Modern British Drama Professor Peter Saccio THETEACHINGCOMPANY®
©1998 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership1 Peter Saccio, Ph.D. John Willard Professor of Drama and Oratory, Dartmouth College Peter Saccio received his bachelor’s degree at Yale University on a General Motors Scholarshipin1962.He earned his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1968 with a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Fellowship, and a Jacobus Prize Fellowship. Professor Saccio has taught at Dartmouth College since 1996, and was Chair of the English Department from 1984 to 1988.He has been a visiting professor at Wesleyan University and University College, London. He is the author of several books, and over 24 articles published and papers delivered.He is currently working on two books:Henry V: Shakespeare in Performance, and an edition ofMad World, My Masters, forThe Complete Works of Thomas Middleton. In addition to teaching at Dartmouth, Saccio devised and directedThe Famous Victories of William Shakespeare, a dramatic reading of scenes and speeches from the history plays performed with seven Dartmouth colleagues, Hopkins Center, Dartmouth, 1990;Bodies and Brains, an evening of scenes from contemporary British drama; and The Glories of our Blood and State, a dramatic reading of Shakespearean kings, performed with a colleague at the Hopkins Center and various libraries in New Hampshire and Connecticut between 1978 and 1980.He has directed performances ofTwelfth Night, Cymbeline,andMacbethat Dartmouth’s Hopkins Center. Saccio also acts, playing Harry Kane in Pinter’sThe Collectionand Jabez Stone in MacLeish’sScratchin 1982; HenryIV in Getty’s Plum Jack(an operatic version of the Henriad) in 1989; and a host of other roles throughout his acting career.
©1998 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership2 Table of Contents Modern British Drama Professor Biography..........................................................................................1 Course Scope......................................................................................................3 Lecture One:British Theater: 1890-1990..........................................................4 Lecture Two:Comedy of Manners: Wilde and Coward.....................................6 Lecture Three:George Bernard Shaw: Socialist and Prophet...........................8 Lecture Four:John Osborne Looks Back in Anger..........................................10 Lecture Five:Samuel Beckett Waits for Godot................................................12 Lecture Six:The Menace of Harold Pinter........................................................14 Lecture Seven:The Inventions of Tom Stoppard.............................................16 Lecture Eight:Political Theater: Caryl Churchill and David Hare...................18 Biographical Notes............................................................................................20 Bibliography......................................................................................................21
©1998 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership3 Modern British Drama Scope: This series of eight lectures examines the role theater has played in British culture and society over the past 100 years.We witness the evolution of the stylistic conventions of the British play, from the genteel drawing-room comedies of the late nineteenth century to the radical political theater of the last decade.Through this brief survey of some of the great innovators of the dramatic arts of the modern era, we begin to understand how and why the play has changed so dramatically, and we realize the importance of the political and social context in which these works were written.
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