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Drama as a HappeningAuthor(s): Tony MannaSource: The English Journal, Vol. 64, No. 2 (Feb., 1975), pp. 96-100Published by: National Council of Teachers of EnglishStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/815531Accessed: 09-08-2014 19:21 UTC

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Books

For

Young

Adults

Alleen

Pace

Nilsen

Non fiction

n t h

n g l i s h

l a s s

EDITOR'S

NOTE:

One

of

the

important

points

made

by

reading

teachers

is

that

different

skills

are needed

in

order

to read

and

comprehend

different

kinds

of

material.

A

valid

criticism

levelled at the commercial

speed

reading

courses

is

that

they

don't

take

this

into consideration.

To

some

extent

the same criticism

is

voiced about

English

teachers,

because

we

tend to

focus

on

fiction

while

our

stu-

dents have

many

reading

needs

in

addition to

this. In the

nation's

high

schools

the

teaching

of

reading

skills

has become an

increasingly

important

part

of

the

English

teacher's

ob.

The

following

set

of

reviews

has been

prepared

n

an

at-

tempt to highlight recent publications which can serve as a stimulus and a me-

dium

for

instruction

and

practice

in

reading

different

types

of

material

including

drama,

poetry,

and several

kinds

of

non-fiction.

(APN)

Drama

as

a

Happening

Tony

Manna

The

poem,

the

novel,

and

the

short

story

are

types

of literature

which

stand

firm

in the

English

classroom. We include them in the

curriculum as

naturally

as we

in-

clude

a

writing

program.

We

search the

market

for

the

most rele-

vant titles

available,

constantly up-

date

our

reading

lists,

and

feel a

professional

obligation

to

connect

the

individual

student

to the

right

work at the

right

time.

The

play

however is the

curious

thing.

What

do

we

do

in class

with a

type

of literature

that

ideally

needs

to

be

performed

by professionals

specifically

trained

to articulate

the

words on the

page,

and

specially

prepared

to create

an

environment

out

of

the

suggestions

offered

by

the

playwright?

Is it

enough

to

push

the

desks

back,

assign parts,

add

some

action

and

feeling

to the

voice,

a few

expressive

gestures,

and

hope

that we

are

coming

closer

to

the

play's

worth as dramatic lit-

erature? But

do

we do

those

things

before the entire play is read,

be-

fore

the characters

have a sense

of

where

they're going,

how

they're

going

to

get

there,

and

why

they

want to

get

there

in the first

place?

My

feeling

is

that

if the teacher

and

the

students

extract

a

number

of

scenes

from

the

play

without

re-

alizing

what has

happened

and

what

will

happen

to the

shape

of

the

characters'

emotions,

and

with-

out

attending

to

the

play's

overall

movement,

they

fail to do

justice

to

both the

extracted

scenes and

the

entire play. For although it is true

that

in

acting

out the

play

we

are

beginning

to treat

it

faithfully

as a

type

of literature

which

necessarily

calls

for

visual

and oral

interpreta-

tion,

it

is

also

a

literary

form which

demands

an

understanding

of

its

entire

range

before

we

can

fully

understand

one

of

its

specific

mo-

ments.

Ask

any

director

or actor.

Before

they

can decide

why

some-

one on

stage

should use

that

partic-

ular

tone,

that

gesture,

that

stance,

or

even that

silence,

they

have

to

know

how

it

relates to

what

went

before and

what

follows.

Together,

they

choose

a

point

of view

and

an

attitude

about the

play

in

keeping

with their

conception

of what

the

playwright

had

in

mind,

and

plot

a

course of

action

which

will

hope-

fully

draw

the

audience

into the

human

encounter,

the

human

con-

flict,

which the

play

will

become

according

to

their

explication

of

the text.

And

to

do

that

they

must

account

for the

purpose

of

every

line,

every gesture,

every

stance,

every

silence

that

will

constitute

the

play

in

performance.

I am not

suggesting

that

in the

classroom

we

should

proceed

with

a line

by

line

analysis.

But

I am

suggesting that there is much we

can learn

from

a method

of dra-

matic

interpretation

which is

ba-

sically production

oriented.

In

order

to

achieve

this,

it

is not

enough

to

merely

read

a few

scenes

to

one

another

as

though

taking part

in

an

extemporaneous

conversation-no

matter

how

much

feeling

we add

when

speaking.

We

have

to

know,

first

of

all,

who the

Tony

Manna

works in the

Books

for

Young

Adults

program

at

the

University

of

Iowa.

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people

in

the

play

are and

why

they

act the

way they

do.

We have

to

know

why they say

the

things

they say

in one

way

and not an-

other,

and

why they

move

across

the

stage

with

that

kind of

pres-

ence

instead

of

another. We have

to

know,

finally,

what the

choices

are in

terms

of

producing

the

play

just

read,

or

what

the alternatives

are

to

the

play

we

just

saw

pro-

duced. These are the

things

which

are

simply

not included in a

script,

but

without

which

the

play might

remain

an

extended

conversation

on

the

page.

When we have

begun

under-

standing

the

play

as

a

type

of

lit-

erature

which

needs

to

be

pro-

duced and

performed

in

order to

be

fully

created,

we are

finally

be-

ing true to its intended purpose.

Even if

we

think

about and

read

(and

get

others

to

think about and

read)

dramatic

literature

from

this

standpoint,

without

feeling obliged

to

add sound and

movement,

we

are

working

towards a definition of

what a

play

is.

As

James

Moffett

keeps telling

us,

the

play

is

not

something

which

has

happened;

it's

an

invention

which

is

happening

continually.

We

have

only

to de-

cide how

we

think

it

should

hap-

pen

this

time around.

The

bibliography

which follows

will

satisfy,

it is

hoped,

a

variety

of

interests.

Most

of

the

plays

chosen

are

fairly

recent and deal with con-

tent

appropriate

to

junior

and

se-

nior

high

school

students.

All

of

the

plays

seem

possible

choices

for

classroom

use,

whether

for

reading

in

common or

suggested reading

in

an

individualized

program.

Also

included

is

a

list

of

play bibliogra-

phies,

and

a

list of

recent

play

an-

thologies

which

might

become

part

of a classroom library. For sugges-

tions

concerning

classroom

prac-

tices

with dramatic

literature,

James

Moffett's

A

Student-Centered

Lan-

guage

Arts Curriculum

Grades

K-

13: A Handbook

for

Teachers

(Houghton

Mifflin,

1973)

is ex-

tremely pertinent.

For

more

spe-

cific

information

about

one

method

of

dealing

with

the

play

as

script,

see Miriam

Gilbert's

Teaching

Dramatic

Literature

n

the Edu-

cational Theatre

Journal

(March,

1973).

RECENT PLAY

ANTHOLOGIES

BEST

MYSTERY

AND

SUS-

PENSE

PLAYS OF

THE MOD-

ERN THEATRE, edited by Stan-

ley

Richards.

Dodd, Mead, 1971,

$10.00.

The

ten

plays

anthologized

by

Richards have all

received

critical

acclaim.

From

Sleuth

by Anthony

Shaffer to Dracula

by

Hamilton

Deane and

John

L.

Balderston,

Richards' collection

serves

as a

nice

companion

piece

to other

types

of

mystery

works

enjoyed by many

students.

FIFTY

GREAT SCENES FOR

STUDENT ACTORS, edited by

Lewy

Olfson.

Bantam, 1970,

95V.

A

very

practical

selection

for

any-

one

interested

in

doing

scene

work

with

groups

of

students.

Olfson

classifies

the scenes

according

to

sex:

Scenes

for

One Man and

One

Woman,

Scenes

for

Two

Men,

and Scenes for Two

Wom-

en.

Olfson's

introductions

are

helpful

in

providing

a

necessary

look

at the

entire

play

first

in

order

to decide how the

particular

scene

relates

to

the

play's

movement.

SCENES FOR YOUNG

ACTORS,

edited

by

Lorraine

Cohen.

Avon,

1973,

$1.95.

Like

Fifty

Great Scenes

but with-

out

the

sex

divisions,

Cohen's an-

thology

includes

sections,

for ex-

ample,

from

Anderson's

Tea and

Sympathy

and Miller's A View

from

the

Bridge

along

with the edi-

tor's

own

adaptations

of

Jane

Eyre

and

Little

Women.

SCRIPTS:

A

MONTHLY OF

THEATER, FILM, AND TV

PIECES,

edited

by

Erika

Munk.

425

Lafayette

St.,

New

York,

N.Y.

10003.

$1.50

an

issue.

A

now

defunct

magazine

which

published

ten

issues before

going

out

of

business

in

1972.

The

last

issue,

Scripts

Ten,

includes

elev-

en

children's

plays among

which is

George

Denison's The

Operation.

Some

of the

plays

are

for

very

young

children,

but

they

could

be

used

while

doing

original script

work in the classroom

since

a

few

were

actually

written

by

young

people.

7

PLAYS AND

HOW TO

PRO-

DUCE

THEM,

by Moyne

Rice

Smith (Illustrated by Don Bolog-

nese).

Henry

Z.

Walck,

1968.

$4.50.

All

seven

plays

in

this

anthology

are

adaptations

of children's

stories.

The

language

and

plots

are

simple,

but the basic

dramatic

interaction

which

underlies

any

play

is

easily

recognized.

THE

BEST PLAYS OF

1972-73,

edited

by

Otis

L.

Guernsey, Jr.

Dodd, Mead,

1973.

Although

not

an

anthology

of

com-

plete plays, The Best Plays series

is an

excellent

ongoing

sourcebook

for

play

synopses,

theater

facts,

and

general

statistics

about

the

con-

temporary

theater world. Here

is

an

opportunity

for

keeping up

with

some recent criticism

of

the

more

important plays.

BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF

PLAYS

BLACK

IMAGE ON THE AMER-

ICAN STAGE: A BIBLIOGRA-

PHY

OF PLAYS AND MUSI-

CALS

1770-1970,

by

James

V.

Hatch. Drama Book

Specialists,

1970.

CHICOREL

THEATER INDEX

TO

PLAYS

FOR YOUNG PEO-

PLE IN

PERIODICALS,

AN-

THOLOGIES,

AND

COLLEC-

TIONS,

edited

by

Marietta Chico-

rel. Chicorel

Library

Publishing

Corp.,

1974.

This index

adds

to

a

series another

useful

bibliography.

The

Chicorel

Theater

indexes are a

must

in

any

library.

GUIDE TO PLAY

SELECTION,

by

the

Committee on

Playlist

of

the

National

Council of Teachers of

English.

Appleton-Century-Crofts,

1958.

The

Guide

indexes

according

to

the

historical

development

of

drama in

Part I and includes

in

subsequent

sections

a

list

of

one-act

plays,

TV

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biting

sarcasm

and

mounting

frus-

tration.

The

play

works

with the

private

and

public

voices

of

two

women in a

unique

and satiric

way.

SLAVESHIP,

by

Imamu

Amiri Ba-

raka

(LeRoi

Jones),

in

THE

OFF-

OFF BROADWAY

BOOK,

edited

by

Albert Poland

and

Bruce

Mail-

man.

Bobbs-Merrill,

1972.

$20.00.

Slaveship

is an extended

agony

in

which Blacks are demeaned and

tormented

by

someone's misuse of

human

life. The

play

is an intense

lament

and a

powerful

indictment

against

man's

inhumanity

to

his

fellow

creatures.

SOMETHING I'LL TELL YOU

TUESDAY,

by John

Guare,

in

THE

OFF-OFF BROADWAY

BOOK, edited by Albert Poland

and

Bruce

Mailman.

Bobbs-Merrill,

1972.

$20.00.

Guare's

short one-act is

a

strange

encounter with

an

old

couple get-

ting ready

to vacate

their

apart-

ment

just

before

they

walk

to

a

nearby

hospital.

Guare

suggests

that in the

hospital

they

will

ac-

cept

death as a

consequence

of

old

age.

When their

daughter

enters

with her

husband,

fighting

and

complaining

about some

point

of

disagreement,

we watch

these four

people

interact on a

wave-length

which

obliterates

any

sense

of

true

communication.

The moral

which

ends the

play only

adds to the

ab-

surdity

which rules the

lives

of

the

characters.

THE

CHALK

GARDEN,

by

Enid

Bagnold,

in

FOUR

PLAYS,

by

Enid

Bagnold.

Little, Brown,

1970.

$7.95.

Enid

Bagnold,

familiar to readers

of

National

Velvet,

peoples

her

plays

with characters from

upper

class

British

society.

In

The Chalk

Garden an

eccentric and

wealthy

woman

hires a

governess

for

her

adolescent

granddaughter

whose

mother remarried

and left the es-

tate. In the course of

the

play,

the

governess's past

is

uncovered,

the

adolescent's mother

returns

to take

her

away,

and

the

grandmother

is

left to face

a

new kind of

life.

Bag-

nold's characters

cover

a

wide

gamut

of human

emotion,

and

learn to make

compromises

without

destroying

their self

integrity.

THE EFFECT OF

GAMMA

RAYS

ON

MAN-IN-THE-MOON

MARI-

GOLDS,

by

Paul

Zindel.

Bantam,

1972.

950.

Zindel's

Pulitzer Prize-

winning

drama

about

life

in

Bea-

trice

Hunsdorfer's

mixed-up

house-

hold

is

like a

series

of

little

explo-

sions.

Beatrice's reaction to the

life

crumbling

around

her,

an

existence

she no

longer

knows how to

con-

trol,

is to rail out

loudly

and

bit-

terly

at the

injustice

which

victim-

izes her.

Caught

in

the web are her

two

adolescent

daughters

and her

aging

mother. When

Tillie,

a

strange

and brilliant

daughter,

wins

a

high

school

prize

for

her

research

on the atom, the honor is received

as

though

it

were

a

threat

from

the

outside world.

THE

LOVELIEST AFTERNOON

OF THE

YEAR,

by

John

Guare,

in

THE

OFF-OFF

BROADWAY

BOOK,

edited

by

Albert Poland

and

Bruce Mailman.

Bobbs-Merrill,

1972.

$20.00.

He

meets

She in a

park

one

after-

noon and

the encounter ends with

a bizarre

twist. The

supposed

lies

He

tells turn

ironically

into the

truth. Guare's

play

is a

haunting

and

swift transition into

a

world

we

usually only

think

about.

THE NIGHT THOREAU SPENT

IN

JAIL,

by

Jerome

Lawrence and

Robert

E. Lee. Hill

and

Wang,

1970.

$4.50;

paperback,

$1.95.

Taking

an

actual

historical

incident

from

Thoreau's

life,

Lawrence

and

Lee

extend its

implications

and

create out

of

their

hero

a man of

deep

conviction

who

must face the

consequences of what it means to

be

true

to

oneself.

Thoreau

is an

invincibly

obstinate

man

in

the

play

who

refuses

to

support

a

gov-

ernment he believes

to be immoral.

The

set

of beliefs

conveyed

in

this

work remains

true

in

any

age.

THE

OXCART,

by

Ren6

Marquis,

in EIGHT

AMERICAN

ETHNIC

PLAYS,

edited

by

Francis

Griffith

and

Joseph

Mersand.

Scribner's,

1974.

Noted

as

Puerto Rico's

most im-

portant

contemporary

playwright,

Rene

Marquis

depicts

in

The

Ox-

cart

the

gradual

disintegration

of

family unity.

His

characters

move

from a small

mountain

village

to

a

section of San Juan, and finally to

New York

City.

Once

they

aban-

don the

simplicity

of

their

original

dwelling, they

are

forced

to

survive

any way

they

can

despite

the con-

flict of

values

that ensues.

After

a

personal

tragedy

restores their

per-

spective, they

decide

to

return

to

the land

they

know

and

the securi-

ty

it offers.

VERONICA'S

ROOM,

by

Ira Lev-

in.

Random House.

1974,

$5.95.

The author

of THE

STEPFORD

WIVES and ROSEMARY'S BABY

returns with

a

tense drama bound

to

attract

anyone

interested in the

occult. A

young,

naive

university

student is asked

to

impersonate

a

young

woman

(dead

now for

forty

years)

whom she

identically

resem-

bles. Once she

accepts,

she

gets

locked into a

horrifying

world with

few

exits.

WETBACK

RUN,

by

Theodore

Apstein,

in

EIGHT AMERICAN

ETHNIC

PLAYS,

edited

by

Fran-

cis Griffith and

Joseph

Mersand.

Scribner's,

1974.

When

a

Mexican

man enters

the

United

States

illegally,

he discovers

that the tensions involved

in

hiding

from

the law

and

the

loneliness

which

results

from

being separated

from

his

family

are

not worth the

material

benefits which

attract

him.

He

returns

home

because he values

the freedom

and love which

living

in Mexico offers

him.

WINE

IN

THE

WILDERNESS,

by

Alice

Childress,

in

PLAYS

BY

AND

ABOUT

WOMEN,

edited

by

Victoria Sullivan

and

James

Hatch.

Random

House,

1973.

$8.95.

Alice

Childress'

Wine in

the

Wil-

derness

takes

place

in a

Harlem

tenement.

Outside a

riot

rages.

Bill

Jameson,

a

thirty-three-year-old

ar-

tist,

seems

undisturbed

by

the

clamor and

unwilling

to allow it to

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interfere with

his

latest

project:

he

is

completing

a

triptych

which will

symbolize

three

distinct facets

of

the

Black

woman's

personality.

When

Tommy-Marie

enters his

life,

Bill

learns

how

stereotyped

his

ini-

tial

impression

of

Black

femininity

was.

In

this

very

sensitive

play

about

human

insensitivity,

both

Bill's

and the

audience's

percep-

tions are

clarified.

THE QUALITY OF LIFE

THE AMERICAN FOOD

SCAN-

DAL: WHY

YOU CAN'T EAT

WELL ON WHAT YOU

EARN.

William Robbins.

New York: Wil-

liam

Morrow,

1974. 280

pages.

$6.95.

An

indictment

of the

$150-billion-

a-year

food

industry,

The

American

Food Scandal

investigates

corpo-

IN THE

PUBLIC

INTEREST

THE GREAT

GLUT:

PUBLIC

COMMUNICATIONS

IN THE





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