization and urbanization; the Russian Revolution; the Cold War; the Civil Rights Movement) from which they emerged and to which they responded. Throughout the semester, we will track how what we perceive to be true about the world and about ourselves has been shaped by the realist imagination and its critics: we might conclude that nothing is more revealing of the truth than being performative, after all.

Assignments may include: a mid-term exam; an in-class presentation; short weekly blog posts; and a final project