Theatre 241 - Staging the Jew

Intensive study of selected plays and film from the U.S., Israel and the Jewish diaspora, examining the ways in which Jewish identity is rendered on stage. Particular focus is given to texts by Jewish authors, and their treatment of issues of authenticity and identity. We draw on texts which challenge or interrogate prevailing intragroup definitions, as well as those which offer positive and reinforcing viewpoints. We look at religious and communal life in Yiddish plays from Eastern Europe; plays of the Holocaust, with emphasis on the ways rendering catastrophe has evolved; assimilation and modernization in the U.S. Black-Jewish relationships explored on stage; and selected texts on the Israeli experience, as depicted from within Judaism.