To study history is to constantly search for what is “true” but to never find it. The “truth” of an event lies somewhere between the multiple stories told of that event. One’s version of history is undeniably colored by one’s identities, experience, and values. Sometimes, history is even used as a tool to uphold oppressive systems or to justify unjust acts. Theatre History is no different.
In 1903, James Brander Matthews, the Chair of Dramatic literature at Columbia University and the United States’s first theatre history professor, published The Development of the Drama. The book was the first to “comprehensively” cover the history and development of dramatic literature and trace its origins, presenting the first model for studying Theatre History.
Though over a century old, Matthew’s framework for Theatre History still permeates undergraduate curriculums across the country. The idea that theatre began in Greece, then appeared in Rome, and then developed in Europe (particularly the UK) is one that is very familiar to anyone who has taken an undergraduate Theatre History course in the past hundred years.
However, two problems arise when one more closely examines this history. First, it isn’t true, theatre did not begin in Greece, there is evidence of performance traditions in Africa and among the indigenous people of what would become the Americas prior to the Greeks. Second, Brander Matthews’ history dismisses any non-European performance traditions.
One only needs to look at the text of The Development of the Drama to see the evidence as it is plainly written. In the book, Matthews states, “Only among the races which may be exceptionally endowed with energy of imagination and with power of construction does the drama arrive at its highest possibility of achievement.” The races he is referring to are white and European. He also calls other forms and peoples “primitive” and “savage,” labeling their performance forms as undeveloped.
According to Matthews, only Western, written performance forms are worthy of study. According to Matthews, only Western peoples are capable of creating theatre. Everything and everyone else is primitive and savage. This text and Matthew’s ideas served as the basis for the Theatre History courses that were developed in the early 20th Century and for the textbooks used in many Theatre History classrooms well into the 21st Century.
Over the years as the discipline of Theatre History has developed, there has been some movement toward including more performance forms in the canon of theatre history. For example, Asian performance forms, particularly those from Japan, have been regularly included in curricula.
A few plays written by women have also entered the canon. For example, Sophie Tredwell’s Machinal and Susan Glaspell’s Trifles are often included. However, the privileging of Western theatre forms and plays written by men has persisted, despite decades of research that has illuminated a variety of theatre histories from many cultures across the globe.
By continuing to teach a Theatre History curriculum that is based on Matthew’s model, US institutions of higher education are not acknowledging the richness of these many histories. Therefore, the School of Theatre at OCU will no longer be utilizing this model for our courses in Theatre History.
Beginning in Fall 2022, the Theatre History curriculum is shifting away from the survey course that attempts to cover the history of theatre by tracing a straight line from the Greeks to today. It is impossible to comprehensively cover the history of theatre in one, two, or even three classes, so these courses will no longer try. Instead, students in the OCU School of Theatre will be taking a Theatre History and Historiography course that teaches skills for engaging with theatre history in order to support their work as artists.
Rather than quickly covering what happened from one point of view, the course will critically examine how history is recorded, how historical narratives are created, and how the biases of the person recording the history impact the history that is recorded.
This course will examine multiple narratives for the origin of theatre and multiple ways that performance has developed since. This new curriculum will teach the “how” rather than the “what” of theatre history. It will teach students to think critically about the historical narratives they consume and how those narratives influence their perspectives and their artistic work.
Paired with the Theatre History and Historiography course, students will also take a topics course in theatre history in which they will spend a semester taking a deep dive into one specific subject area in theatre history. These courses will put into practice the skills learned in Theatre History and Historiography, further equipping students with tools for approaching their work in a way that recognizes the many histories that have shaped their art form.
The world has many histories and the job of a historian is to collect as much evidence as possible to try and find that point in the middle where the truth might live. In enacting this new curriculum, the School of Theatre at OCU is committing to teaching students to seek that truth and to understand that it might never be found.
Dr. Amy Osatinski gave a further explanation of changes in the Theatre History course in this Youtube video.
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