Theater is marvelously equipped to respond to the MLA call for Foreign Language curricula able to support students’ development of trans-cultural competence. Theater is at the same time culturally encoded and able to speak trans-culturally; to use Patrice Pavis’s evocative expression, theater sits particularly productively “at the crossroads of culture”, and this is why it can be a powerful tool for crafting trans-cultural experiences in the Foreign Language and Culture classroom.
Recapitulating the story: In this activity, students review the content of the play by engaging in collective story-telling. In small groups, they retell the story of the play in their own words, thus interiorizing the vocabulary learnt: taking turns in a circle, each student contributes a sentence to the narration, acknowledging the portion previously heard and continuing with the story where it was left by the previous student. The entire class then repeats the exercise together; the instructor always monitors and offers guidance, as in all the previous activities.
Across space and time: Now that the students have a refreshed, clear picture of the play, and after having discussed all of its themes and complications in the previous sessions, they are ready to engage in a complex interpretation project requiring both analytical skills and creativity. The task is to brainstorm ideas for, and then draft, an adaptation of the play: “How would you adapt this play for a modern audience? How would you make this text speak to your specific cultural context? Which aspects are relevant and which would need to be altered? What are the challenges? What are the interesting intersections?” This collective creation process allows students to personally and meaningfully explore the fabric of the text; the exercise allows them to come to a deeper understanding of the issues at play, as for example the specific cultural relevance of theatrical entertainments like Opera, and how exquisitely culturally contingent is the conception of the theatrical space.
Final project: Depending on the instructor’s preference, and on the time available, this activity could stop at the brainstorming stage and remain a hypothetical plan, or it could be developed into a full-fledged written composition and theatrical production. Students could work on the adaptation in small groups as a homework assignment, and then workshop their ideas into a class group project to be then rehearsed and performed. This would of course be a long process, which cannot be effectively summarized here, as it would develop according to the specific class’s interests, possibilities and needs. Students could then be assigned a final paper in which they reflect on the theatrical experience and on what they have learnt from it.
by Anna Santucci (PhD Candidate, Brown University)