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THE revolution in foreign language teaching brought about in recent years by the oral-proficiency movement has not failed to leave its mark on the foreign literature classroom. Just as a strong interest in literary criticism tempts many an instructor to subordinate a text to a favorite theory, our new awareness of language pedagogy and the goal of “teaching for proficiency” may cause us to neglect the literature in order to nurture the ongoing process of foreign language acquisition. Perhaps even more than ever before, we teachers of foreign literature are wrestling with the problem of integrating language and literature, content, methodology, and theory into the reality of the classroom experience. In addition to confronting the challenge posed by students' unfamiliarity with literature, we are increasingly faced with young people who, finally convinced of the job-market value of a working proficiency in a second language, still find no practical reason to embrace the study of its literature.
I wish to propose several strategies for overcoming some of these obstacles to an integrated methodology, and to student interest and learning, in teaching a dramatic literature course. I am taking as given both the limitations of teaching drama “traditionally,” as text only, much as one might teach a short story or novel, and the resultant need for a more active, three-dimensional methodology. Like poetry and the novel, theater is a genre that has its own conventions, language, and terminology; above all, it is a representational genre. That must be where we begin.
The ideal theatrical experience is indeed a dialogue, or dialectic, between the experience of the spectator and that of the reader (Schofer, Rice, and Berg 173): this dialogue is the point of view and point of departure of the director, who must study a text in depth while continually assessing the effect each element of the mise-en-scéne will have on the audience. Thus, in our classes we must find ways for our students to assume the role of director. I would go even further and have them play the actors' parts as well. In other words, what we should do is get off the page and make a scene.
The activities I propose here are primarily oral, designed to activate the student's role in “reading” theater. I also suggest complementary exercises for those instructors who wish to incorporate dynamic writing components into their courses. All these activities focus on the dramatic function of two fundamental elements of theater: the characters and the text, both scenic and verbal.
To begin your nontraditional approach to teaching theater, devote the first day of class to raising students' consciousness of the uniqueness and specificity of the genre. Have the students—either as a class or in several small groups—discuss their experience of theater. Those who have never attended a performance can discuss plays they have read. Encourage students to explain why they do or do not go to plays: their responses will reveal their attitudes toward theater and their knowledge of it, the givens from which you must begin. Have small groups summarize and report their findings to the class as a whole.
Next have students, in pairs or small groups, list as many components of a dramatic production as they can think of (e.g., text, actors, set, props, costumes, makeup, lights, sound). With your guidance, the whole class can then compile a composite list that is as extensive as possible. Since in many parts of the United States there is no theater-going tradition, you may choose to have students discuss the presence of these theatrical elements in their everyday lives—for example, in commercial and political enterprises, in behavioral role-playing, and in the overwhelmingly visual orientation of today's society.
Now you and your class are ready to address that age-old question, What is theater? Have students work together to compose a one-sentence reply. They might list, as a primer, the elements essential to theater, most especially those that distinguish it both from everyday life and from other genres, cinema in particular. Encourage in-depth reflection on the often proposed notion that theater is “people speaking and acting in front of an audience for a certain amount of time.” Is theater, then, a football game? or friends watching a couple quarrel? the president at a press conference? or an instructor conducting a literature class? Why or why not? What is it that makes performance “theater”? What is the essence of theater?
Now that you have, ideally, provoked some questions about the uniqueness of theater that the students cannot readily answer, they are ready to begin their exploration of the genre.
Characters offer an accessible means to an active reading of a play. Even regarding them conventionally, as psychological entities or representative types, you can still move toward a more theatrically oriented analysis by also studying their dramatic functions. Before beginning this study, however, you may find it helpful to have your students outline the plot events, to define the parameters within which the characters function. If you then ask your students to realize their own dramatic conception of the physical portrayal of a character and an appropriate acting style, you automatically introduce the dual existence of the character and the actor, an aspect of theater that must not be ignored and that many of the following activities underscore.
Playwrights flesh out their characters to varying degrees. Sketchy or absent information provides an excellent opportunity for students to begin a sensitive reading of a play: they will need to search the text for indirect, “hidden” stage directions, that is, elements of structure, syntax, vocabulary, and dialogue that offer clues to a character's appearance and comportment. After their first reading of an act, have students compose a description of a character, just as the author might have done, and note the textual sources of their information. Students can then compare their portraits and justify their conceptions of a character. Different impressions signal different readings, which in turn reveal what the reader can bring to and even impose on a play, thus highlighting the role of the spectator. If students make ongoing descriptions of a personage throughout a play, they may—or may not—see their character develop, or they may need to alter their interpretations. Such observation sensitizes students to new information provided by the author and thus to the way the character functions dramatically. Examining student interpretations of different personages for compatibility or complementarity may prompt a study of the dramatic or psychological relationships among characters.
After this preliminary character analysis, based strictly on the text, students can concretize and elaborate on their verbal characterizations. For example, have them do what many actors do: invent and recount an appropriate personal history consistent with a character's personality and circumstances. They might find pictures “of” these personages—or sketch one—or propose a contemporary equivalent, such as a celebrity, public figure, or personal acquaintance. Have students explain to the class the physical likeness, personality traits, and intellectual qualities that justify their choices. Selected students might present their own interpretations of a character by reading aloud a portion of the text, using voice quality and rhythm to convey their character as fully as possible.
The pedagogical value of role-playing has long been recognized in the language classroom. A fundamental element of dramatic performance as well, it serves as the basis of the following classroom activities, in which students briefly become actors. They are asked to find not only the mind-set and attitude of a character but also a compatible voice, carriage, and repertoire of gestures.
An interview situation, such as a job application or press conference, offers a rich variety of role-playing opportunities. One student, or several, assumes a known personage and answers, in character, the questions of an interviewer, played by another student; spectators judge the appropriateness of each interpretation. A discussion of the reasons for the questions asked and the answers given may also reveal the students' conceptions of the characters. Should several students successively play the same character, their classmates may judge which rendition is the most faithful, and why.
Another approach is to have students assume undisclosed identities as interviewees or as guests at a cocktail party. As guests, they mill about and chat without directly revealing their roles. After three to eight minutes everyone tries to guess who is who. Having students specify what gave away another's identity leads naturally to a discussion of the importance and appropriateness of particular character traits.
Students may also play roles during regular classroom discussion. For example, they may debate from their characters' points of view a controversial issue relevant to the play's subject matter or situation (e.g., the education of women in Molière's School for Wives or society's attitude toward men's versus women's taking of lovers in Becque's Parisian Woman ), or they may explore, again from their assumed points of view, character motivation, the significance of a certain event, or possible solutions to a problem. Students must take particular care not to attribute their own knowledge to their character. This activity serves to delineate a given character's knowledge distinct from that of the reader or spectator, which is usually more privileged, thus helping students distinguish plot from action. It may also reveal an omniscient character, such as the beggar in Giraudoux's Electre .
On a more advanced level, you may alter the situation or period in which the students interpret their characters. For example, a dialogue may be replayed in a more—or less—formal social setting or with specific persons present or absent. Or you could have students update a dramatic moment, such as a seduction scene from Don juan or Tartuffe . These activities should highlight the time- and convention-bound, as well as the universal, components of the characters.
Through role-playing, students gain an understanding of theater and the function of character in several ways. The characters' responses to various situations reveal their degree of psychological complexity and development. By exploring the relationships among the characters, and between character and actor, students gain insight into the actor's work. And they observe firsthand the interplay between actor and audience and the effect each has on the other. In investigating character, students should become sensitive to the director s concerns as well: the role of characters in plot development, their presence or absence onstage, their function within the structure of the work, their effect on the audience, and the degree to which the director may—or may not—manipulate them. Such considerations of the mise-en-sène are the focus of the second phase of student activity: staging interpretations.
While it may be easy to agree on the events that take place in a play (plot), our impressions of what they mean—of the action—are likely to differ. Much important discussion of drama turns on the description and justification of our interpretations. We are trying to understand, account for, and express our theatrical experience as readers or spectators.
One way for students to become more aware of the theatrical experience—the function and contribution of scenic elements integral to the realization of a theater piece, yet often ignored in classroom discussion—is for them to stage their interpretation of a dramatic moment. The elements of the mise-en-scène that are most important for the following learning strategies include the use of space and the gestures and movement of the actors, as well as the set, props, costumes, makeup, sound, and lights.
As we begin to read a play, we too often focus solely on the dialogue and fail to visualize accurately the set described, whether by a few words or in elaborate detail. Very few playwrights give no indication of the setting; in any case, a play must be mounted in a concrete playing space. It is therefore imperative to set the scene. The initial activities in this section encourage students to define the set for subsequent “acting out”; a classroom with movable desk chairs, desirable for any foreign language course, is essential for creating the stage space needed for this approach to dramatic literature.
As with character description and analysis, students may need to search the text for implied indications of the use of space and set elements. The presence or absence of formal stage directions may in fact be their first clue to the style of the piece. If students “invent” the set, they must be ready to justify their interpretation.
To focus on physical distance and spatial configurations, students should first verbalize and then visualize the set elements in place. Then, using objects already present in the classroom, they can suggest the existence and location of these items. For example, a desk chair or an overturned wastebasket may represent an easy chair, sofa, footstool, stairway, or tower. The blackboard may serve as a versatile backdrop on which to sketch a window, an important painting, vault, or keyhole.
With a little planning, a richer, more pedagogically valuable method of minimal staging may be used: have students find significant, revelatory substitutes for given set elements. For example, a piece of chain strategically placed on stage may denote a prison. Should the prison be metaphorical, such as a psychological enslavement to materialism, a chain made of play money or some other symbolic material may create an even stronger dramatic effect. A director can use concretized figures of speech effectively in many ways, for example, to highlight the images and heighten the appeal to the spectators' imaginations, thus emphasizing the role of the audience in the theater experience; to expose a subtext; to distill meaning and stage the play's message more clearly; or to comment on the text. The dramatization of figures of speech will also help students understand the meaning and function of these literary devices.
As in setting the scene, students may simply describe and mime their costumes and props or redefine existing items (a jacket becomes a cape, a chalk eraser a telephone or a sword). Restricting the students to one significant prop or costume element will encourage a synthesis and hence an awareness of both the dramatic function and the meaning of a given character or moment within the play's structure and global “message.”
The spatial dimension is the most dramatic distinction between the verbal and scenic texts and, along with the temporal, the most difficult to incorporate into one's mental mise-en-scène. Character movement and gesture can theatricalize for the spectator a wealth of unspoken information about the action of the play. For example, distance may expose the real nature of the relationship between characters. An actor's comportment (rough, gentle, hesitant, self-assured) may support or contradict the words spoken, providing an ironic, comic, or satiric commentary on the text or accentuating a character trait or aspect of the situation (e.g., violence). Movement and the use of space contribute much to establishing the style of the performance, from naturalistic to stylized, and the tone of a play. They may be used to stage a reading that clearly comes from the text or to communicate a different message. By “acting out,” students can actually demonstrate their interpretation of a dramatic moment of a play.
While the in-class student presentation of scenes does require some advance organization, it does not pose insurmountable obstacles by any means. To ensure that the stagings proceed smoothly and have pedagogical value, select and prepare scenes with care. The moments chosen ought to be dramatically significant, appropriate to the students' abilities, and moderately long—long enough to unify an interpretation without demanding real stage presence to be effective, or an undue amount of rehearsal time. All students may present the same scene or choose from a predetermined group of scenes. Different renderings of the same scene offer a good opportunity for comparative analysis of personal interpretations and stage effects. Or students may freely choose their scenes, according to specified pedagogical or dramatic objectives. Should you wish to stage the highlights of a play's action, assign several groups of students specific scenes, to be run in sequence. This approach may well create a patchwork of incompatible interpretations; but while discontinuity of theme and mix of styles make for bad theater on the commercial stage, in the classroom they can stimulate a debate on the validity of the individual interpretations and provide insight into the construction and importance of a unified tone and style in production.
After texts are assigned, have students photocopy them, highlight their lines, and note their cues. Since I prefer to use class time for discussion and student presentations, I require students to prepare their scenes on their own time. On the day of the presentation, however, I allow them ten to fifteen minutes to rehearse, while I circulate to answer questions and offer suggestions. Students should use their planning sessions to block basic movement and gestures, to determine a minimal set, and to rehearse sufficiently to be able to read the text without hesitation.
Students may attempt either to follow the author's intent, as indicated in the stage directions and text, or to stage a new, dramatically justifiable reading of a scene. Encourage actors to select one significant prop or costume element for their characters that will reinforce and unify the group's interpretation of the scene. In a follow-up discussion the entire class should evaluate the integrity of the interpretation and the appropriateness and dramatic effect of the scenic elements chosen.
Students wishing to alter the message of a scene may use the grouping or isolation of characters, for example, or gestures or even costume elements to direct spectator attention to an aspect of a character or action other than that highlighted by the spoken text. Space, rhythm, voice, or the carriage of a character may be adjusted to externalize a dramatically important trait. Students may decide, for example, that Tartuffe is a willful hypocrite who fully means to seduce Elmire. To reduce the ambiguity of his intentions, the actor might lean over and leer at her, even straddle her chair.
More advanced students might try to update a text, adjusting the situation, characters, or mise-en-scène to suggest a modern application of a play's problem or message. In view of today's enlightened and ambitious youth, for example, the scandal of a Don Juan might have more impact were he portrayed as an unscrupulous politician or businessman, a slick promoter, rather than as a seducer of naive women. Or students might want to dramatize a play's universality, eliminating as many period-binding elements as possible, including those that associate the work with their own social and temporal milieu. It may be counterproductive, however, to place a contemporary situation in an earlier epoch; students generally lack sufficient historical and cultural knowledge to do so without recourse to stereotypes and popular misconceptions.
Staging different interpretations by altering the mise-en-scène requires a thorough grasp of the inner- and interworkings of a play, so as not to destroy or compromise its fundamental unity. The activities discussed in this section focus on “dramatic moments,” enabling students to gain a better sense of “the dramatic” and of the distinction between plot and action. Highlighting the role of the mise-en-scène, the ways that stage elements may reinforce or play against the characters or text, such assignments encourage students to explore the power and responsibility of the director.
Written exercises may also work to good advantage in raising students' consciousness of the theater experience. Many of the activities already discussed lend themselves to writing, but those suggested here are more appropriate as creative writing exercises.
Students may, for example, write detailed stage directions for a dramatic moment, setting the scene and indicating character movement and action as the author might have done or as their own interpretations dictate. Or they may describe the characters, including psychological traits as well as physical ones. Invented character histories to flesh out the portraits may take the form of first- or third-person narratives recounting “a day in the life of. …”
Having students write dialogues can effectively expand their focus on character to include the larger scope of the play's structure and message. For example, even before they begin their reading, ask them to project an exchange between principal characters, based on preliminary information you provide (e.g., the conflict, the milieu, the types of people involved). Sharing their projections will remind them of the many possible ways to dramatize the same idea. Should the play pose a moral question, you might ask students, after reading the work, to update the characters' discussion of the issues or to find an equivalent contemporary concern that the characters could debate in ways consistent with their personalities.
To pursue character analysis further, have students write out the subtext, or “subconversation,” that parallels a verbal exchange. The exposure of subtexts reveals the characters' true nature—their motivations and relationships—and the real action of a play. Writing subtexts may also allow students to explore dramatic irony and the means playwrights use to let spectators understand more than the characters do. In projecting stagings, students must remember that subtextual information is not cognitive but, rather, full of nuance and implication and that spectators must glean their insights from verbal mannerisms, clichés, speech patterns, and the like. The subtext is an especially rich source of clues to a character's comportment, whether it reinforces or belies the words spoken.
To focus student activity on the larger structure and message of the play, introduce into the plot an invented event or circumstance. Have students outline the plot changes and consequences for the meaning of the piece that would necessarily follow. Or ask students to write a dramatically justifiable alternative ending or a “postcurtain” scene that suggests how the characters would have carried on after the original close.
Advanced students can study dramatic structure and unity in greater depth through cutting and editing a text, as many a director must do, to adapt the script to specific time or space constraints or to the number and gender of available actors. In adjusting characters to actors, students can consider the possibility of having one actor play several secondary roles or of eliminating or telescoping certain characters. In the first case, the actor must be physically able to make the necessary changes—to change costume, makeup, and perhaps entrance points—in the time available. Sometimes, omitting or editing certain lines or brief entrances can facilitate a transition. The second strategy, the combining of secondary characters, requires a thorough understanding of each character's dramatic function and its importance to both the plot and the action of the play.
Editing a script to play well is a challenging task; but even if it is done imperfectly, it entails close scrutiny of the text and thus gives students valuable insights into several theatrical components: the workings of dramatic structure and plot development, the presence of “holes” in the text that demand to be filled theatrically, and the amount and nature of the information written into the text for the benefit of the audience (dramatic effect), as opposed to that necessary for the coherence of the plot. The evaluation of essential versus nonessential material will distinguish themes from subthemes, plots from subplots. Finally, the exercise of editing down encourages students to find economic, nonverbal means to reduce or replace portions of the text, thus sensitizing them to the third dimension demanded by the stage.
Finally, you might invite your students to assume the roles of critics and compose reviews of their fellow students' staged or written interpretations.
The common goal of all the activities I have proposed is to animate both the parts students play in their study of dramatic literature and the understanding they have of theater. Students are encouraged to activate their roles as readers by assuming, in turn, those of author, actor, director, spectator, and critic. The exercises are meant to raise students' consciousness of theater as a representational genre, to underscore the crucial importance of its spatial dimension and visual concretization, of the dynamic relationships between characters, and of the vitality of the spoken word.
This rather nontraditional strategy for the study of dramatic literature is in fact built on a fundamentally traditional approach to the theater, the study of characters and text, but with one important difference: it expands the notion of “text” to mean the “scenic text” as well as the written. To implement this approach, neither instructors nor students need acquire a new repertoire of critical theory; yet they are not prohibited from doing so. Many of the activities simply offer a more active way to teach what is already taught in class; others may involve an entirely fresh approach to the genre.
The proposed activities will enable students to look at theater from a different perspective, from the inside out; they will be able to observe different points of view, to feel the changing relationships between characters in action, and to experience the dynamism of theater. Their interaction with a text cannot fail to enliven their relationship to literature.
The value of such a methodology in the foreign language classroom must also not be overlooked. Here we go well beyond requiring that, somehow, the classroom discussions be conducted in the target language. Not only do we provide students with a good model (the text), but we put some of its words right into their mouths. Even if students do not memorize lines, they have the pleasure of delivering a rehearsed text. Role-playing, moreover, often liberates the more reserved students, allowing them to participate more freely in classroom dialogues.
Courses in dramatic literature have many variables: class size and level, classroom space, the amount of material to cover, the time available to do so, the plays chosen by the instructor or required by the curriculum, and so on. The coincidence of these factors will determine what and how much an instructor can do to activate students. Clearly I have suggested vastly more activities than any single theater course could possibly incorporate. But even applying just one idea to one aspect of a play can expand perspectives and stimulate critical understanding of theater that goes beyond the printed text. In exploring these possibilities, I wanted first and foremost to demonstrate the nearly unlimited potential that the dramatic literature classroom offers for getting off the page.
The author is Assistant Professor of French in the Department of Modern Languages at the College of William and Mary. This article is based on a paper presented at the MLA convention, 27–30 December 1986, in New York City.
Schofer, Peter, Donald Rice, and William Berg, eds. Peèmes, pièces, prose: Introduction à l'analyse de textes littéraires français . New York: Oxford UP, 1973.
© 1989 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
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