Class Dramaturgy

The discipline of Dramaturgy renounces the diachronic exposition of the historical models of dramatic literature to pay attention to the specificity of drama and its internal mechanics, problematizing the main dramatic categories and the issues that arise in contemporary writing for theatre, from the so-called "post-dramatic theatre" to the "dramaturgies of the real". This curricular unit focuses on the historical evolution of the notion of dramaturgy and how it seems today to involve the spectator himself and apply to an artistic field marked by the hybridity of artistic forms. In the analysis and discussion about the conventional categories of drama – plot, character, dialogue, representation –, some of the dramaturgies that determined the renewal of writing for theatre in modernity and nowadays, from Chekhov to Brecht and Samuel Beckett, are invoked, as well as the dramaturgies that mark its decline and artistic practices that break with the "geocentrism" of the dramatic text.

Not applicable

1. The concept of dramaturgy 1.1. Aristotle's normative dramaturgy 1.2. Lessing's critical dramaturgy 1.3. The primacy of dramaturgy in the Brechtian project 2. The specificity of drama 2.1. Dramatic writing as a cultural memory circulation machine 3. Main dramatic categories 3.1. Plot: converting chaos into cosmos 3.1.1. The concept of mimesis: from its height to deconstruction 3.2. Character: a force in the story 3.2.1. The stock characters: from Vincentian theatre to Brechtian theatre 3.2.2. The round characters: the triumph of subjectivity 3.3. Dialogue: rhetorical investment vs. the approach to everyday speech 3.3.1. From aristocratic dialogue to naturalistic dialogue 3.3.2. Chekhovian eloquence and Beckett's "failed" dialogues 3.3.3. The appropriation of urban dialects: Clifford Odets and Mark O'Rowe 3.4. Representation: the (con)genial incompleteness of the drama 3.4.1. From "art in two steps" (text and scene) to post-dramatic theatre 3.4.2. The dramaturgies of intimacy

Presentation and collective discussion of theoretical matters, combined with the reading of extracts from dramatic works. Use of complementary sources, such as films and video recordings of shows. Possible involvement of playwrights and dramaturgs at different times of the semester. The assessment will consist of the combined weighting of the following factors: active participation in class and execution of a written work (50%) and written test at the end of the semester (50%).

BALME, Christopher B., The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. BENTLEY, Eric, The Life of the Drama. New York: Atheneum, 1964. BRECHT, Bertolt, Estudos Sobre Teatro. Trad. Fiama Hasse Pais Brandão. Lisboa: Portugália Editora, 1964. CARLSON, Marvin, Palco Assombrado: O Teatro Enquanto Máquina da Memória. Trad. Paulo Faria, Porto/V. N. Famalicão: Teatro Nacional São João/Edições Húmus, 2020. DANAN, Joseph, O que é a Dramaturgia?. Trad. Luís Varela. Lisboa: Editora Licorne, 2010. LEHMANN, Hans-Thies, Teatro Pós-Dramático. Lisboa: Orfeu Negro, 2017. LESSING, G.E., Dramaturgia de Hamburgo: Seleção Antológica. Trad. Manuela Nunes. Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2005. ROMANSKA, Magda (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy. London/New York: Routledge, 2016. TRENCSÉNYI, Katalin/COCHRANE, Bernardette, New Dramaturgy: International Perspectives on Theory and Practice. London/New York: Bloomsbury, 2014.