Master of Arts, Miami University, 2007, Theatre
The Goat or, who is Sylvia? is a character-driven story about an architect whose life crumbles when he falls in love with a goat. The actual focus of the piece lies on where the boundaries of “love” within an allegedly “liberal” society are, and how incommunicable such inclinations are. The play also features many language games and grammatical arguments in the middle of catastrophes and existential disputes between the characters. As director of the play my production concept integrates two particular fields of my interest and knowledge: theatre and television production. The idea is to bring Albee's absurdist story one step further by combining the live theatre experience with the live television element. Besides a dramaturgical analysis of Albee's play, this thesis further investigates the influence of the classic Greek tradition of tragedy as well as a possible link between Albee's tragic comedy and Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona, while also incorporating Bertolt Brecht's theories on Epic Theatre into the analysis and actual performance.
Committee: Roger Bechtel (Advisor)
Subjects: Theater