Senior Thesis Library

An examination of Euripides' Trojan Women as a war play that has proved relevant to contemporary wars.

The essential question that I am posing is: what makes Irish stories effective. I argue that the answer is twofold. First, through music or lyrical cadence, as well as shared values, the storyteller is able to establish his or her authority as the narrator and the veracity of the narrative. Secondly, with each session the traditional audience-performer relationship is brought into question, with the audience generally implicated in the events of the story. These two aspects bring about an affective performance. Furthermore, they are intextricably linked and each supports the establishment of the other. In this way, community is formed when the performers and audience together recognize narrative authenticity. This in turn strengthens the understanding of a narrative’s authenticity. What makes a performance Irish is a specific set of qualities bound up with storytelling. While all cultures tell stories, Irish oral performance falls into a space in-between pure orality and true l

Re-examining the concept of realism in performance through an exploration of plays, films, and television shows that blur the line between reality and fantasy.

Samuel Beckett did not write a theory of acting; nevertheless, his plays raise many longstanding questions and tensions regarding the actor's craft. This thesis examines the actor's creative process in Beckett's theatre. Drawing from the accounts of numerous actors, the author's own experience as a performer in Beckett's Happy Days, and performance studies theories, this thesis contends that the actor in Beckett's theatre must confront three specific dichotomies: inner life versus physical score, presentational versus representational modes of performance, and phenomenal body versus semiotic body. By positioning Beckett's theatre in dialogue with the writings of Konstantin Stanislavsky and Bertolt Brecht, this thesis refigures their theories in the context of Beckett's theatre.

This thesis suggests that a major element of Jewish humor is its subversiveness. Jewish theology and culture encourages a questioning of authority. Male Jewish comedians in twentieth-century America have demonstrated subversive tendencies through socially and. politically critical jokes. Female Jewish comedians in twentieth-century America have demonstrated the same level of subversive tendencies, but not in social or political contexts until the 1970's. Instead, female Jewish comedians showed their subversive tendencies in ways that reveal a great deal about the role and perception of women in a given decade. Early in the twentieth century, when women only had a well-developed identity in the sexual and domestic realm, they exercised subversive humor by making jokes about these matters. As their political and social identities develop, so too do their socially and politically subversive jokes.